Jin Fang has taken on the truly massive task of creating Chinese translation of MCTB2. The First Public Draft for Revision is now available for comment here.

It is being made available to get feedback on the translation so that it can be revised and polished, and that linked page provides an email address to which you can submit any helpful feedback you care to lend.

Please do not widely distribute it yet, as hopefully soon we will have an even better version that will serve that purpose.

Thanks in advance for any useful comments you offer.

May your comments and Jin Fang's remarkable efforts help many practitioners.

Thanks,

Daniel

This is a wonderful achievement! There is a huge and ever-growing market of Chinese folks, mostly young, coming to meditation, as evidenced by the numbers flowing to meditation centres around the region wherever they can find a space, since the centres in mainland China are often booked up long in advance. So to drop this text into a scene like that is likely to have a huge impact. The author’s title on the cover, 阿罗汉 Aluohan, Chinese for Arahant, has an even more powerful meaning than in English, since the Aluohans of old were legendary characters, represented in countless temples as those 108 unique and quirky statues in all kinds of poses and outfits and modes of expression. (Example here: https://images.app.goo.gl/WJgt54cQGpSfgPiP9). So the surprise for Chinese readers to see someone, and a Westerner at that, making this claim, is likely to draw a lot of varied kinds of attention ;-)

I wish my Chinese was good enough to read the whole book...

May the book travel far, stir lots of interest, and be read by many!

Nice

Quick comment -

He translates four paths as 四路 (four roads) which imo sounds strange? but the better Buddhist term for magga should be 四道 - see http://buddha-middle-path.blogspot.com/2013/09/khandhaayatanadhatumulasaccapaticcasamu.html

Or: 四圣道 (four saintly paths)  https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ro4RDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=%E5%9B%9B%E5%9C%A3%E9%81%93+Magga&source=bl&ots=8z3imxZmM3&sig=ACfU3U1nRvnWoapGxp2ABrT9S8ZgJydDjg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8y5X1zNviAhWR6XMBHTUUBEQQ6AEwBHoECAYQAQ

Also:

In page 394 he translated bahiya sutta as "seen is only seen, heard is only heard, sensation is only sensation, cognized is only cognized"

There is no "in the" in his translation, so it loses some of its meaning

would be better if it is translated as

佛說：在所見中，只有所見。在所聞中，只有所聞。在所感中，只有所感。在所知中，只有所知。如此會看到，的確無物在此1；婆醯迦，該如此修習。婆醯迦，你應該依此：在所見中，只有所見。在所聞中，只有所聞。在所感中，只有所感。在所知中，只有所知。如此你會看到，的確無物在這裡；如此，的確無物。什麼都沒有時，您將看到，你不在此處，不在彼處，也不在兩者之間。此即苦的止息2。（自說經1.10）

(Translation taken from the Chinese translation of Ajahn Amaro's book Small Boat Great Mountain)


This is more in line with "In the seen, only the seen, in the heard, only the heard.... etc"



Also, the seven points about fourth path I addressed in https://docs.google.com/document/d/18pnHNQJ6dahIKeQIpYIyruSpHnKr7nhbjn0vuxG2o94/edit doesn't seem to have been completely addressed in this draft

yes. The aluohan is the standard Chinese title for Arahant. And many Chinese people know the basic meaning of Arahant(aluohan). It will also give impact an Arahant author wrote the book.

• For the four path: thank you very much for feedback. The reason translate four path into four road: the four path in the mctb is differ from the traditional of four noble path. Mctb verson of four path in many situation refer to four stages toward and become Arahant. 

• For the page 394 translations, will look into detail to revise . Btw, the reason of not directly adopt the original old Chinese text: to make the translation more for modern readers. Yet it is still very nice to includes the old Chinese translation for reference in the book.
• Great thanks for feeckback and advice.

I’m following this thread with interest. In making various field translations of MCTB and Fire Kasina (and TMI, etc.) into Japanese for my introductory classes, I’m finding that Japanese people I’ve used them with respond best to modern interpretations of the terminology (employing a lot of transliterated English and Pali as well as popular terminology from psychology etc. reapplied) together with occasional mention of the ancient Sanskrit/Chinese-based transliterations and straight adaptations from Chinese as footnotes for further clarification. I look forward to the day when MCTB can also be translated into Japanese. There are significant hurdles, but the work being done here is inspiring!

