“All languages come together in the language of the Dhamma. I’ll give you a simple example. When we boil water for tea so that it’s hot, the word “hot” in Thai is rawn. In Isaan it’s hawn. In English, they say, hot. That’s the way it is.
Languages are like that. Each person speaks in his or her own language, even though it’s all the same heat. If you want to find where all these languages come together, the language of heat all comes together where we stick our finger into the tea. If you get a Chinese person to stick his finger into the tea, the heat is no different from when you get a Westerner or an English person to stick his finger into the tea. The only difference is in the language of the words. Heat is the same for everybody. When you know heat, it means that you know how it is for everyone.”