Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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jmlee369
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by jmlee369 »

TMT wrote: Sun Sep 20, 2020 6:02 pm Im interested in the possibility of learning Mandarin or Japanese, if that would provide opportunity to move to a country where the dharma is more established. What I mean is, if I wanted to ordain and live in a monastary theres almost no options here in america. My concern is that lets say learning Japanese through Rosetta Stone wont help you understand Dharma Terminology used in Japanese.
I know this is an old post, but for whoever might come across this thread in the future with similar ideas, as mentioned by various posters before me going overseas to ordain and train is no easy task. It would be easier to take advantage of the few opportunities that do exist in the US.

The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas offers monastic training for both men and women, including full ordination in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya lineage, and you will have access to excellent resources and teachers in English. However, the monastic life is strict and challenging. You can live there for a while as a lay volunteer or attend the practice sessions as a guest to see what life is like. Monastic life is also working life, you will be busy with work pretty much all day outside of sessions.

Sravasti Abbey has an Exploring Monastic Life programme annually for people who are interested, and they offer monastic training and novice ordination in the Dharmaguptaka lineage, although their teachings and practices are primarily Gelug (they usually go to Taiwan for the full ordinations). The community is primarily nuns (as far as I know).

Deer Park, Blue Cliff, and Magnolia Grove Monasteries in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition also offers monastic training and full ordination in the Dharmaguptaka lineage. You should be able to join these communities with only English fluency.

These are the places that I know of with structured programmes for those interested in monastic life in the US that you could join without having to learn another language, I am sure there are others out there too. There are even more options for good monastic life in the US if you spoke Chinese.
frankie
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by frankie »

Zhen Li wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:57 am Good postings. I think there is something that can be said for your point frankie, but it is not enough that Dharma is natural law when we are limited humans who must work within the confines of the age of the decline of Dharma. Frankly, discipline is going to continue to decline everywhere and while we may see temporary growth in Sanghas (though most, even in the west are declining after a few decades of growth), it will be fleeting. This underlines all the more how important it is for us to settle our birth in the Pure Land now. Do not wait until the moment of death, because by then it may be too late.

In terms of decadancies in the east versus west, frankly it is the same in society in my opinion. As for sanghas, there are still more dedicated practitioners in the east. Contrary to your claim, I would say it will still always be like this, at least for a long time. Chinese Buddhism went to North America for a lot of reasons. For some, it is because of Communist China's crackdown on religion. Xi is now intensifying the anti-Buddhist persecution again (though the media focuses only on Islam), so we might be seeing some Chinese masters leaving again at some point. Otherwise, it is largely to cater to overseas Chinese communities. For Fo Guang Shan, for instance, they paid lipservice to localising for the non-Chinese speaking communities, but never actually followed through—their focus was always and the Chinese community. This is simply because non-Chinese don't know about the importance of dāna, so if we want a robust sangha in the west, we need to increase dāna. As for Japanese sects coming west, there are also a lot of reasons. For Jōdo Shinshū, again, it started like with the Chinese sects, in order to cater to overseas Japanese, but now it is becoming localised because the Japanese communities are shrinking. Zen is a mixed bag, I can't talk about it as well, but zen is still bigger in Japan (is this necessary to even point out?).

In terms of scholarship, unfortunately the scholarship in English is meagre compared to what you can find in Japanese and Chinese. There are just so many more Buddhist universities, but also scholars in national universities, who focus on Buddhism in Asia that it is not even a fair comparison. Also, the kind of scholarship is different. Western scholars are interested more in histories and explaining things on a bigger scale, maybe they are still trying to grapple with the thing that is Buddhism, whereas in Asia it is all around one so this is not so common—scholars in Asia tend to focus more on the minutiae of a particular text they are focusing on. Also, western scholarship tends to be stronger in ethnography and anthropology. So, they are not so comparable. If we are talking about Buddhist-led or seminary style education, Asia still leads the way. The sheer volume of scholarly material in Chinese and Japanese (we are talking entire floors of libraries) just cannot compare.

This is not about finding fault, just a reality check. We can practice in the west but it's a Dharma borderland. It's nice to be optimistic, but we should have a clear view of what things are like. If we secure our birth in the Pure Land, we don't need to worry about samsaric realms.

