Thinking about "Zen Masters" and whether there are any from interactions in other posts got me thinking about Chinese and English.
English does a REALLY poor job of capturing the essence of what's trying to be expressed by using "Zen Master".
What specifically got me thinking about this is the term "Master" as used in the martial arts. I call my taiji teacher Shīgōng (師公) in Chinese which in English might get translated to "Grandmaster", but really it's just a reflection of the circumstances of how I was introduced to him. Shīfu (師父) is often translated to "Master" as well but… it doesn't really speak to a person's "mastery" of anything.
師 means teacher, 父 means father, and 公 means grandfather (in this context). Your recognizing that person as the "father" of your style. Doesn't necessarily mean he's the "master" of anything other than he has more skills than you do (in that particular discipline, although in Chinese culture it pours into other areas).
So… back to "Zen Masters". I got curious as to what title was used for Master Sheng Yen in Chinese. The Chinese wikipedia page uses 法師. That gets translated into English as "Master" but that doesn't tell the whole story…
法 is used for dharma/"law" (佛法) and 師 is teacher. When I threw 法師 into my dictionary (Pleco) I got the Sanskrit dharmacarya which basically mean teacher of the dharma. There is also 禪師 (chánshī) which would be Chan Teacher (in a way, it's really it's own word), but that seems like more of an honorific title than something anyone would title themselves.
There's definitely something lost in linguistic and cultural translation when using "Zen Master". For the uninitiated "Westerner" if someone is in a robe and meditates they're probably a "Zen Master" in their mind…
Anyhow… thought I'd share these thoughts here. I feel like this is part of the confusion about who is/isn't a "Zen Master".
On the one hand, there are no Zen Masters, on the other hand, there are definitely 禪法師s.
I'm not well versed in Sanskrit, but 法 in Chinese wouldn't just be "Dharma". Chinese is probably more multidimensional than Sanskrit and it's definitely more multidimensional than English.
I bring this up because 師法 could be seen as teacher of ONLY "Buddhist Dharma" but you could also see it as teacher of "Chan Method". English speakers want a "straight" answer. One or the other, but it just kind of lingers there as "both".
Anyhow… those are some random thoughts. Now I'm gonna go get some fried mushrooms and chicken parts. I am a 吃父! 😂 (師父 Shifu = Master, 吃父 Chifu sounds similar but you swap out the character for teacher for the character for eating! Boom. Free Chinese lesson. :) )
法 fǎ
NOUN 1 law
守法公民 shǒu fǎ gōngmín law-abiding citizen
2 method; way; mode
表達法 biǎodáfǎ mode of expression
教學法 jiàoxuéfǎ teaching method
3 standard; model See 法書
4 BUDDHISMthe Law; dharma
5 magic arts
作法 zuòfǎ exercise magic
Submitted October 22, 2019 at 07:00PM by CaseyAPayne https://ift.tt/2PbVC1Z
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