Wu.

[White Lotus]

hello,
i read today in my book that 'Wu' is a character that can mean sartori. what does wu mean and how can it be translated into english in a buddhist context.

best wishes, White Lotus.

[m0rl0ck]

Some background courtesy of Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan

A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou said, "Wú."

* ("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in archaic Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, note that a similar kōan records that, on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response: Case #18 of the Book of Serenity. Essentially this koan is a reference to that which has no name, but lip-service is pointless here, thus the Zen emphasis on practice. At the same time do not construe of Mu as meaning, "no," as advised in The Three Pillars of Zen)"

The qoute above is from the second link. I added the bold emphasis.

[Astus]

This is "wu" from the gongan: 無 - it means "no"
This is "wu" that in Japanese stands for "satori": 悟 - it means "comprehension"
And this is "wu": 五 - which means "5"

[Dexing]

This is "wu" from the gongan: 無 - it means "no"
This is "wu" that in Japanese stands for "satori": 悟 - it means "comprehension"
And this is "wu": 五 - which means "5"

I really wish people would use proper pīnyīn which uses tone marks, whenever they don't use the characters. A pronunciation is not complete without the tone. So wú and wù are actually two different sounds altogether.

Not only do all of these words have completely different characters, but they are actually pronounced differently; wú 無, wù 悟, and wǔ 五.

If people actually used the tone marks they wouldn't mistake wú for wù. But since there are many characters that have the same pronunciation including tone, it's best to always include the character with any pīnyīn.

Why is that so difficult?

[Astus]

wú 無, wù 悟, and wǔ 五

Try the Japanese reading: mu/bu, go, go. No tones, no problem.

[Huifeng]

:namaste: hello,
i read today in my book that 'Wu' is a character that can mean sartori. what does wu mean and how can it be translated into english in a buddhist context.

best wishes, White Lotus.

That's the character 悟 wu4. In Japanese, it is pronounced "satori".
In general, it means "realize", "know", etc. But this would depend on context.
The most common term is 開悟 kai1 wu4, "realize".

But,

Some background courtesy of Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_%28negative%29

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan

A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou said, "Wú."

* ("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in archaic Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, note that a similar kōan records that, on another occasion, Zhaozhou said "yes" in response: Case #18 of the Book of Serenity. Essentially this koan is a reference to that which has no name, but lip-service is pointless here, thus the Zen emphasis on practice. At the same time do not construe of Mu as meaning, "no," as advised in The Three Pillars of Zen)"

The qoute above is from the second link. I added the bold emphasis.

This is the character 無 wu1. Totally different character, essentially with nothing in common with the character 悟 wu4.

This one means "without", or more abstract, "non-existence", etc. depending on context.
It is usually paired with 有 you3, "have", "with", "existence", etc.

[Lazy_eye]

Woof!

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Moo.

[White Lotus]

thanks everyone! posts appreciated.

with Hui Nengs: pien lai wu i wu.

"from the beginning is not a single thing."

how would this wu (wu i wu) be translated and is it the same as the Wu used for 'sartori', or realization?

best wishes, White Lotus.

[Huifeng]

thanks everyone! posts appreciated.

with Hui Nengs: pien lai wu i wu.

"from the beginning is not a single thing."

how would this wu (wu i wu) be translated and is it the same as the Wu used for 'sartori', or realization?

best wishes, White Lotus.

ben3 lai2 wu2 yi1 wu4
本來無一物

The first wu2 is the "no ...", the second wu4 is yet another one, which means "thing" in the colloquial sense, but "entity" in more technical Buddhist terminology. Hence "not a single thing".

Neither of them are the wu4 悟 of "realization".

Just before we go any further, I'll list here some of the characters which are pronounced "wu":
First tone, "wu1":
屋, 烏, 污, 汙, 圬, 誣, 嗚, 巫, 鎢, 鄔, 洿, 歍, 惡, 於, 杇, 陓, 剭, 窏, 腛, 鴮, 螐, 媉, 汚, 鵐 <- that's 24, but not all of them.
Second tone, "wu2":
無, 吳, 吾, 梧, 巫, 蕪, 唔, 蜈, 誣, 毋, 亡, 牾, 膴, 麌... etc. etc. <- again, just some of them.

etc. etc.

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

[catmoon]

Just before we go any further, I'll list here some of the characters which are pronounced "wu":
First tone, "wu1":
屋, 烏, 污, 汙, 圬, 誣, 嗚, 巫, 鎢, 鄔, 洿, 歍, 惡, 於, 杇, 陓, 剭, 窏, 腛, 鴮, 螐, 媉, 汚, 鵐 <- that's 24, but not all of them.
Second tone, "wu2":
無, 吳, 吾, 梧, 巫, 蕪, 唔, 蜈, 誣, 毋, 亡, 牾, 膴, 麌... etc. etc. <- again, just some of them.

etc. etc.

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

After reading the above, I find it incredible that anyone can communicate at all using this language!

[Huifeng]

Just before we go any further, I'll list here some of the characters which are pronounced "wu":
First tone, "wu1":
屋, 烏, 污, 汙, 圬, 誣, 嗚, 巫, 鎢, 鄔, 洿, 歍, 惡, 於, 杇, 陓, 剭, 窏, 腛, 鴮, 螐, 媉, 汚, 鵐 <- that's 24, but not all of them.
Second tone, "wu2":
無, 吳, 吾, 梧, 巫, 蕪, 唔, 蜈, 誣, 毋, 亡, 牾, 膴, 麌... etc. etc. <- again, just some of them.

etc. etc.

The point I wish to make is this, whether it be "kong" or "wu" or any other Chinese pinyin term, there are an awful lot of homophones. So, just seeing that the pinyin is the same, and trying to make connections, is a surefire way of jumbling a whole lot of things up.

After reading the above, I find it incredible that anyone can communicate at all using this language!

As it has been said before, meaning lies not in words, but in sentences.

[White Lotus]

Venerable Hui Feng,

thank you... its in the sentence. its in everything.

this is it. this is no, this is yes, this is neither yes, nor no, both, oh darn it (the sock)...

i hope you have/had a nice day.

with respect, White Lotus.

[some1]

Chinese is not written in phonetic characters and it is impossible to transliterate Chinese characters using any phonetic characters (including Pinyin).

It is not uncommon that the same character has different pronunciation in different context and culture. As what Ven Huifeng mentioned above, the same pronunciation can also apply to many different characters of different meanings.

Hence, we can never be precise without knowing the exact Chinese characters, otherwise, we have to figure it out in the context of a sentence (this applies when we are using Chinese as a spoken language, it is actually not that difficult to pick up the meaning by its context).