Andrl: What the heck is going on with this translation?

So I'm reading this section supposedly from the "Northern Buddhism", third gen, and it sounds so much like Zen and so little like what Huangbo warns against from the North, practice-to-attain...

There is a problem somewhere...

Then I find this:

Peacefully (in solitude), without engaging in any business (activity), [I]

㘴 (坐) sit¹⁶⁸⁵ [in meditation]

• with the note: 1685 Note that in this line the variant 44 is used whereas the above zuö is written with the standard graph.

"Above" refers to this same line peacefully in solitude without blah-blah, used previously.

Confusion:

1. So the character changes, but the translation remains the same because... the characters are... the same? When they aren't?
2. Why is this "meditation"? Most of the time in this text "meditation" is translated from literal phrases that don't include "sit":
   • "Stop the mind" translated as "meditation"
   • féi-xiängféi-féi-xiäng tiän which is some kind of meditative state
   • "concentration introspection
3. Why the heck does this "Northern Buddhist-ish" text not include any suggestion of practice to attain?

Building on earlier:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/g7t5ns/a_collection_from_the_halls_of_the_patriarchs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/gatr39/zutang_ji_a_whole_page_of_900_era_zen_masters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/gcrhbi/the_continuing_beatdown_of_sitting_meditation_via/ Studies in the Language of Zu-tang ji 祖堂集, VOLUME 2: TRANSLATION (and Glossary of Linguistic Terms, Bibliographies, Index), Christoph Anderl

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Zu-tang ji 祖堂集 - Compiled in 952 in the kingdom of Southern Tang (937–975), Zutang ji 祖堂集 is an invaluable source of information about the formative history of the Chan school and the gradual evolution of Chan literature. Long lost and forgotten in China, only to be rediscovered during the early part of the twentieth century among the woodblocks of the Buddhist canon stored at Haein Monastery 海印寺 in Korea, the text represents an outline of earlier Chan “history,” written from a regional perspective. Among the text's prominent features is its inclusion of unique materials not found in other Chan collections.

Submitted May 14, 2020 at 08:53PM by ewk https://ift.tt/2yUea12