Friday, June 7, 2019

Righting a wrong: ☸Dhamma needs to be left untranslated

"dhamma" is an overloaded word with 4 general categories of meaning.
It's understandable that translators want to give it the most specific and precise possible translation of "dhamma" in any given passage, to make the meaning in context more clear.

The problem is, 'dhamma' often straddles several of the 4 possible meanings, simultaneously. So when translators commit to one specific meaning, it loses the other ones. Often, 'dhamma' in context primarily and foremost, refers to the Buddha teachings, his ☸Dhamma.

Often in the suttas, translators translate that 'dhamma', instead of teachings, as 'thing'. Here is a prime example, in SN 54.1 the important samyutta on 16 APS breath meditation. I believe all english translations, have 'dhamma' translated as 'thing' here.

That's wrong. The primary meaning here, is ☸Dhamma (buddha's teaching). Calling ☸Dhamma a dhamma (thing), would be like calling Buddha, "that guy", or "bro", or "some dude." It's disrespectful and a really bad idea. Not because of adherence to rites and rituals and social norms of respect, but because it loses the important connection with samma sati (right remembering), and the 7sb (awakening factors) samadhi machine architecture. Sati takes ☸Dhamma as its input, and then feeds the ☸Dhamma to the 2nd factor in 7sb, ☸Dhamma-vicaya-sb, etc, to lead to samadhi, upekkha, and arahantship.

I intend to restore the ☸Dhamma in all pali to english suttas, and leave all Dhamma and dhamma untranslated, as it was intended by the Buddha.

Here is an example of justice being done:
(instead of one-"thing")



(4👑☸) → SN 54.1 🌬️😤      AN   DN   KN   MN   SN   (⤴)

SN 54.1 🌬️😤


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