Hi Jin Fang,

I think you are confusing 四圣谛 (which is Four Noble Truths) with 四圣道 (four saintly paths) which is... "及其相应之果:入流(sotàpatti)、。。。“ - https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ro4RDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=%E5%9B%9B%E5%9C%A3%E9%81%93&source=bl&ots=8z3inAUmL0&sig=ACfU3U1tqXNvGb4kQVJYuj0_ukmFnOD3fQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwibkN_Dnt_iAhXEbX0KHSMnBLk4ChDoATAJegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=%E5%9B%9B%E5%9C%A3%E9%81%93&f=false

The term Path in Four Paths is "Magga" which translates as 道

To be more exact, 四道 is more exact and is consistent with all the other dharma translations of the same term:

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=YRgYDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%E5%9B%9B%E9%81%93+magga&source=bl&ots=y_Dr8geRRs&sig=ACfU3U1BRcN1UBP3T8NVT-WHPq77-RddYA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi46-X9nt_iAhWBTX0KHdPMA5wQ6AEwBnoECAYQAQ

"... ... (入流道),还是第二道(一来道)、第三道(不来道)、第四道(阿拉汉道),每种道心都只生起一次。道心又称为“道智”(magga¤àõa),属于出世间善心(lokuttara-kusalacitta)。"

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=YRgYDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=%E5%9B%9B%E9%81%93+magga&source=bl&ots=y_Dr8geRRs&sig=ACfU3U1BRcN1UBP3T8NVT-WHPq77-RddYA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi46-X9nt_iAhWBTX0KHdPMA5wQ6AEwBnoECAYQAQ

此“道”，巴利文有三，一为magga，即中文译为八正道之“道”。magga原意指人....


Yes it is important to make it readable to the normal reader, however it has to be precise and retain the meaning to have the power and capacity to directly point out and cause awakening or direct realization. In other words, it must have the power to point out the essence. How it is worded may be secondary, but the essence must be there and cannot be lost. When I translated the Bahiya Sutta into Chinese along with my Chinese translation of Thusness 7 Stages (after having gone through a few iterations/editing) and posted it into a forum in China, someone from China instantly realized anatta (from I AM to Anatta/Thusness Stage 5 of http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html / http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/p/chinese-translation-of.html ) and with deep clarity, even though those are short texts and nowhere as long as MCTB. The words must have that powerful impact.

Personally I am in a position of having attained MCTB 4th Path and being able to read/write both Chinese and English, hence I wanted to take this opportunity to check out how the fourth path is pointed out in Chinese so that the essence is retained. Unfortunately I have other projects including writing my own guide for my community... so I cannot be more actively involved in translation work. I have personally translated the Thusness 7 Stages to Chinese and I understand it is not an easy task at all, to translate English dharma to Chinese. I greatly appreciate and commend your effort. Thank you.


p.s. as for dharma terms, I think it is better to remain consistent with the general dharma terms - like if everyone else is translating four paths as 四道 then it might be better that way, but that's just my opinion. Especially since things like 'four paths' are dharmic terms.

• thank you very much for input and advice.
• Yes. I know the 四圣谛 is different from 四圣道 or 八正道 or 罗汉四个果位
• The related translation will be update accordingly.

• Thanks. For the Chinese version of translation, the related ancient texts are occasionally put in footnotes for reference for readers.

Addtional about four path:

the reason of not using 四道 or four saintly paths：in mainland Chinese dharma terminology system, the 四道 or 四圣道 refers to ：Sravaka，Pretyekabuddha，bodhisattva，buddha。So has to choose a different wording and also make it more understandable for normal Chinese readers. 四路径 or 四段路径 is used to express the actual meaning and also indicated the stages of the practice progress.

For 4 stages or 4 fruitions in the progress to become Arahant, it is four 果位 refer to the four paths of Arahant in MCTB。while to use 果 as path，this also seams strange for native Chinese reader， also the 果 is also much diffrent from “paths”；so finally， the direct translation of “path” ，that is “路径” is selected as the term to describe four paths in MCTB。

btw, the page 394 was amended according to your advice “在看见中只是所看见的，在听见中只是所听见的，在感觉中只是所感觉的，在认知中只是所认知的”
and the your short version of translation is also included in footnote for readers reference. 

Thank you very much

I see, thanks and best wishes for your translation work.