Tuesday, November 9, 2010
preliminary Logistic something. Should you be in Los Angeles you have another chance to hear me talk. Tomorrow (Sunday November 14, 2010) will be made in Bodhi Tree bookstore keep 8585 Melrose Avenue West Hollywood, CA, USA by 19 clock a lecture.
The people of the Doges Sangha Los Angeles have cut together some videos of me and have them uploaded to the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles YouTube channel . As soon come even more.
My n euestes book Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to polyamory and Everything in Between is from a website called Religious Bulletin nominated a religious book with the worst Binding design . Juhu! I hope I win, because then I can "Award-winning author" on my next book printed.
I have just published a new article on the Suicide Girls' Safe For Work blog . He is Desire and you can find where you on the word " Desire "in this sentence clicking here.
And when speaking of Suicide Girls, tomorrow I will n eight are in their radio show. For more details, click right here !
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Last weekend I was in the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC) to participate in an event to celebrate the release of Kazuaki Tanahashi's translation of the entire 95 chapters of the participating Shobogenzo.
If you want to see what I have said there going to this link and coil minutes prior to 36:26.
This new English edition of the Shobogenzo is essentially the San Francisco Zen Center Edition of Shobogenzo. You own the copyright, they made up the largest share of financing for the project and 32 priests from SFZC acted as co-translator of which each has on average one to three chapters edited.
course, was during the celebrations this weekend of some claims this is the best English translation of the Shobogenzo was. And of course, claimed those who contributed to the English or other translations, as in my case, associated with the translators are the best that we had. It was something of a running gag on. If you like the video of my presentation on Saturday, look, you see my entry for this gag. I was the fourth or fifth person this joke on that day brought. But it was not a joke.
At one point, Kaz said that every translation in their own way the best thing. Each deliver unique and valuable perspectives. A very diplomatic opinion! And true. I'm sure he meant just the same.
I've not read much of Tanahashi Shobogenzo. I've read a few chapters when I was in the summer of Tassajara and a few more since I bought a copy ($ 150, ouch! And that was with a discount!). I am not an expert in it as the Nishijima / Cross issue, which I have read at least four times from top to bottom, and my favorite parts maybe a dozen times or more above the yes I myself have written a book (see link below). However, I would even at this issue embarrassed when I have to quote chapter and verse to.
However, I feel safe when I say that Shobogenzo Tanahashi is the second best available version, after that of Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross, which will always be the best (which is high praise from of someone as picky as I am, whatever that is worth). I am familiar with earlier versions of Tanahashis translations are published in books such as "Moon in a Dewdrop" and "Enlightenment Unfolds". In the few Years in which it was difficult to get a copy of the Nishijima / Cross to get the issue I desöfteren Tanahashi recommended books. I felt that they were the original to others. Now we find the Nishijima / Cross version easily online (see links below).
The main reason of the Nishjima / Cross makes the best version, because it is the original Japanese Shobogenzo so faithfully reproduces that it is almost too much. Even Dogen strange word order has been preserved as much as possible. This means it loses a lot in terms of readability. But now, this is so in Dogen's original. So it should be. It was never meant to be read easily.
The other big advantage of the Nishijima / Cross edition are the extensive footnotes on each page. All the obscure references to ancient Chinese writings Dogen made available. And every time a Japanese word was translated in a way that may be questionable, the Japanese originally written was noted as a footnote.
These two factors make this an issue of Shobogenzo, but for someone who can not read Japanese, English is up close to a magic glasses that allows one to read the Japanese original. No one will ever make it to do it this way, up to the date the the English language itself changed so that this version will be out of date because of it. apology. It is impossible.
One area in which the superior version Tanahashi is quite clear, in relation to poetry. I must confess, the Nishijima / Cross issue is as clumsy as hell. It sacrifices some of the beauty of the original by trying a very basic literal translation follow through. Tanahashi and his co-translators have made enormous in which they have made an English version of the singing as the original.
The reason why I believe that the total Tanahashi Edition not quite as good refers to many aspects which if you try to study something so personal and intimate as Zen in such a large institution such as the SFZC. You can see the reasons why I think this issue is only the second best in the shell out you look at the way you have chosen to translate the Japanese composite 结 跏趺坐 (kekka fuza).