Your analysis is relevant, largely, perhaps to China and Japan. Although I maintain the veracity of my comments concerning them. Additionally, monastics and officials from there get posted to the west to cater for local Chinese/Japanese, initially, and then...this is for the benefit of all.

We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!

Remember, too, how we have transposed traditions now in the west who have flourishing monasteries, dana arrangements with lay supporters and sponsored publishing arms as well. Not to mention how much great material is also sponsored by reputable online translation organisations.
If we have the money to spend there are also several top class Buddhist publishing houses and universities for whom most quality academics would love to get their books into...and indeed do.

Your points about western scholarship are generalized and not based on any hard facts I could speak to. Others in their specialized fields may put forth reasons to disagree.

The gap between east and west in the democratization of both access to knowledge and its dissemination and practice across the board, is rapidly narrowing. Something I feel Gautama, Bodhidharma, Padmasambhava, et al, would have been delighted with. Let us, indeed, be forever grateful to the temporary stewardship of nations like Japan and China and yet also celebrate the probable saviour of the Buddhadharma from near extinction by the west and welcome its resurgent flourishing.

Given the incredibly short and efficient timespan this is taking place within, I certainly have nothing but continued optimism for further developments. Save for global man-made catastrophe, it's a trending inevitability. Won't be long now before the well trodden paths of westerners to take advantage of both academic and practice opportunities in the east... will be reversed - is already happening actually.
Last edited by frankie on Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Zhen Li
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
I have no intention to mitigate the spread of the Dharma, of course. I am just trying to describe what I see. I wish your description was accurate but fortunately the Dharma is not as moribund in Asia as you are suggesting. I can go to far more Dharma services here and there are so many Buddhist universities and libraries within a few hours drive/train ride that it is not even comparable. But definitely Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhism is more entrenched in the west, which is good for them.

You are right that some Chinese and Japanese speakers read English translations but it really depends on the texts. There are pretty good kanbun glosses of Chinese sūtras, as well as modern Chinese and Japanese translations, that this is not really necessary. At the end of the day, if the sūtra is available in Sanskrit, I will read the Sanskrit first. If there is no Sanskrit, I will read the Chinese. I would only read the English as a reference to the Sanskrit or Chinese, simply because English translations without plenty of annotation are usually obscuring the words that are lying behind them. With the Chinese, it is much easier to find the Sanskrit using a dictionary like Hirakawa's or DDB. This brings the topic back to the matter the OP was discussing—indeed it is worthwhile to study Chinese if you are interested in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Sanskrit is also worthwhile. Japanese is useful if you are into a Japanese sect but keeping in mind that most core religious material in Japanese is quite hard to understand if you learn modern Japanese.
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am If we have the money to spend there are also several top class Buddhist publishing houses and universities for whom most quality academics would love to get their books into...and indeed do.

Your points about western scholarship are generalized and not based on any hard facts I could speak to. Others in their specialized fields may put forth reasons to disagree.
I am not claiming that there are not Buddhist publishers or universities in the west. This is just a comparison. In terms of sheer volume of material, there is an order of magnitude more in Japanese and Chinese. I don't want to mitigate English langauge Buddhism, obviously, since I am involved in it and I also am involved in translation. I am simply trying to point out that the idea that western Buddhism is the salvation of the Dharma, while Asian Buddhism is moribund and dying is whiggish and messianic, and is also dismissive and boorish. I am not saying that you are claiming this idea is valud, this is just what my impression is from what you wrote, so if you feel I misunderstood you please forgive me.
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am Given the incredibly short and efficient timespan this is taking place within, I certainly have nothing but continued optimism for further developments. Save for global man-made catastrophe, it's a trending inevitability. Won't be long now before the well trodden paths of westerners to take advantage of both academic and practice opportunities in the east... will be reversed - is already happening actually.
This is what I am trying to say. The Dharma spread to the west and people were very avid about it, particularly when these ideas were very new and exciting. As humans, regardless of the culture, our attention span is short. After we get through the early romantic phase of exoticisation and attraction to a new tradition, we realise that actually the Dharma is hard... And we actually have to put in a lot of work to get results in this life... And that to have a Sangha we need to give, and to have the Dharma we have to learn Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and put in the unpaid hours of work in translation for texts that may well soon be forgotten, etc. Anyway, if we have bodhicitta, we should not be discouraged. I translate and study Dharma just because it is my karma and I have set those cogs in motion, but for my liberation I just entrust in Amida Buddha knowing that no amount of study and learning is going to help me get anywhere.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by frankie »

