See this link with interesting short Tibetan and English verses concerning quotes from Nagarjuna concerning emptiness and other topics. It's an easy and interesting way to see how short form verses are translated -- especially with very condensed meaning such as emptiness statements from Nagarjuna.
See the Jonang Foundation web site for more info.
Three of the other translations, done by Michael R. Sheehy, have both Tibetan and English so you could do comparisons of how an excellent Tibetan translator is translating texts.
Ok, what happens next when yid 'ong mi 'ong is in the mind? From yid 'ong 'dod chags will appear.
'dod chags has been translated in many ways, but it's desire based on attachment, or graping to something desirable from its own side, or ignorant liking based on the false assumption that the object is desirable from its own side.
From a translation point of view, just using the word desire is not a complete translation. One could desire to be free from suffering, but to desire objects where objects supposedly are desirable from their own side -- which is a false assertion -- is closer to the meaning in this context. It's important to get in the connection to 'dzin pa here!
Ok, finally! Here's the translation of the verses.
Karma and mental afflictions always arise
from an improper mode of mental activities.
I added this into the dharmadictionary list of quotations, as well.
So there's something funny going on in the mental activities, an improper mode of thought. We will look at this all next.
Meanwhile, here are two other translations of the same verse, to see how various translators have translated this. First the translation from Buddha Nature, The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra with Commentary by Jamgon Kongtrul (Snow Lion), translated by Rosemarie Fuchs:
Karma and poisons are always based
upon improper conceptual activity.
And here's the translation from The Changeless Nature, translators Ken & Maria Holmes:
Karma and the defilements are always based
Upon a mode of thought which is wrong.
As you could see, different kinds of approaches translating this verse, but they all are the same in meaning.
Continuing going backwards in the first line, the next word is byed. This is a verb, to do, make, create, something that indicates that action will trigger something.
However, here's a case where one might look at words too separately, this is actually yid byed, where the previous word yid is used to form the word used here: mental activity, mental engagement. This his why it's so important to see the bigger pattern with words and not look into too small fragments of the Tibetan words.
yid byed is a good word from the explanatory point of view. yid is mind (Sanskrit manas), specifically the idea-centric consciousness, subjective mind, the thinking process. So it's the mind that creates and triggers things.
One more clue wherefrom las dang nyong mongs arise, but there's more!
Here's verse 60 from Uttaratantra, rgyud bla ma, that has a concise description wherefrom las dang nyon mongs (karma and mental afflictions) arise.
We will start from the second line as it's easier to unravel this compressed verse from this end.
And yes, there's that las dang nyon mongs again. You will see this term many, many times in Buddhist texts, as a lot of the material is how to get rid of that plague.
The end has the expression rab tu phye. rab tu is another good word to learn inside out, it means completely, totally. When the Tibetan and Sanskrit scholars translated the Indian texts, they used this word when translating the Sanskrit verbal prefix pra (example: prabhava -> rab tu skye ba, total production, a term actually used when dividing the four noble truths to sixteen parts, hmm, should I go through that later...).
Note also that in verses sometimes words are added in for getting the same syllable account, like here seven syllables. It is actually not necessary to translate rab tu at all in this instance.
The verb phye here means gives rise to. So a rough translation so far is that something in the first line is what totally gives rise to karma and mental afflictions.
Those who study letters, take phye which is the last word one the second line. It's a nice way to see stacking in action. The root letter pha has a line on top changing it to phe, and then a yata at the bottom makes it phye.
OK, we will go through a very compressed verse from Uttaratantra to find out from where las dang nyon mongs arise, as that's important in order to figure out the second and later third noble truth.
If you have access to the Tibetan text, it's the sixtieth verse, but you could take a look at this online version from Asian Classics Institute. Do a search inside this document, just for fun look through las dang nyon mongs to see where they are used. This way you get more patterns and you get familiar with Tibetan texts. Also, check out the beginning of the text, you should now be able to figure out the title in Tibetan, and most likely in Sanskrit, too.
Now, do a search for TSUL BZHIN MA YIN YID BYED KYIS, and the line below. That's what we will go through next. It will be an interesting puzzle, indeed, as verses are very compressed, and you need to find out the whole meaning by slowly going through the material.
