Snakes, Leaves, and Poisoned Arrows

A paradox about emotions is that although we experience them directly through our minds and bodies, they appear to be vague and elusive when we try to talk about them. Consequently, most of the language used to speak about emotions is metaphorical. This observation is consonant with cognitive linguistics, which views metaphors as conceptual rather than purely verbal mechanisms. Emotions are one of the central matters of Buddhist philosophy, and language used to talk about them abounds in conceptual metaphors. This article inspects metaphorical expressions used in the canonical collection of early Buddhist texts. It reveals fundamental differences in the way emotions are thought of in Buddhist and Western culture. While in the West emotions are typically conceptualized in terms of FORCE, Buddhism conceives them in terms of FORCE, OBJECT or both. These variations are not incidental and results from fundamental differences between Christian and Buddhist worldviews and philosophy.