Zhen Li wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:47 pm
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
I have no intention to mitigate the spread of the Dharma, of course. I am just trying to describe what I see. I wish your description was accurate but fortunately the Dharma is not as moribund in Asia as you are suggesting. I can go to far more Dharma services here and there are so many Buddhist universities and libraries within a few hours drive/train ride that it is not even comparable. But definitely Theravāda and Tibetan Buddhism is more entrenched in the west, which is good for them.

You are right that some Chinese and Japanese speakers read English translations but it really depends on the texts. There are pretty good kanbun glosses of Chinese sūtras, as well as modern Chinese and Japanese translations, that this is not really necessary. At the end of the day, if the sūtra is available in Sanskrit, I will read the Sanskrit first. If there is no Sanskrit, I will read the Chinese. I would only read the English as a reference to the Sanskrit or Chinese, simply because English translations without plenty of annotation are usually obscuring the words that are lying behind them. With the Chinese, it is much easier to find the Sanskrit using a dictionary like Hirakawa's or DDB. This brings the topic back to the matter the OP was discussing—indeed it is worthwhile to study Chinese if you are interested in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Sanskrit is also worthwhile. Japanese is useful if you are into a Japanese sect but keeping in mind that most core religious material in Japanese is quite hard to understand if you learn modern Japanese.
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am If we have the money to spend there are also several top class Buddhist publishing houses and universities for whom most quality academics would love to get their books into...and indeed do.

Your points about western scholarship are generalized and not based on any hard facts I could speak to. Others in their specialized fields may put forth reasons to disagree.
I am not claiming that there are not Buddhist publishers or universities in the west. This is just a comparison. In terms of sheer volume of material, there is an order of magnitude more in Japanese and Chinese. I don't want to mitigate English langauge Buddhism, obviously, since I am involved in it and I also am involved in translation. I am simply trying to point out that the idea that western Buddhism is the salvation of the Dharma, while Asian Buddhism is moribund and dying is whiggish and messianic, and is also dismissive and boorish. I am not saying that you are claiming this idea is valud, this is just what my impression is from what you wrote, so if you feel I misunderstood you please forgive me.
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am Given the incredibly short and efficient timespan this is taking place within, I certainly have nothing but continued optimism for further developments. Save for global man-made catastrophe, it's a trending inevitability. Won't be long now before the well trodden paths of westerners to take advantage of both academic and practice opportunities in the east... will be reversed - is already happening actually.
This is what I am trying to say. The Dharma spread to the west and people were very avid about it, particularly when these ideas were very new and exciting. As humans, regardless of the culture, our attention span is short. After we get through the early romantic phase of exoticisation and attraction to a new tradition, we realise that actually the Dharma is hard... And we actually have to put in a lot of work to get results in this life... And that to have a Sangha we need to give, and to have the Dharma we have to learn Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and put in the unpaid hours of work in translation for texts that may well soon be forgotten, etc. Anyway, if we have bodhicitta, we should not be discouraged. I translate and study Dharma just because it is my karma and I have set those cogs in motion, but for my liberation I just entrust in Amida Buddha knowing that no amount of study and learning is going to help me get anywhere.
You strike me as being very sincere and passionate. I'm happy to agree to disagree on certain points, knowing from your detailed and intelligent responses the depth and feeling you have for the work you're engaged in.

I won't deny that my enthusiasm for the work going on in the west to both practice and make Buddhism intelligently accessible for a wide variety of temperaments not tied into a mindset more collective, socially repressed and easily acquiesced - but rather fiercely independent and democratic, with an, oftentimes, unhealthy bent towards individuality - could be seen as boorish. So of course I would forgive anyone reading that into it. I would only remind, that one will often find what one is looking for.