I must say, it's a very beautiful presentation, I've been using various commentaries on Uttaratantra to see how it's presented, and wow it's very to the point, and the rest is also very interesting. You will notice why it's important to get to the root texts via commentaries, otherwise it all sounds strange and confusing. The reason is that texts such as these were tools to be memorized, and by the memorization the meaning was presented, but the meaning had to be shown by a teacher.
Another word that might show up when studying about the causes of suffering is rgyu, or cause. Note that depending on the translation it could be singular, or plural in case the part of the causes is directly omitted.
As an example, let's take 'khor ba'i rgyu, causes of samsara. 'khor ba is samsara, or the wheel (of cyclic existence). Note again that it's not clear from the Tibetan that the causes are plural, but there are many causes to samsara, actually in the Mahayana tradition it could be distilled into one big cause -- but more about that later. Anyway, as a translator one needs to think about the expression and translate in case the definition requires plural or singular. This is why it's so important not just to learn words, also learn inside out the topic in order to make an accurate translation, or as close as possible.
For those studying Tibetan letters, that funny short thing on top of the bigger stack is ra, but in that short form when stacked. This is also a good example where you have four letters stacked on top of each other -- a pain for anyone designing computer fonts and text systems. But it's so cool!
The first noble truth to be accepted as a truth is sdug bsngal, suffering. It should not be so hard to accept that suffering exists in this world, in one's own life. Not accepting this truth would mean that the first of the Four Noble truths are not accepted, i.e. the Four Noble Truths are not accepted at all.
This word sdug bsngal also has some suffering for anyone reading old Tibetan texts. Notice how -- depending on the font or the smearing in the text -- the first d in sdug and the nga in bsngal could easily be mixed up as either one. You just need to learn the patterns of words, so when you see this pattern, you know it is indeed sdug bsngal. It is also a very, very common word in Tibetan Buddhist texts, of an obvious reason -- the whole idea is to get rid of all sufferings, for everyone.
By the way, sdug also means suffering (shorter form), and bsngal means pain. So a more complete translation of this term would mean suffering and pain, with the implication that there exist all kinds of sufferings, from ordinary pain up to more complex levels. So we will go through that next.
This is the whole fourth immeasurable. One possible translation is below, but based on the earlier postings you could actually put together your own personal translation!
May all live in equanimity, free from attachment and aversion towards near and far ones.
To add my notes, all means all, including bigger and smaller animals you encounter, even things like snakes, spiders, nasty dogs and so on.
This is the last part of the fourth immeasurable. btang nyoms, as mentioned earlier, is equanimity.
la is a particle, connects equanimity with the right side, and connect this from the right to left.
gnas pa is to abide, stay. Note the r at the end, again this is a subjugation particle that binds this with gyur cig - may it be so.
This is the whole third immeasurable. A typical translation is something like this:
Maybe all sentient beings never be separated from the bliss without sorrow.
As mentioned earlier, this is the code word for bliss that enlightened beings experience. It is the only form of bliss that is not tainted, compared with samsaric bliss that has to end at some point. The only reason samsaric bliss was in first place was specific good deeds in the past that created the causes for this bliss.
Fortunately, there are ways to create this sorrowless bliss that will never cease.
The end of the third immeasurable line looks like this.
dang is pointing at the earlier part of the verse we looked at -- this is a good example of how dang is more than the English word and, it's a binding particle that binds two parts together.
When you see the word mi, be careful, in most cases it's a negation, but mi also means human.
'bral ba is to be separated from, disconnected, so mi 'bral ba is the opposite, not separated.
We looked at the r at the end of verbs before, it's another particle, subjugation particle, and it binds this with gyur cig, may it become.
This is the whole second immeasurable: may all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
The sufferings could be classified into three kinds, sdug bsngal gsum:
sdug sgnal gi sgud bsngal, the suffering of suffering. This is ordinary suffering, headaches, cold, sore throat and so on.
'gyur ba'i sdug bsngal, the suffering of change. This is based on wrong world views where the assertion is that nothing will change, a new car will always be new, the new job will always be rosy, and so on.
'du byed kyi sdug bsngal, the all-persistent suffering. This is stuck in samsara, where all the sufferings are present.
