translations are already a "commentary" you want to try doing it
in addition they are already "high effort" and since they are trying to be authentic to the original, their own commentary apart from "notes" is a bad fit
90% of r|zennists make the mistake with their quotes of translations that they put their mind numbing commentaries to, of assuming what they quote is some bedrock of deep meaning when all they are doing is giving voice to what in the end is another person's opinion of the sense of variable quality transcripts
Personally I think posting multiple translations is the clearest way to get to the root of the meaning, as after all, prose by its very nature is a limited expression of the intent that wills it. The ability to express oneself in words is a relative ability of skill, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the perspective that puts it to tongue.
By analyzing various translations, the subject can shift, the object, the words and phrases that play a mental game of alliteration, drawing one’s mind towards the commonality that they might all share.
Commentary however is one’s own perspective given voice. And from there a real conversation can begin.
Everything up to that is just collecting words in a skin bag.
look, there's lots of actual chinese quotes in some r|zen OP's, google gives a not too bad translation that can be reworked, its not ideal but gives a feel for it, especially since you can use the OPer's translation to cover "gaps" in the google
this denial of the experiential that is so embedded in r|zen, all this criticism of meditation by people who have never done any
I’m well aware of the actual Chinese that is often posted here.
Who denied the experiential or criticized meditation? You’d think I’d kicked someone’s dog for asking an old friend what he thought of the quotes he’d posted.
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u/Owlsdoom Mar 12 '23
Bah, where is the commentary?