The work going on here to seed and grow the dharma despite the many exploitations, scandals and betrayals by eastern teachers is nothing short of heroic. I am not only extremely proud of all those westerners involved in and courageously persevering in this great work, but will continue to sing it from the rooftops and also be on the lookout for discouraging and sneakily peevish sniping from the sidelines.

Again...being on the lookout for it, I do often find it.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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Tagging on to Zhen Li's comments, especially in terms of E. Asian Buddhism - without the languages, its hard to appreciate what it actually is - its breadth, depth, and, despite reports of its demise, its enduring robustness. There is nowhere in the West where it would be completely ordinary to see an ascetic practitioner come wandering out of the mountains. Just because its not as robust as it was 800 years ago doesn't mean its nothing. Another thing about E. Asian Buddhism, particularly as compared to Tibetan traditions, teachers were not forcibly ejected out into the world in the last few generations. Chinese teachers maybe were ejected out of the mainland but were able to go to Hong Kong and Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora generally where there are thriving Buddhist communities. In Japan, other than adventurous and arguably marginal teachers in the post-war period, there has been no reason to venture out into the world except as a tourist, no need to make a living in exile. I don't mean this in a critical way - the necessities confronting Tibetans have spread Tibetan traditions throughout the world - I'm a little critical of Japanese and Chinese traditions which I think are, in terms of their responsibility to spread dharma to a world thirsty for it, complacent, especially when their resources are taken into account. There have of course been great E. Asian teachers who have made strong efforts at outreach to Westerners, but I think language barriers have limited their success.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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Queequeg wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:59 pmTagging on to Zhen Li's comments, especially in terms of E. Asian Buddhism - without the languages, its hard to appreciate what it actually is - its breadth, depth, and, despite reports of its demise, its enduring robustness. There is nowhere in the West where it would be completely ordinary to see an ascetic practitioner come wandering out of the mountains. Just because its not as robust as it was 800 years ago doesn't mean its nothing.
It's pretty much like if we reverse the positions of Christianity and Buddhism in the US. If there were a few Buddhist temple for every American town (even if most of them are getting gradually empty), or be seeing the progression towards that, then we would be seeing something like a role reversal. Give western Buddhism 800 years and maybe, if the conditions are perfect, something like this might happen. Here, on a daily basis I see monastics in public, from time to time, if I'm in a more rural area, maybe a yamabushi. In North America, if I don't go to a temple, I might only see a monastic at random once in a decade and somewhere like an airport. Likewise, in Japan there are living pilgrimage traditions with thousands of participants each year. Some people repeat the same pilgrimage dozens of times in their lives. You rarely see this in the west, and I am not sure anywhere has yet been considered a veritable holy site in western Buddhism recognised by wide swathes of Buddhists. This is just to compare East Asia to North America, to compare Tibet, Nepal, India, or the Theravada countries to the west we see different differences but much the same picture overall.

After spending so long in Asia, if I go to a temple in the west it just feels like a missionary frontier temple, and not really the core of a thriving tradition like frankie is saying. Anyway, this is just a description and not an aspiration. We have to keep in mind that we should not throw out the east and eastern Buddhism just because we have made a few inroads. We need to keep the focus on transmitting what is currently in Asia to the west, just as for centuries Chinese Buddhists focused on getting whatever they can from India to China, and translated and studied.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by PeterC »

frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am
We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
What are you basing this assertion on? What you can read in decent translation in English is only a small fraction of what is available in Chinese and Japanese. There are far, far more qualified teachers in the East Asian traditions in Asia than in the West - it's not even close. And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.

This isn't a competition, of course everyone wants to see the Dharma develop everywhere. But we have to be honest about where the expertise is today.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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Zhen Li wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:51 am Likewise, in Japan there are living pilgrimage traditions with thousands of participants each year. Some people repeat the same pilgrimage dozens of times in their lives. You rarely see this in the west, and I am not sure anywhere has yet been considered a veritable holy site in western Buddhism recognised by wide swathes of Buddhists.
Pilgrimage combines travel and devotion, two of my favorite activities. I've done a good part of the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage route, not quite in order, and mostly by car and public transport, and my wife specializes in pilgrimage art. I've always viewed my visits to Buddhist temples and centers as merit accruing activities, even if its just a detour on the way to someplace else. Pilgrimage practices have a special place in my world.

