Complication

complication (papañca): The tendency of the mind to proliferate issues from the sense of “self.” This term can also be translated as self-reflexive thinking, reification, falsification, distortion, elaboration, or exaggeration. In the discourses, it is frequently used in analyses of the psychology of conflict. The categories of complication stem from the self-reflexive thought, “I am the thinker,” and include the categories of inappropriate attention: being/not-being, me/not-me, mine/not-mine, doer/done-to. The perceptions of complication include such thoughts as “This is me. This is mine. This is my self.” These perceptions and categories turn back on the person who allows them to proliferate, giving rise to internal conflict & strife, which then expand outward.