So the second immeasurable is to wish and act that all sentient beings are free from these sufferings.
The last part of the first immeasurable line ends with dang ldan par gyur cig.
dang ldan par refers to the earlier section, bde dang bde ba'i rgyu, happiness and the causes of happiness. dang ldan pa is a possessive particle combination, we looked this this some time ago at this entry. It could be roughtly translated as imbued with, possessed with, or having. Maybe having is here a good translation, even if it's good to know about the alternatives. So we are dealing with having happiness and the causes of happiness. But also note that this ends with an r, dang ldan par, where the lonely r is another particle, it connects the verb expression we are looking next with the possessive combination.
gyur cig is another common expression that we looked at here. It is an expression found in many verses, means may it be like that.
The middle part of the first immeasurable has this section, bde ba is happiness, also sometimes bliss, but in this specific case it is translated as happiness. In tantric texts this would most likely be bliss. It could even be shortened to bde.
In Sanskrit this is sukha, as in Sukhavati, realm of bliss, in Tibetan bde ba can -- the place that contains bliss. The tantric form is the mahasukha, great bliss. Sukhavati is the pure realm of Amitabha, arealm where a practitioner could take rebirth during bardo through a combination of pure faith, merit, and single-pointed determination to get there.
dang is the binding particle, binding to bde ba'i rgyu. rgyu is cause or causes, and there's a genitive particle between bde ba and rgyu, the 'i letter, so when you combine this from right to left it is the causes of happiness. rgyu is another of those words good to learn, as it's used to define causes of all kinds.
The first line of the four immeasurable verses, loving kindness, starts with these words. The blog has gone through this expression before, it's a very common one, so it's highly recommended to learn it, as you will see this over and over again.
sems can is sentient being(s), thams cad is all, sarva in Sanskrit. So the line starts with the object of all sentient beings.
For those who want to learn the letters, the first letter after the long stroke, shah, is the letter sa, but the long line above it turns it into se, the line on top means an e-vowel. Tibetan does not have any vowels per se, rather the letters are ornamented with signs that indicates the vowel itself.
Now, the end of the text usually has the information about the author, the translators involved, and the history behind the text, commentary, and the translation.
You could go to to the end of the Alex Berzin translation and compare this with the end of the ACIP version of the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Note that it is very common that various Indian texts where translated and retranslated many times.
In many cases the texts also end with a beautiful sign-off, in Sanskrit, such as sarva mangalam, may everything be auspicious.
So how do we know what the chapter names are? In this text the chapter titles are defined at the end of each chapter.
One way to quickly find where an important section ends, and the next one starts, is to look for the double shah endings. You could see them on the third line.
Secondly if you go backwards from this, it says le'u dang po'o. le'u means chapter, and dang po means first. So this has to do with the first chapter.
ste is a connecting particle, so it connects the first chapter with somehing to the left.
zhes bya ba means known as, or the title. Ok, we are getting somewhere!
byang chub sems is bodhichitta, kyi binds this with the next to the right, phan yon is benefits.
bshad pa is explanations.
So we got the chapter title translated: The first chapter's title is explaining the benefits of bodhichitta. You could do similar searches in the rest of the text and find the other chapters, as well as the titles for each chapter.
The first line is the title of the text -- that we have gone through -- and the last word on the first line is the particle las, from.
After the homage the actual verses start. Notice that we don't have titles telling that this is the first chapter, or who the author was -- more about this in later postings.
The verses are typically based on a shloka that has four lines (padas). The other way to break down the verses is to find out that the last word usually is an ending verb such as bya (to do), and not a binding particle, or something that implies that the next line is connected with the current line. But just now it's easy to just take four lines, make sure the last word makes sense as an ending word, and this way break down the text in order to see how various translators have translated it.
We will not translate this verse, the best is to look at existing translations such as Alex Berzin's online version to see how the verses are translated. Okey, here's that translation of the first shloka!
(1) Respectfully, I prostrate to the Blissfully Gone (Buddhas) endowed with Dharmakaya,
As well as to their (bodhisattva) offspring and to everyone worthy of prostration.
Let me explain (how to) engage in the Blissfully Gone offsprings' code,
Which I’ve compiled and condensed in accord with Buddhas’ words.