I've thought of plotting pilgrimage routes around NYC, and through the Hudson Valley - there are enough temples and dharma centers that it could work. To popularize the practice, we'd need to record the benefits that accrue from such activities... invite writers for Tricycle to undertake the practice and journal it... The playbook to establish popular traditions are there in the historical record... it might not quite appeal to the more intellectual and idealistic practitioners that tend to dominate among Western sanghas... a little too much woowoo...

I'm joking a little bit, but not that much.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by frankie »

PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am
We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
What are you basing this assertion on? What you can read in decent translation in English is only a small fraction of what is available in Chinese and Japanese. There are far, far more qualified teachers in the East Asian traditions in Asia than in the West - it's not even close. And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.

This isn't a competition, of course everyone wants to see the Dharma develop everywhere. But we have to be honest about where the expertise is today.
Given the ubiquity of english online and it increasingly being the world language moving forward; many find it simpler/more convenient to read it in English than having to educate themselves in the classical old chinese that old Buddhist texts are composed in. There are now courses being taught, however, for the ultra-serious and academically minded chinese to learn the classical chinese charcters in order to tackle the texts in their original.

Nevertheless, it seems that the first option will preferentially and naturally outstrip the second in popularity, over time.

Everything is change. Change is everything.

Not being competitive would be the ideal, yes.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by PeterC »

frankie wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:48 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am
We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
What are you basing this assertion on? What you can read in decent translation in English is only a small fraction of what is available in Chinese and Japanese. There are far, far more qualified teachers in the East Asian traditions in Asia than in the West - it's not even close. And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.

This isn't a competition, of course everyone wants to see the Dharma develop everywhere. But we have to be honest about where the expertise is today.
Given the ubiquity of english online and it increasingly being the world language moving forward; many find it simpler/more convenient to read it in English than having to educate themselves in the classical old chinese that old Buddhist texts are composed in. There are now courses being taught, however, for the ultra-serious and academically minded chinese to learn the classical chinese charcters in order to tackle the texts in their original.

Nevertheless, it seems that the first option will preferentially and naturally outstrip the second in popularity, over time.

Everything is change. Change is everything.

Not being competitive would be the ideal, yes.
Ok, that’s not exactly what I was asking - I was asking how you know that? I know a lot of Chinese Buddhists and I know none who are reading materials in English.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by frankie »

PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:32 pm
frankie wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:48 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am

What are you basing this assertion on? What you can read in decent translation in English is only a small fraction of what is available in Chinese and Japanese. There are far, far more qualified teachers in the East Asian traditions in Asia than in the West - it's not even close. And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.

This isn't a competition, of course everyone wants to see the Dharma develop everywhere. But we have to be honest about where the expertise is today.
Given the ubiquity of english online and it increasingly being the world language moving forward; many find it simpler/more convenient to read it in English than having to educate themselves in the classical old chinese that old Buddhist texts are composed in. There are now courses being taught, however, for the ultra-serious and academically minded chinese to learn the classical chinese charcters in order to tackle the texts in their original.

Nevertheless, it seems that the first option will preferentially and naturally outstrip the second in popularity, over time.

Everything is change. Change is everything.

Not being competitive would be the ideal, yes.
Ok, that’s not exactly what I was asking - I was asking how you know that? I know a lot of Chinese Buddhists and I know none who are reading materials in English.

Do they speak/read english well..and if so, are you seriously telling us that they read no Buddhism in English, either in books or online? Only I know several bilinguals who will often compare and contrast for a variety of reasons. Often an irresistible temptation, actually.
Last edited by frankie on Mon Sep 20, 2021 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

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frankie wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 4:08 pmDo they speak/read english well..and if so, are you seriously telling us that they read no Buddhism in English, either in books or online? Only I know several bilinguals who will often compare and contrast for a variety of reasons. Often an irresistible temptation, actually.
To focus back again to what you were claiming. You were saying that Chinese and Japanese find "more meaning, practicality, and profundity" in reading their own texts translated back to them in English.

Can we have some evidence of this? Articles? Forewords to books?

