A profound shock, dismay, and spiritual urgency arising on truly realizing the impermanence and futility of ordinary life, which spurs one to undertake the path toward liberation..
A profound shock, dismay, and spiritual urgency arising on truly realizing the impermanence and futility of ordinary life, which spurs one to undertake the path toward liberation.
A motivating fear, not a paralyzing one — Olendzki's image is animals trembling at a lion's roar and stirring to action. Where dukkha is the fact of suffering, samvega is the emotional response to grasping it; sharper and more spurring than generic dread or awe. Classically paired with pasada (serene confidence), which keeps it from collapsing into nihilistic despair — the “stick and the carrot.”
sam- (intensive) + √vij “to tremble, be agitated” = “agitation.”
From sam- (intensive, “together”) + the root √vij “to tremble, be agitated” (or vega “force, impulse”).
An ancient term in the early Buddhist suttas and Abhidhamma (Buddhaghosa's Atthasālinī; the Upajjhatthana Sutta's recollections of aging, illness, death). Brought to a Western audience by Thanissaro Bhikkhu's 1997 essay. Meaning is stable.
No real dispute over meaning; the caveat is translational — Thanissaro stresses no single English word captures its three feeling-clusters (shock, self-chastening, urgency), so “fear” alone is inadequate.