I'm currently learning Pāli, but until I'm able to read and comprehend the original writings - are there some English translations of Tipitaka that you personally could recommend as highly accurate?
Hi Lo,
There are a lot of very good translations of the Tipitikas in English. Most of the good ones are actually translated by Westerners. I think this is partly because when an Asian person (even if they are Bhikkhus) translates certain Pali words into English, that they might not always understand or grasp the idiomatic quality/feel of English words.
I’ll give you two links which has vast libraries of books from the Tipikas. One of the links presents these books side by side with various other translations. I don’t want you or other to think that I am some linguistic expert on Pali and Buddhist text translations. I know some Pali, and if I come across a word or a phrase or teaching that I find confusing I am fortunate enough to have elders in my family who are Bhikkhus and Bhikkunis to help me out.
The translations of words in itself is not the biggest cause of misunderstandings of Buddhism as Buddhism is generically apprehended as in the West though. My biggest contention is how Buddhism is presented.
Generically in the West, Buddhism is initially presented completely out of memetic context to 99% of the rest of Buddhism. By this I mean that when we in the West try to learn about Buddhism we often encounter this:
The Four Noble Truths
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
Taking a meme or set of memes out of its memetic matrix causes confusion, and misunderstanding in the same sense that a detective or forensics specialist won’t know crap about a crime if they take evidence out of the crime scene and just look at the evidence outside of its environmental matrix. Everything goes together and must be apprehended in context together.
By matrix I mean it in a paleontological use of the word. A matrix is the dirt, matter, and artifacts that surrounds a bone. When you as a paleontologist are digging up a dinosaur, you can’t remove the bone and study it separately without considering the dirty, matter, and artifacts around the bone… which contains 90% of the actual data of how the dinosaur lived, what environment it lived in, what it ate, and so on.
For example, if we dug a dinosaur out of the ground, and completely disregarded and dirty and ground it came from, and we just admired our reconstructed dinosaur in some museum, our Minds would be prone to creating illusions about how the dinosaur looked, lived, ate, and stuff. The same thing can happen to Buddhism and any religion. It must be apprehended in context to its native space-time matrix (~500BC for Buddhism), its lingual matrix, and the social matrix it evolved in (Asia for Buddhism)… if we are to fully understand Buddhism and its worldview. The worldview is important, because the Buddha, and Buddhism did not develop in our modern 21st century. The world of 500BC, and concepts of “suffering” of people during those times and in those places cannot be assumed to be the “suffering” we today are experiencing.
For example, back then if the monsoons did not come, you would suffer from Dukkha (unpleasantness) because you worried (Dukkha) about what you and your family will eat, and if conditions are really bad, you will suffer Papa (misery) and die of starvation. Today (in the West at least) we can buy a burger or a taco for a dollar at a fast food joint. The worries of Buddhists today is more sophisticated. Such as the Dukkha Buddhists are experiencing in Burma and Tibet due to political oppression, you see? Things must be always apprehended in context.
When Buddhism is generically presented in such a watered down condition as to be a meager 4 power points as opposed to the 24,000 pages of the Tipitikas… there will be misunderstandings arising.
For example from those four noble truths. The first noble truth seems pessimistic. Suffering bunches up misery, death, famine, war, and breaking up with your boyfriends all into some Abstract word: “Suffering.” The last noble truth makes it seem as if Buddhism is the answer to destroy this Abstract Suffering. And from this people will begin to construct a picture of Buddhism in their mind, such that what a Westerner eventually believes to be Buddhism… is not what Buddhism is in the Orient.
Buddhism is not the answer to the world’s suffering or to your own suffering in life. You/we are the cause and the answer. The Buddha is not a religious prophet. He is not honored because he teaches quaint moral precepts. He is honored as the Enlightened One because he achieved Sama Sambudhi – Self Enlightenment – and that he presented a workable Methodology for others to achieve the same Sama Sambudhi – Self Enlightenment – if we followed his foots steps and example by trying to duplicate his efforts.
The Buddha did not read the Tipitikas to gain Sama Sambudhi. Sama Sambudhi is actually redundant, it basically means “The Self Enlightening itSelf,” or “The Selfenlightened Self.” Therefore, if we assume that by studying the written word that we will also achieve Sambudhi, we are wrong. This will only cause our Minds to be lost in the written word which itself is a distraction from one Self and the foundation of Sambudhi: Life and Nature… Vibhajjavada, the apprehension of insights from direct exposure to life and experience. And Vipassana – the insightful meditation whereby we extract insight from within our own Self based on such experiences in Life, and such direct observations of Nature and Life. The Tipitikas should only be a road map of sorts, and not made into the essence of Sambudhi. Learning Pali is a great endeavor, but understanding Pali words should only be a guide to help understand certain things better.
***part1***
I just made this up....:sarcastic