Also, is this all translations, or just some really good ones? For instance, some translations are frankly sloppy and have no care put into them. Others are well annotated. But even when well annotated, there is always going to be an extra level of obscurity added because we're reading it filtered through the interpretation of another person.

Rather than finding bilingual Buddhists who read "no" books, since you made this claim to begin with, the burden of proof is on you to give us evidence of impressions of greater meaning, practicality, and profundity from reading English translations than the original texts.

My two cents is that no English translation ever matches the elegance of Chinese. It is so succinct and can say so much in just a few characters.

Maybe to give an example. Aśvaghoṣa's Sanskrit is extremely beautiful and uses all sorts of literary techniques like alliteration and polyptoton which can't be done in English:

aikṣvāka ikṣvākusamaprabhāvaḥ śākyeṣvaśakyeṣu viśuddhavṛttaḥ|
priyaḥ śaraccandra iva prajānāṃ śuddhodano nāma babhūva rājā||

Dharmakṣema translates this into Chinese as follows:

甘蔗之苗裔 釋迦無勝王
淨財徳純備 故名曰淨飯

Already a lot of terms aren't found from the Sanskrit:
ikṣvākusamaprabhāvaḥ and aśakyeṣu
priyaḥ śaraccandra iva is seemingly misinterpreted

But, nonetheless, the verse is elegant and beautiful and has a very even 20 characters. I can't speak about meter or prosody in Chinese, but it might also have something.

Samuel Beal translates this as
(There was) a descendant of the Ikshvâku (family), an invincible Sâkya monarch, pure in mind (mental gifts) and of unspotted virtue, called therefore ’Pure-rice’ (Suddhodana).

The fact that he has to gloss everything in the text in parentheses ruins the poetic aspect, and no attempt is made at keeping it in meter (which is fine, in terms of accuracy, but if we are talking about the poetic impact of course something is lost). Also, the third pada is not translated in a satisfactory way, in my opinion. Pure in mind is actually pure in wealth (淨財), whether it is mental or not is not made clear and the ambiguity is part of the poetry. An English reader will be forced into one interpretation by the translator, but a Chinese one will have many possibilities open to them. Also "virtue" is better translated as merit, but at the time Beal was translating that was not necessarily an established term in English language Buddhism.

I don't think it was necessarily a great example, but it's a verse that I liked in Sanskrit so wanted to explore it in this way. But you can see how there are so many possibilities of interpretation—which adds to the meaning and profundity in Chinese, which we can't get in the English version. Also, we are beholden to the accuracy or inaccuracy of the translator. This is also the case with Dharmakṣema—which is why I think often priority should be given to Sanskrit over Chinese if available, but not when we only have late Nepalese manuscripts (which is often the case).
:soapbox:
ItsRaining
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by ItsRaining »

frankie wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:48 pm
PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am
frankie wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:21 am
We're experiencing a perfectly natural and beneficial historic drift. You can try your best to 'mitigate' it, but it is inevitable and needs celebrating and working with, rather than wasting time on doing a King Canute. There are Chinese and Japanese, in fact, who, with the internet and ever easier access to the world language of English, are now finding more meaning, practicality, and profundity in reading their own texts translated back to them in English!
What are you basing this assertion on? What you can read in decent translation in English is only a small fraction of what is available in Chinese and Japanese. There are far, far more qualified teachers in the East Asian traditions in Asia than in the West - it's not even close. And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.

This isn't a competition, of course everyone wants to see the Dharma develop everywhere. But we have to be honest about where the expertise is today.
Given the ubiquity of english online and it increasingly being the world language moving forward; many find it simpler/more convenient to read it in English than having to educate themselves in the classical old chinese that old Buddhist texts are composed in. There are now courses being taught, however, for the ultra-serious and academically minded chinese to learn the classical chinese charcters in order to tackle the texts in their original.

Nevertheless, it seems that the first option will preferentially and naturally outstrip the second in popularity, over time.

Everything is change. Change is everything.

