| Zen (see also Philosophy/Eastern/Zen) |
|
|  |
| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 An authoratative reading. Jun 21, 2007
I can't say I've ever experienced an author (or in this case a translater) giving their own book a one star. Let me say that, regardless of the details of the translation, it certainly does not deserve a one. In fact, the translation itself is rather excellent. I suppose that translaters grow into their texts so no one really expects an absolutely perfect translation - I don't think such a thing is possible anyway, especially with Japanese.
Actually, I have only one problem with the translation: the paragraphing. I found numerous cases of run-on paragraphs that made the text difficult to read. I do not know if this is meant to be indicitive in some way of the formating of the original Japanese - although I'm not sure what merits this has anyway.
But this is just a formating concern and says nothing about the translation itself which is the best available as far as I am aware. In my opinion, this translation of the Shobogenzo is completely authoratative (albeit a difficult read sometimes).
29 of 34 found the following review helpful:
 Why this translation is so imperfect Jun 26, 2006
I began work on this translation in 1982, simply re-writing the English translation already accomplished by Gudo Nishijima. From 1986, I began to work directly from the original text. It then became increasingly apparent to me that Master Nishijima had very deep intuitive, non-semantic understanding of everything that Master Dogen was endeavoring to transmit. It was also apparent to me that, in his attempts to render this non-semantic understanding into an authentic, more or less literal English translation, Master Nishijima was remarkably wide of the mark. So I did my best, like a miner, to extract the real meaning from Master Nishijima, sitting by his side at temple retreats, and visiting him regularly at his office to ask him in detail about the original text. Then I went home and did my best to produce an as-far-as possible literal translation in tune with this real meaning. This process continued until 1997, when Master Nishijima called a halt to my revision work, apparently fearing that I was corrupting the true meaning of Shobogenzo due to my new-found enthusiasm, from 1994 onward, for the teaching of FM Alexander.
What I woud like to make clear now is that in the years when I was working on the Shobogenzo translation under Master Nishijima, through to 1997, my own understanding of the fundamental principle of Shobogenzo was not clear. Only recently, after 25 years of daily Zazen, has my own understanding of the fundamental principle become truly clear.
Thus, if I were to revise the translation again, I would want to change the wording in many places. In the very first sentence of Book One, for example, I would change the translation of MU-I from "without intention" to "free of intention" or "free of effort." As I see it now, it is a crucially important distinction.
In practice, however, the translation as it is represents a true joint effort between Gudo Nishijima and myself. Rather than continue in the endless and ultimately impossible effort to turn the translation into something that might be totally without mistakes, I think the best thing may be for me to accept its publication in its present form, and to use this translation, mistakes and all, as a basis for clarifying my understanding as it is now.
If any sincere person is interested in how my understanding of the central teaching of Shobogenzo has changed, I have tried to express it on my blog at http://the-middle-way.blogspot.com and would welcome any Shobogenzo-related questions. Or better still, let us find a way just to sit together in the lotus posture.
|
| | |
|
|
