Mental Proliferation: Concept versus Reality

Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth), Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

How could the heart know? Neurons line it.

Papañca (\paw-pawn-chah\) (Sanskrit prapañca): This Pali language term signifies the expansion (conceptual elaboration), differentiation, "diffuseness," or "manifoldness" of the world.

It also seems to refer to the [external] "phenomenal world" in general and to the [internal] mental attitude of "worldliness."

It is said that "As far as the field of sixfold sense-impression extends, so far reaches the world of diffuseness (or the phenomenal world, papañcassa gati). As far as the world of diffuseness extends, so far extends the field of sixfold sense-impression.

Whatever there is in the world, there is no self.

"Through the complete fading away and cessation of the field of sixfold sense-impression, there comes about the cessation and the coming-to-rest of the world of diffuseness" (papañca-nirodho papañca-vupasamo) (AN IV, 173).

The opposite term nippapañca is a name for nirvana (S. LIII) in the sense of "freedom from samsaric diffuseness."

"Humankind delights in the diffuseness of the world, whereas the perfect ones [enlightened beings] are free from such diffuseness" (papañcābhiratā pajā, nippapañca tathāgatā) (Dhp. 254).

The eighth of the "thoughts of a great man" (mahā-purisa-vitakka) has: "This Dharma is for one who delights in non-diffuseness (unworldliness, nirvana); it is not for one who delights in worldliness (papañca)" (AN VIII, 30).

"Mind" is not only in the head but also the heart.

For the psychological sense of "differentiation," see the Madhupindika Sutra (MN 18): "Whatever person conceives (vitakketi), that [is what] one differentiates (papañceti). And what one differentiates, by reason thereof, ideas and considerations of differentiation (papañca-saññā-sankhā) arise in that person."

On this text and the term papañca, see Dr. Kurt Schmidt in German Buddhist Writers (Wheel #74/75, Buddhist Publication Society, BPS.lk, p. 61ff). See also DN 21 or Sakka's Quest (Wheel #10, BPS.lk).

In the commentaries a threefold classification is often found: tanhā-, ditthi-, māna-papañca, which probably means the world's diffuseness created by craving, false views, and conceit. See MN 123; AN IV, 173; AN VI, 14, Sn. 530, 874, 916.

Ven. Ñānananda, in Concept and Reality: An Essay on Papañca and Papañca-saññā-sankhā (1971, BPS.lk), suggests that the term refers to the human "tendency towards proliferation in the realm of concepts."

So it proposes rendering the term "conceptual proliferation," which appears convincing in a psychological context, for example in two of the texts quoted above, AN IV, 173 and MN 18.

The threefold classification of papañca -- by way of craving, false views, and conceit -- is explained by the author as three aspects or instances of the foremost deluded conceptualization, the ego-concept or viewing things as "self."

See egolessness (anatta), non-self, for a subtle but crucial explanation of the impersonal nature of all things. Source