Friday, December 4, 2009

Lost in Translation?

One passing thought right now is that in the free view (to use a currently very used word in the UK) beyond the broadbands (ditto) there is the common ground of Eastern and Western beliefs. Is Master Joshu's "Ordinary Mind is the Way" much different from the post daikensho Master Jesus popping up here and there, eating grilled fish on the beach with a friend or visiting friends and sharing meals or taking walks with them?

Thank God for meditation - it's about all I can do these days. I'm really grateful to Tammy (Myoho Sensei) for the tedious job of a) getting clear what I am trying to say and b) transcribing it and reading it back to me before it turns into a blog.

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Another passing thought was how things get lost in translation, without a translator!

Student: Sensei, I'm really stuck on that koan you gave me about being compression
Me: Oh No! It was about compassion!

Or on my quoting the Buddhas' tip for relaxing to imagine precious ointment melting on your head and running down your shoulders and arms, the said meditator said "The ornament on my head doesn't seem to melt!"

So there is a funny side to all this, although it has it's dangers. Anyway, it's not so much what you say that matters - unless you are Master Joshu - it's who you really are.

3 comments:

  1. Wonderful. Wish we could sit and laugh together over tea and cookies (aka biscuits). Your blog is the next best thing. Love you,
    Wynn

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  2. Dear Wynn, Cookies any day!!love Genshin

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  3. :) laughing out loud (compression vs. compassion) or "ointment vs. ornament". Must be hard to sit with a stone buddha statue (ornament) on one's head! :)

    ! thank you Genshin for this EFFORT to Share your thoughts. And I'm in shock about you needing a translator as I remember talking to you on the phone in 2005 one last time before I went to Europe. I feel naive but have things been a lot worse for you since then? I'm trying to fit the pieces together...

    I wish that I had seen you writing this in July and sorry it's taken me so much time, now in December, to find your blog until now. Continuing on with your other pieces with anticipation and eagerness... I await more too.

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