Translation Of 意

[1showorigin]

I am trying to find a word that is big enough to cover the concept of heart, mind, will, and consciousness. Anyone has a clue?

[Shi Tong]

A word? What? One Chinese character?

I think that's a big ask.. is there "one word" in English which means all these things? ;)

Heart is an odd one, because I think you mean heart with a different kind of meaning than just "heart" as the pumpin muscle. 心 means heart.. 中心 mean centre, but only when you come to things like "信心 xìn​xīn​" when you get to words meaning more- this means self belief or confidence, as does "自心 zì​​xīn" (I think this is right.. someone might want to take another look at that!)

Then you have "heart" things which are related to moods, like 担心 dān​xīn​ (wooried), 关心 guān​xīn​ (to take care of something) 忠心 zhōng​xīn (loyal)

Again, mind on it own is probably not what you're looking for, because this literally means brain.. 头脑 tóu​nǎo.. I think you're looking for something more like "​精神" which means: "jīng​shén spirit / mind / consciousness / thought / mental / psychological / essence"...

will.... I'm not sure there is a really good translation I can put my finger on for this I'm afraid.. there are lots of words which are like a kind of will, but I'm not aware of one which has the same spiritual conotations you're trying to get at.

consciousness: funny enough, I think 精神 is probably the best and/ or closest thing to conciousness.

I think you're looking for very spiritual words for which I dont know if there are all very close translations for.

[doraemon]

Yeah, I think 精神 is probably the best word in your case.

意念 I also think is alright. It basically means an idea or consciousness but suggests some sort of will or perseverance as well.

[1showorigin]

Sorry that I didn't make myself clear. I am actually looking for an English word to express "意" in Buddhist sutra. As it covers everything from will, mind, consciousness and 阿賴耶識,I find it difficult to find a word that encompasses all these meanings. For me, "spirit" is a word for "精神"？

[Shi Tong]

The definition of yi4 is

意yì: idea / meaning / thought / to think / wish / desire / intention / to expect / to anticipate

The definition of jing1shen2 is

精神 jīng​shén: spirit / mind / consciousness / thought / mental / psychological / essence / gist

So, how to translate 意 is a much harder question because 意 can be combined in too many ways to mean different things for so many different words:

意思 yì​si​ idea / opinion / meaning / wish / desire

意义 yì​yì​ meaning / significance

etc, etc, etc....

There isn't really one word in English to describe the word 意, so use all of the words above.

[anonymoose]

I think "will" is probably the closest you'll get, and it more or less encompasses all the concepts you want. After all, "will" is a state of consciousness, and a product of the heart and mind.