结 跏趺坐 (kekka fuza) has a clear and absolutely unambiguous meaning in English. It means sitting in the lotus position (full, half or quarter). There is no other possible interpretation. So we're not talking here of a word which has shades of the translator could argue. It is a proper noun with a fixed English equivalent. The word is often used synonymously with the Shobogenzo Zazen use. has
during presentations on Monday in Green Gulch someone (I think Kaz was myself, but I'm a little insecure - it's probably somewhere in the video I've linked above) says something about how the translation was carried out by the example they have decided to translate this word.
Obviously did they originally "sitting with crossed legs," as translated, which is good. I believe that the formulation of the Nishijima / Cross version is used. However, some talk was in the SFZC certain readers might not be able to take the lotus position and therefore would be deterred by such a translation. After some discussion, decided the 结 跏趺坐 (kekka fuza) "sitting in meditation" is translated as to those who can not sit in the lotus position to convey the feeling to be included in Dogen's message.
I confess that this is not massive error. In reality it is pretty much the same. It distorts Dogen's message is not essential. But it distorts but .
There is so much interested in the minimum distortion of the message as much more about the reasons why the editors decided to Dogen's change message.
you have changed it because they felt that the real meaning of the term could reduce the attractiveness of the book. They changed it because of a committee decision.
The thing with the lotus position in Dogen Teaching is one argue passionately about the many people. But Dogen is here quite uncompromising. In Fukanzazengi (General Guidelines for Zazen) it permits the full or half-lotus, and that's it. My own teacher Gudo Nishijima wider meaning to the half-lotus so that it includes the West in general as a quarter of a lotus or "Burma's attitude" known. But Dogen says nothing about the use of seiza benches or chairs, or the myriad other possible postures encountered in Zen centers in America or Europe today.
I even had to listen quite a bit because I'm such a pedant in terms of attitude. But here's a little secret. Every time someone comes to me in confidence and shows me that he really and truly do not have full, half or quarter lotus (including Burman), I always try to work out with them any other way. I bet my ass that even master Dogen would have done the same thing in the situation. But in public I do not talk about other attitudes.
The reason why I never in public about zazen in a chair or seiza bench or whatever, talk is that it seems that as soon as one notes that there are such things possible to use now half of the bodied losflitzen order to get a chair so they have something more comfortable. But in Zazen is not about convenience. In fact, Zazen Zazen is not without a little discomfort.
Anyway, this change is only one of several in the book that reflects this attitude. On another occasion, Dogen was saying "the royal Bodhi Tree" changed to "the glorious Bodhi-tree" appear to be less sexist. I am sure that more such changes are abundant. They change the fundamental importance Dogen prose does not really change, but they do it, for reasons which seem somewhat ridiculous.
It happens when a committee is included. Gudo Nishijima and Mike Cross had no such problems. There were only two people involved in the major translation and three or four others in the editorial office.
What happened here with the new edition of the Shobogenzo is studied is also instructive in understanding the difference whether Zen in a large institution or manageable in an environment. I am a big fan of the San Francisco Zen Center. I like what they do and I am pleased to support them. I often recommend people to SFZC, go to Tassajara and Green Gulch. There are good places. There are good people.
But the truth is, that would be SFZC and similar institutions have been the only places that I knew that you can undertake study Zen, I would have probably endured more than a year. That's not my kind of scene.
it better one way and the other worse? I can only speak for myself. I sense the Nishijima / Cross edition of Shobogenzo than the best. This does not mean that I hate any other issue. But only one issue may be the best. Insofar as it relates to teaching styles, I'm with the Form of Zen gone the best for me seemed appropriate. If I felt that it would not fit me, I would have gone elsewhere.
Just to at this point to be absolutely clear, Kazuaki Tanahashi is Shobogenzo translation and an outstanding performance. Here is a good article how the whole thing came into existence . It's a really, really outstanding translation. I can recommend it strongly. I have $ 150, - spent my copy today and I can not allow such things actually. I have done it because I really like that.
But it's still not the best!
LINKS
• Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, God, Truth, Sex, Death, and Dogen's Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye by Brad Warner
• Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Book 1 translated translated by Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross
• Master Dogen's Shobogenzo Book 2 of Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross
• Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, Book 3 translated by Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross
• Master Dogen's Shobogenzo, Book 4 translated by Gudo Nishijima and Chodo Cross
• Enlightenment Unfolds of Dogen, translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi
• Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi
• Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen translated's Shobo Genzo by Kazuaki Tanahashi
• Free digital download of the Nishjima / Cross edition of Shobogenzo in PDF format
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