Today's Tao
How do I know that all the roots of material beings are like that?
By the name of Tao. (Ch.21)
"I!"
"You!"
What do we mean by that?
These individual selves are not ours.
They are just holograms.
Our personal feelings are part of our hologram, which is an illusion.
So, who are you?
True You are Tao.
It doesn't matter what you call it.
The name is not important.
Tao, Love, Buddha, Zen, or whatever you like. You can even call it "you".
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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 21
Tao answers your question!
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-Dogen means "the root of Tao". Shobogenzo Zuimonki (the book on the right) was not written by the master himself. It is much easier to understand. There are quite a few English translations of Shobogenzo. They may be helpful to understand Dogen's teachings, but I cannot recommend any, the one on the left included. My best and honest recommendation is, though I know it is too demanding, to learn Japanese and read the original. A Japanese man can learn English and read Shakespeare. Why can't an English-speaking person learn Japanese and read Dogen? Shobogenzo is written in old Chinese and Japanese. It is an amazing mixture of two different grammars. While Chinese has a word order closer to English (in principle, Subject - Verb - Object and others), Japanese has the one completely different from English (Subjets, Object, or others followed by a suffix which functions as a preposition - Verb often followed by suffixes which function as an auxiliary verb or "not") Dogen is truly a Jackson Pollock of Japanese literature.
2 comments:
Me pierdo mucho al no saber japonés, ¿no?... o chino en todo caso. Es lo mismo que sucede con el sánscrito, ¿verdad?; existen muchos conceptos que nuestros idiomas occidentales no tienen como traducir.
Gracias por la recomendación. ¡Japonés será entonces!(por ahora via livemocha).
Gracias, Quixotica-san.
Me gusta mucho «Verde que te quiero verde».
Si digo "Green, green that I love",
no tiene ningún sentido, ¿no?
Una cosa que realmente quiero decir a todas las personas interesadas en el Zen es sobre Hokke Ten Hokke de Dogen.
Está escrito en japonés:
法 華 転 法 華
¿Puede Ud. reconocer que el primer carácter y el cuarto, el segundo y el quinto son idénticos?
Si los traduzco, son como así:
manifestación flor cambio manifestación flor
«Manifestación flor» significa la manifestación visible del Tao (= Buda), es decir, el holograma.
Por lo tanto, los cinco caracteres pueden ser re-escritos:
holograma cambio holograma
Este es exactamente el concepto de círculo de Yin Yang (= la rueda de oración).Una transformación provoca otra transformación.
Dogen necesitaba usar el idioma chino para explicar a los japoneses en su Shobogenzo.
Gracias, Quixotica-san, por darme la oportunidad de hablar de ello.
Naoto Matsumoto
-Translation for anglophone readers-
Quixotica said ...
I lose much by not knowing Japanese, right? ... or Chinese anyway. The same thing happens with Sanskrit, right?, There are many concepts that our Western languages do not have the translation. Thanks for the recommendation. Japanese will be then!
Thank you, Quixotica-san.
I like Federico García Lorca's «Verde que te quiero verde».
If I say: "Green, green that I love", it loses a lot, doesn't it?
One thing I really want to tell all the people interested in Zen is Hokke Ten Hokke of Dogen.
It is written in Japanese:
法 華 転 法 華
Can you recognize that the first character and the fourth, the second and the fifth are identical?
If I translate them, it will be like this:
manifestation flower change manifestation flower
«Manifestation flower» signifies the visible manifestation of Tao (=Buddha), that is to say, the hologram.
Therefore, the five characters can be re-written:
Hologram change Hologram
This is exactly the concept of the Yin Yang circle (=the prayer wheel). Transformation provokes another transformation.
Dogen needed to use Chinese to explain it to the Japanese in his Shobogenzo.
Thank you, Quixotica-san, for giving me an opportunity to talk about it.
Naoto Matsumoto
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