Loeb Takes on Classic Indian Literature

Game changer: Loeb Classical Library is publishing Loeb editions of classics from Indian literature.
Among the initial titles is an edition of the Therigatha--poems by early Buddhist nuns, which is part of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Pali Canon.

These new critical editions and translations of the Indian canon are a big deal for scholars (at least). A lot of these texts lack widely accessible or recent critical editions and translations. Also, as explained in the New York Times article linked to above, this series will bring attention to the diverse nature of traditional Indian literature, which was not exclusively Hindu, despite the rhetoric of many contemporary Hindu nationalists.

Look at the road, not the mountain

Advice on how to meditate:

When the practice isn’t giving results as fast as you’d desire, remember that the problem isn’t with the desire per se. You’ve simply focused it on the wrong place: on the results rather than on the causes that will produce those results. It’s like driving a car to a mountain on the horizon. If you spend all your time looking at the mountain, you’ll drive off the road. You have to focus your attention on the road and follow it each inch along the way. That will take you to the mountain.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, With Each and Every Breath, pp. 77-78.

How to become wiser and more virtuous

"Regard him as one who
points out
treasure,
the wise one who
seeing your faults
rebukes you.
Stay with this sort of sage.
For the one who stays
with a sage of this sort,
things get better,
not worse."

(Dhammapada 76. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, translator.)

More Wisdom of the Desert

"One of the elders used to say: In the beginning when we got together we used to talk about something that was good for our souls, and we went up and up, and ascended even to heaven. But now we get together and spend our time in criticizing everything, and we drag one another down into the abyss." (From The Wisdom of the Desert [selections from the Verba Seniorum], Thomas Merton, translator, p. 95.)

The Wisdom of the Desert

"The story is told that one of the elders lay dying in Scete, and the brethren surrounded his bed, dressed him in the shroud, and began to weep. But he opened his eyes and laughed. He laughed another time, and then a third time. When the brethren saw this, they asked him, saying: Tell us, Father, why you are laughing while we weep? He said to them: I laughed the first time because you fear death. I laughed the second time because you are not ready for death. And the third time I laughed because from labours I go to my rest. As soon as he said this, he closed his eyes in death." (Thomas Merton, trans., The Wisdom of the Desert [Selections from the Verba Seniorum], p. 105.)

Christian Mantra Meditation

"If you like, you can have this reaching out wrapped up and enfolded in a single word. So as to have a better grasp of it, take just a little word, one syllable rather than of two, for the shorter it is, the better it is in agreement with this exercise of the spirit. Such a one is the word "God" or the word "love." Choose which one you prefer or any other according to your liking--the word of one syllable that you like the best. Fasten this word to your heart, so that whatever happens, it will never go away. This word is to be your shield and your spear, whether you are riding in peace or in war. With this word you are to beat upon this cloud and this darkness above you. With this word you are to strike down every kind of thought under the cloud of forgetting, so that if any thought should press upon you and ask you what you would have, answer it with no other word but this one. If the thought should offer you, out of its great learning, to analyze that word for you and to tell you its meanings, say to the thought that you want to keep it whole and not taken apart of unfastened. If you will hold fast to this purpose, you may be sure that the thought will not stay for very long. And why? Because you will not allow it to feed itself on the sort of sweet meditations that we mentioned before." (The Cloud of Unknowing, ch. 5.)

The Cloud of Unknowing's recommendation to use a suitable word of a single syllable as a tool of contemplation bears a striking resemblance to the use of short mantras in Hindu and Buddhist meditation. The author of the Cloud permits personal discretion in the choice of a word for contemplation, unlike in some Hindu and Buddhist meditation traditions, which prescribe particular words (either for everyone, or to particular individuals).

The purpose of repeating and focusing on a single, spiritually appropriate word seems similar in all of these traditions: to enable the mind to loosen its attachment to particular objects of sensation, thoughts, and feelings, and to increase the focus and power of the contemplation or concentration exercise, which can eventually result in the transcendence of the ego and the experience of sacred reality--variously conceived as God, Atman, or Nirvana.

This resemblance should not, of course, blind us to the very real theoretical and practical differences between these religious traditions. But the resemblance is striking, and may come as a surprise to many; even the Cloud's description of how contemplation of a single word can serve to "strike down every kind of thought" is strongly reminiscent of Zen texts which advocate abandoning "dualistic" thought through the practice of repeating "mu", or through other koan work or zazen techniques. Indeed, the central theme of The Cloud of Unknowing is that of the thought-transcending mystery which surrounds the sacred or the divine (hence the work's eponymous image, which is based on the cloud surrounding Moses during his period of revelation on Mount Sinai), a theme also present in Hindu and Buddhist mystic texts.

Why did all of these traditions insist upon the inability of thought or reason to penetrate the sacred or the divine? This, despite the fact that they all have intricate theologies or metaphysical theories which attempt to reduce the sacred to a comprehensible form. And, granted that the sacred is in some sense a mystery, when a person uses mantra meditation or some other technique to climb the mountain and experience the sacred, what does he find there? There is no way to know except to climb the mountain, to follow in the path of those who have gone before. What will you see?  

