Ordinarily, I’d send this to our friend Rod Meade Sperry at The Worst Horse. Unfortunately for us, he’s out of town for a little while, so here it is! I spotted this fellow while in a Pasadena Target store the other day, as I was leaving. When I inquired if it was a return item or something, the clerk told me that it wasn’t. ”I think somebody who works here just put it there.” Huh.
Today’s quote comes to us from our friend the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Born Jeffrey Block in Brooklyn in 1944, Bhikkhu Bodhi was ordained in the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Sri Lanka at age twenty-eight. In 1984, he succeeded the great Venerable Nyanaponika Thera as editor of the Buddhist Publication Society. By 1988, the venerable was named president of the organization. He would hold these positions until 2002, when he returned to the United States.
He now lives at Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, NY, and teaches there and at Bodhi Monastery in Lafayette, NJ. He also serves as chairman of the Yin Shun Foundation, an organization devoted to translating into English the works of the late Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Master Yin Shun.
The Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s published works include The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering, The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (with the Venerable Bhikkhu Nanamoli), Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: An Anthology of Suttas from the Anguttara Nikaya (with the Venerable Nyanaponika Thera), The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Samyutta Nikaya, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha, and the enormously popular collection In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon.
Since his return to the United States, the venerable has been actively involved in global relief and environmental efforts. He played a primary role in founding Buddhist Global Relief, a visionary humanitarian organization based in the United States. In addition, he co-authored (with David Loy and John Stanley) the Buddhist Climate Declaration—a pan-Buddhist declaration on climate change that an international collection of Buddhist clergy (including myself) signed. He was also one of the many diverse religious leaders who converged on Copenhagen during the recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
I interviewed Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi recently, and part of our interview found its way to Shambhala Sun Space. I’ll have an update soon about the rest of that conversation.
Here’s the quote, from the venerable’s teaching “Taking Stock of Oneself”:
Confidence in the Buddhist path is a prerequisite for persisting on this journey. Yet it often happens that though we may be fully convinced of the liberating efficacy of the Dhamma, we stumble along perplexed as to how we can apply the Dhamma fruitfully to ourselves. One major step towards reaping the benefits of Dhamma practice consists in making an honest assessment of one’s own character. If we are to utilize effectively the methods the Buddha has taught for overcoming the mind’s defilements, we first must take stock of those particular defilements that are prevalent in our individual makeup. It will not suffice for us to sit back and console ourselves with the thought that the path leads infallibly to the end of greed, hate and delusion. For the path to be effective in our own practice, we have to become familiar with our own persistent greeds, hates and delusions as they crop up in the round of daily life. Without this honest confrontation with ourselves, all our other pursuits of Dhamma may be to no avail and can actually lead us astray. Though we may gain extensive knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures, clarify our view and sharpen our powers of thought, invest so many hours on the meditation cushion and walkway, if we do not attend to the blemishes in our characters, these other achievements, far from extricating the defilements, may instead only go to reinforce them.
Courtesy of the Buddhist Scholars Information Network (H-Buddhism):
Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages Center for Buddhist Studies, University of California, Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, Stanford University
Summer Program: Words of Wisdom: Toward a Western Terminology for Buddhist Texts
Berkeley, CA, USA. June 14-July 2, 2010
Core Faculty: Luis Gomez, Michael Hahn
Associate Faculty: Paul Harrison, Alexander von Rospatt, Carmen Dragonetti, Fernando Tola
Putting the Dharma into the words of a new culture is a task that has traditionally unfolded over several generations. In the West, where the languages of educated discourse are sophisticated and rich with layers of meaning, the challenges of being able to convey the Buddhist teachings as faithfully as possible are especially daunting.
This intensive three-week program, intended primarily for graduate students in Buddhism, Indology, or allied fields, is a small step toward a clear and consistent terminology or (more modestly) developing skills and strategies for finding the best translation
equivalents in contemporary English.The text for the program is the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra. We will read the Sanskrit together with the Tibetan and Chinese translations. This close reading will address problems of interpretation, as well as the technical and stylistic challenges faced by the translator of classical Buddhist texts. Students should have facility in Sanskrit; knowledge of Tibetan or Chinese will be helpful.
Format and Facilities
Guided by distinguished faculty, students will meet 5 hours a day, five days a week to work with the challenges posed by the text. Sessions will be held from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm. Meals are provided, and housing is an easy walk. Students will have access to the libraries of the Mangalam Research Center and the University of California at Berkeley (a 10-minute walk). Rapid Transit to San Francisco is half-a-block away.
Focus
The focus will be on key terms of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra in the context of the profound Mahayana vision it sets forth. We will examine vocabulary choices in both source and target languages, sensitive to subtle shifts in meaning between languages with different philosophical underpinnings. Among the topics to be explored and skills to be honed:
• Sanskrit roots, etymology, and the relation of Buddhist Sanskrit to other forms of Sanskrit
• Issues of context and intertexuality.
• comparison with the Tibetan and Chinese, with reference to commentaries.
• stylistic choices and terminology in existing translations in both canonical and modern languages
• general issues in the theory and practice of translation as they arise in rendering a classic Buddh ist text into a modern idiom.
Costs
Tuition: $1,200 (includes lunch daily).
Food and Lodging
$1,350. Total cost: $2,550.
Applications
The program is intended for advanced graduate students, but applications from all qualified candidates will be considered. Please submit an application by March 15, 2010 to summerprograms@mangalamresearch.org. Include a short statement of purpose, a description of language skills and how acquired, and a 1–2 paragraph letter of endorsement from your principal adviser. Students completing the program will receive a formal letter from the Buddhist Studies program of the University of California, Berkeley, certifying that the course corresponds to a semester long graduate seminar of fifteen weeks, with five hours of instruction per week.”
Maximum number of participants is 15. Applicants will be notified by April 10, 2010.
Photo by Dick Miller.
Today’s quote is another from our friend and past interviewee Joan Halifax Roshi, whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for in this post. This is it:
Death can come at any moment. You could die this afternoon; you could die tomorrow morning; you could die on your way to work; you could die in your sleep. Most of us try to avoid the sense that death can come at any time, but its timing is unknown to us. Can we live each day as if it were our last? Can we relate to one another as if there were no tomorrow?
Today’s quote comes to us from Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa, the great Indian Buddhist scholar of the fifth century, whom I first quoted and write a little biography for in this post. Here’s the quote, from his Visuddhimagga as translated by Henry Clarke Warren and published in The Teachings of the Buddha, ed. Jack Kornfield, pg. 18:
When body and mind dissolve, they do not exist anywhere, any more than musical notes lay heaped up anywhere. When a lute is played upon, there is no previous store of sound; and when the music ceases it does not go anywhere in space. It came into existence on account of the structure and stem of the lute and the exertions of the performer; and as it came into existence so it passes away.
In exactly the same way, all the elements of being, both corporeal and non-corporeal, come into existence after having been non-existent; and having come into existence pass away.
There is no self residing in the body and mind, but the cooperation of the conformations produces what people call a person. Paradoxical though it may seem: There is a path to walk on, there is walking being done, but there is no traveler. There are deeds being done, but there is no doer. There is blowing of the air, but there is no wind that does the blowing. The thought of self is an error and all existences are as hollow as the plantain tree and as empty as twirling water bubbles.
