An Appropriate Statement

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TL;DR: Translations can cause a lot of trouble. Thomas Cleary is awesome. Sekida might have to enter hell as fast as an arrow flies.

Longer TL;DR: A look at 5 translations of “An appropriate statement”, by 3 different translators. Sekida’s translation of Yunmen's saying is very different than that of Cleary and Cleary, Cleary solo, and Urs App.

Blue Cliff Record, Case 14僧問雲門。如何是一代時教。雲門云。對一說。

僧問雲門。The first line, “A monk asked Yunmen.” is easy enough. (僧 monk 問 ask 雲門Cloud Gate)

如何是一代時教。The second line says “What is a lifetime teaching?”, or as Cleary and Cleary translate, “the teaching of a whole lifetime”. (如何 what 是 is 一 代 lifetime 時 time period 教 teaching) Yuanwu tells us that “whole lifetime” is referring to the 49 years that the Buddha taught. Thanks, Yuanwu.

雲門云。Third line is easy enough. 雲門 Cloud Gate (Yunmen) 云 said,

對一說。 This line is the one we are going to unpack.

So the first character is hard to give a word to word direct translation without being sure of context, and that leaves lots of room to screw this all up. 對 means “correct” or “right”. Cool and easy, but it also means “facing”, “opposite”, “towards” and has about a dozen other meanings.

The Second character 一 is the Chinese 1. It also means “a”, “an”, "first", “single”, “whole” and has lots of other meanings, just as “one” does in English. Easy enough.

Last word 說 means “speak” or “say”.

Cool enough. So “A correct statement” can easily be pulled out of 對一說, and that can easily be rendered as “An appropriate statement” without too much fuss.

So here’s some translations:

Zen Master Yunmen: His life and Essential Sayings, Translated by Urs App:

“What is the teaching of the [Buddha’s] whole lifetime?”“Speaking in tune with any particular [occasion].”

I like it. It’s bit flowery with the whole “Speaking in tune” bit, but it works for me. It’s nice. I’ll take it.

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Blue Cliff Record Case 14: Translated by Cleary and Cleary, and it’s exactly the same in Thomas Cleary’s BDK English Tripitaka translation:

A monk asked Yun Men, "What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?Yun Men said, "An appropriate statement."

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Thomas Cleary’s Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record:

A monk asked Ummon, “What are the whole lifetime teachings?”Ummon said, “An appropriate statement.”

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To me, “An appropriate statement” is the translation. It’s what I think of when I think of this case. YUNMEN’S APPROPRIATE STATEMENT!

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Now, Sekida’s Two Zen Classics is where things get a little strange.

Case 14: Ummon’s “Preaching Facing Oneness”, Translated by Katsuki Sekida

A monk asked Ummon, “What is the teaching of the Buddha’s lifetime?”

Ummon said, “Preaching facing oneness.”

In his notes, Sekida’s states, “Preaching facing oneness. "Oneness" means absolute truth. “Facing” is a reference to the fact that Zen masters deliver their lectures facing the Buddha’s image.”

Sekida then says that the meaning can be extended and describes how we adapt to situations depending on the people we are talking to, and he describes this adapting as “riding the waves”. He then states that “facing” is the most important word in the case and that “Ummon preaches facing oneness, facing the world, facing every being and every thing”.

That sounds cool and fancy, but all of this is coming from translating 對 as “facing” instead of as “correct”.

Ok, so what does Yuanwu say right in his commentary on this very case in his Blue Cliff Record?

People often misunderstand and say, "Buddha's preaching was appropriate to the conditions of one time." Or they say, "The multitude of appearances and myriad forms are all the impressions of a single truth," and call this "an appropriate statement." Then there are those who say, "It's just talking about that one truth." What connection is there? Not only do they not understand, they also enter hell as fast as an arrow flies. They are far from knowing that the meaning of that man of old is not like this.

Boom.

My thoughts:

I think Sekida is venturing into an area that Yuanwu tells us to avoid. I am not on board with translating 對 as “facing” in this case, and I think that the bit about zen masters facing the Buddha statue in the lecture hall is really stretching the translation. “Preaching facing oneness” would be a very out of character thing for Yunmen to say compared to his other teachings. Perhaps Sekida has different resources available than I do, but I'm just not feeling it.

Anyone else have any thoughts or resources to share concerning this? Isn't it wild how vastly different translations can be?

Submitted October 06, 2019 at 09:11AM by madewithsticks https://ift.tt/2LSOhCN