So I decided to jump on the translation band wagon and try my hand at translating a case. I chose case 512 from Dahui's Shobogenzo. Given I have zero experience with this my method was to take three different translations (Cleary, chatgpt, DeepL) and then use them as references as I plugged the Chinese characters into Pleco. Here is the original Chinese and then what I got. Take it with a lot of grains of salt:
葉縣省和尚。一日念和尚問云。喚作竹篦則觸。不喚作竹篦則背。合喚作甚麼物即得。省於此大悟。遂於手中掣得竹篦。拗折擲于堦下却云。是甚麼。念云瞎。省便禮拜。因僧請益趙州栢樹子話。省曰我不辭與汝說。還信麼。云和尚重言爭敢不信。曰汝還聞簷頭雨滴聲麼。其僧豁然。不覺失聲云[口*耶]。省云汝見箇甚麼道理。僧即以頌對云。簷頭雨滴。分明瀝瀝。打破乾坤。當下心息。省忻然。
One day the monk Nian asked Sheng "To call it a bamboo comb is to stir up feelings. To not call it a bamboo comb is to turn away. Combine the two and you will be finished."
Sheng came to a thorough understanding and exclaimed "Ah"! Sheng then took the bamboo comb, broke it, and threw it down the stairs. Sheng then asked "What is this?". Nian said "Sheng is blind".
A monk asked Sheng to talk about Zhaozhou's cypress tree. Sheng said "I will not refuse to help, but will you be pleased and trust?".
The monk asked "How can I not trust Sheng?". Sheng called to the monk and asked "Do you hear the rain on the eaves?".
The monk was thoroughly open and clear and unconsciously burst out with enthusiasm. Sheng asked "What did you see?". The monk replied with a poem:
The sound of rain on the eaves is obvious. It breaks the universe. Instantly the intention rests.
Sheng said "Right!".
So actually going through the case in Chinese word by word brought up some interesting stuff.
If my translation isn't way off then Nian telling Sheng to combine naming and not-naming is extremely interesting to me. Lots to think about there. If any more experienced translators want to come along and burst my bubble please feel free.
The character for Sheng (a province) can also be Xing according to Pleco which means "examine oneself critically" and which is one of the words on Surska0's list of words that commonly get translated as enlightenment.
The character xin I chose to translate as "intention" but can also be translated as "heart-mind" or "mind". D. T. Suzuki once pointed out that to translate it literally as "mind" wouldn't truly capture the spirit of the word as it isn't pointing to the intellect, but instead to something more like the "vital spirit", so I felt like "intention" was a good pick.
Xi in my version is translated as "rest" but can also mean cease or stop. I chose rest because I felt it went along well with "intention" and had less baggage than "stop". Almost seems to me to be saying that his intentions were put to rest at hearing the rain and so he was finally able to break the universe and see his nature. Like when Nanquan told Zhaozhou that to seek the way is to deviate from it.
I'm sure there are plenty of errors in this but honestly it was still a lot of fun and super interesting to do.
Submitted March 19, 2023 at 02:17AM by koancomentator https://ift.tt/7WNh1Xo
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