Not being competitive would be the ideal, yes.
Lmao learning Classical Chinese is much simpler than English for Chinese speakers and I’m guessing Japanese ones. You get taught the language from since you are a child in China. And most would find it more eloquent than anything produced in English.
PeterC
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by PeterC »

frankie wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 1:48 pm There are now courses being taught, however, for the ultra-serious and academically minded chinese to learn the classical chinese charcters in order to tackle the texts in their original.
Do you actually know anything about classical chinese? If you had only ever read modern chinese and tried to read classical Dharma texts with no preparation, there is a certain amount of technical vocabulary you would need (which is easy to spot in the text) and you would need a little familiarity with the structure. But it's really not hard at all. And in the course of learning modern Chinese, you would have been exposed to a little classical Chinese anyway (poems, etc.). Even if you started off reading simplified chinese it is really not hard at all to read traditional. And almost every classical dharma text imaginable is available in simplified anyway. If it weren't, you could run it through a converter in seconds. Any native speaker would prefer to invest the (limited) amount of time to get up that learning curve rather than slog through bad translations in english. And frankly, a large proportion of english translations are not great: they involve translators making somewhat arbitrary choices and not fully explaining them. Moreover someone starting to read the dharma in english will have to absorb the same technical vocabulary anyway, just in a foreign language.

Now if you wanted to read, say, large seal script, then sure, that would be hard work. But nobody is doing that.

Given your comments, I question whether you have any direct experience of the issue you're discussing.
SilenceMonkey
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by SilenceMonkey »

PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.
I agree with the rest of what you say, but I'd just like to add that most Chinese speaking people can't actually read the sutras on their own. There are books written by dharma teachers explaining the sutras in colloquial speech, which people would read as study. Often people will recite sutras without knowing what's written in them, or only understanding a certain amount.

So I think there might be some truth to the idea of Asian people reading sutras in English so they can understand. Then again, their English would have to be good enough to understand Buddhist language.

Challenges abound.
Zhen Li wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:37 am
My two cents is that no English translation ever matches the elegance of Chinese.
And yes, I very much agree with this sentiment. The atmosphere of the Dharma in chinese language is something truly inexplicable and beyond compare. 佛法香味 不可思量
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Zhen Li
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by Zhen Li »

In Japanese there are both kanbun glosses, which preserves all the characters but arranges them in a way intelligible to Japanese grammar, and straight Japanese translations.

E.g.
一時佛住王舎城耆闍崛山中
becomes
一時、仏住タマヒテ↢王舎城耆闍崛山
becomes
ひと時、 仏、 王舎城耆闍崛山のうちに住したまひき
becomes
あるとき、 釈尊は王舎城の耆闍崛山においでになって
And there are notes to explain the technical terms in contemporary Japanese, but can explain how the same character might he different nuances.

With the English, you lose all the reference to the Chinese. So, even a Japanese translation is a thousand times better for a Japanese reader than English. Not that this is available for all sūtras, but a lot more than is available in English can be found like this.
PeterC
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Re: Would learning Mandarin or Japanese allow you to practice in another country?

Post by PeterC »

SilenceMonkey wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 2:48 am
PeterC wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:32 am And I really cannot imagine a native Chinese or Japanese speaker preferring to read a Dharma text in English than in their own language.
I agree with the rest of what you say, but I'd just like to add that most Chinese speaking people can't actually read the sutras on their own. There are books written by dharma teachers explaining the sutras in colloquial speech, which people would read as study. Often people will recite sutras without knowing what's written in them, or only understanding a certain amount.

So I think there might be some truth to the idea of Asian people reading sutras in English so they can understand. Then again, their English would have to be good enough to understand Buddhist language.

Challenges abound.
There are also a lot of English-speakers reading the sutras in English who don’t know what they mean without explanation. The majority, really. But I agree with your broader point.
Zhen Li wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:37 am
My two cents is that no English translation ever matches the elegance of Chinese.
And yes, I very much agree with this sentiment. The atmosphere of the Dharma in chinese language is something truly inexplicable and beyond compare. 佛法香味 不可思量
Different languages are good for different things. Chinese is a language of great concision and elegance, which really cannot be replicated in English. English is great for technical topics because it can be used to write with very low ambiguity. I don’t dislike translations, you can do perfectly good translations of the meaning of texts between the two languages. But the feeling doesn’t really translate.
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