Dear Piya Tan,
> I am sure most scholars and writers would forgive meditation teachers and
> practitioners for their inaccurate language.
Yes, of course. But one can always strive for accuracy as an ideal.
> Indeed I know from many translations of the teachings of meditation
teachers
> terms are never as accurate as one would expect
That's fine by me if you are working directly with a suitably qualified
meditation teacher.
[snip]
> I think being exact in the letter is more a problem of the modern scribal
tradition as very
> often individual scholars working on their own need some sort clear
terminology in
> order to build a paradigm or work with one.
But most individual scholars don't work entirely on their own -- we are
blessed with access to learned and accomplished Buddhist teachers in many
countries around the work where Buddhism was not historically present. In my
experience, they are almsot always delighted to discuss difficult questions
of terminology and the underlying concepts and doctrines. When they don't
know personally, they usually say so. However, what you say about the need
to have a quasi-standardized terminology is true -- I think one needs this
for the written and published word while oral teachings can be more flexible
and ad hoc.
> Moreover, English is a living language, so we can invent new words, give
new meanings
> to old words, or simply use loan words. The important thing is to define
our usage
> and be consistent.
Again, I agree with you. For example, Western psychological terminology has
considerably advanced and evolved since the days of the early PTS
translations. There are now many more words available which seem to fit as
translations of Buddhist technical terms better.
> As such, I find no problem when a meditation teachers say something like
"the
> meditation sign appears like such and such". Understandably exacting
scholars might
> find this laughable, but I wonder if one might be more tickled to be so
exact about
> something one has not experienced at all!
A nimitta in a meditation context is, in a sense, a "sign" in that it
signifies a particular stage of meditation experience but that is not what
it is really. Still, if you have a teacher on hand who is guiding you and
your aim is meditational accomplishment and liberation, then I suppose it
does not matter. Hence, my comments concern translators and scholars
outside of that situation -- to my mind, a scholar who is not "exacting" is
not a real scholar but a dilletante.
[snip]
> Spirituality needs to be tempered with scholarship, and scholarship needs
to be
> enlivened by spirituality. (Oh dear, now I think someone might take issue
with the
> word "spirituality"). Words, words, words, Polonius.
I very much agree with you. The problem is that there is still much
influential material in circulation which was produced by scholars who had
not spiritual training or who were not even Buddhists.
> Today, during the Theravada Conference at the National University of
Singapore, Prof.
> Mun-Keat Choong.
Lucky you ! I look forward to seeing new publications by this scholar. I
believe Pali textual studies can benefit greatly from comparative work with
Chinese parallel material.
> BTW, Stephen, I really hope you would put your Chinese Buddhist texts
online for our
> benefit.
Patience. Rome wasn't built in a day !
Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge
PS. I got this announcement from the H-Buddhism list -- obviously I have
not yet seem it but it sounds interesting.
Classical Chinese
A Basic Reader in Three Volumes
Naiying Yuan
Haitao Tang and James Geiss
http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/7779.html
Three-volume set: 0-691-11831-0 Paper $39.50 US and L26.95
832 pages. 2 tables. 3 maps. 8 1/4 x 11.