The following tables indicates Pali words, their usual English translations and comments on what is actually meant in the suttas:
| dukkha | suffering stress | Dukkha is best left untranslated. It does mean both "suffering" and "stress", but it also means "unsatisfactoriness" - basically "getting what one does not want" and "not getting what one does want". It covers all those little niggling feelings that life is not perfect. |
| vedana | feelings | Vedana does NOT mean emotions - it means simply pleasant, unpleasant, or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. It is the first impression a sense contact makes: "I like it" or "I don't like it" or "I don't care". Emotions are mental formations (sankhara) not vedana. |
| sañña | perception | Sañña refers to the ability of the mind to name or categorize or identify a sense impression. It's the labeling of our experiences. |
| sankara | formations compounded things intentions mental activity | Sankara gets translated in a number of ways depending on the context. But the Buddha used a single word in all those contexts! Better translations would be "concoctions" or "fabrications". Both of these words fit in all those contexts and also have the sense of "not quite true" which I think is an important aspect of sankara. |
| vitakka vicara | thinking pondering | These two do mean "thinking" and "pondering" or even "initial thought" and "applied thought". However according to the commentaries, when they are used in the description of the 1st Jhana, they mean "initial attention to the meditation subject" and "sustained attention on the meditation subject". But there is much evidence in the suttas that the commentaries are wrong - see for example SN 21:1. |
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/ Revised 01 May 09