The Evolution of an SF Archetype

1. C. L. Moore's Northwest Smith;

2. George Lucas' Han Solo;

3. Joss Whedon's Malcolm Reynolds.

Sic Fortuna dicit

Sic Fortuna regina mundi dicit:

"So am I alone to be forbidden to exercise my rights? The heavens are allowed to engender bright days, and then to shroud them in dark nights. The year is permitted at one time to adorn the face of the earth with blossoms and fruits, at another time to plague it with rain clouds and freezing cold. It is the sea's right at one moment to smile indulgently with glassy waters, and at another to bristle with storms and breakers. So when people's wishes are unfulfilled, will they confine me to that consistent behaviour which is alien to my character? This power that I wield comes naturally to me; this is my perennial sport. I turn my wheel on its whirling course, and take delight in switching the base to the summit, and the summit to the base. So mount upward, if you will, but on condition that you do not regard yourself as ill-treated if you plummet down when my humour so demands and takes its course."

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, I.2.8-10 (P. G. Walsh, trans., Oxford University Press, 1999).

Jeremy Bentham, Not Paul But Jesus

I just learned of the existence of Jeremy Bentham's Not Paul But Jesus. This work is in three volumes, only the first of which was published during his lifetime, under the pseudonym "Gamaliel Smith". In this work, Bentham argues that Jesus, unlike Paul, was not an advocate of asceticism or a foe of pleasure, and that Christians should return to the ethic of Jesus, and abandon the ascetic ethic of Paul. It's surely no coincidence that Bentham's interpretation of Jesus' ethics is consistent with Bentham's own pleasure-loving doctrine of utilitarianism.

In the third volume of Not Paul But Jesus, a critical edition of which has just been released for free over the internet (pdf), Bentham  argues, among other things, for the toleration of non-traditional sexual relationships ("the eccentric pleasures of the bed"), including homosexuality. This would have been quite radical in Bentham's time, so perhaps it is no surprise that this volume of the work went unpublished, even under a pseudonym.

As another example of just how radical the work is, chapter 13 is entitled "The Eccentric Pleasures of the Bed, Whether Partaken of by Jesus?", and in this chapter Bentham presents evidence from the Gospels to support the claim that Jesus had homosexual relationships with the Apostle John and with a certain "stripling of loose attire". Upon a cursory reading, I don't find Bentham's arguments in chapter 13 to be particularly compelling, but it is fascinating that Bentham should see fit to even make such an argument, particularly considering the attitudes of the majority of his contemporaries, and it is evidence of his extreme broad-mindedness and originality, which is in abundant evidence elsewhere in his life and works (such as in his advocacy of the auto-icon, a display case containing the mummified corpses of deceased scientists and other cultural luminaries, to help preserve their memory among the living; an auto-icon was created for Bentham himself, in accordance with his wishes, but the practice sadly failed to catch on).

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Virgil Henry Storr, Enterprising Slaves and Master Pirates

I have been reading Virgil Henry Storr's Enterprising Slaves and Master Pirates: Understanding Economic Life in the Bahamas. Storr is an economist at George Mason University. His book is an economic history of the Bahamas, and is of interest both in terms of its content and its methodology.

Content-wise, the Bahamas are a fascinating case; for example, slavery in the Bahamas operated differently than in other places in the West Indies, due at least in part to the poor Bahamian soil, which prevented plantations from being as profitable as elsewhere. Bahamian slaves were permitted to work for themselves on Saturdays, to relieve their owners from having to feed and clothe them. This allowed (or forced) slaves to engage in farming and crafts for their own benefit, and they had the right to sell their labor to others (though, predictably, their owners still received a cut). Storr argues that the peculiarities of slavery in the Bahamas introduced a spirit of enterprise among Bahamians, which is still a part of the culture today. Storr also argues that the Bahamian culture and economy was influenced by piracy and other piracy-like practices over the centuries, including wrecking and salvaging, blockade-running during the U.S. Civil War and bootlegging during Prohibition, all of which played a salient role in the economic life of the islands. There is thus a connection between profit and plunder (or at least, illicit activity) in the Bahamian culture.

Methodology-wise, Storr's work is a fascinating synthesis of two different research programs: Max Weber's economic sociology and Austrian economics (i.e., Mises, Hayek, and so on) on the one hand, and cultural studies and theory more generally on the other hand. Perhaps the root of this synthesis is Max Weber's own economic approach to sociology, but the later Hayek also placed great emphasis on the role of culture in the development of economic institutions. In any case, Storr makes a powerful case for the view that economists should pay more attention to culture in order to understand how economic agents and whole economies actually function. If this puts pressure on the methodological individualism of classical and neo-classical economics, it also pressures cultural and critical theorists to pay more attention to economic factors when producing their analyses of cultural and historical factors. For instance, an understanding of slavery and its legacy in the Bahamas is incomplete without an analysis of the Bahamian plantation economy, including the farming and piecework practices of the slaves there. Storr's research program is probably just beginning, but I hope it has an influence both on economists and on cultural theorists.

The Book of Oghams

A page from the Book of Ballymote (Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P 12) containing ogham scripts.

Edit: This page from the Book of Ballymote is used by Andrew West at BabelStone to help interpret a peculiar bit of ogham found in a manuscript composed by a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon monk named Byrhtferth.

Daniel K. Gardner (translator), The Four Books, and Edward Slingerland (translator), The Analects

Daniel K. Gardner's The Four Books is a translation of selected portions of the four great Confucian classics: Great Learning (Daxue), Analects (Lunyu), Mencius (Mengzi), and Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong; translated by Gardner as "Maintaining Perfect Balance"). These four books became the basis of the Chinese imperial examination system during the Song Dynasty, due to the influence of the "Neo-Confucian" (Daoxue) scholar Zhu Xi (1130-1200); previously, the Five Classics (Wujing) had been the basis for the imperial exams, but Zhu Xi argued that the Four Books served as a better introduction to the study of Confucian thought.

Gardner's aim in this slender volume is to introduce the student of philosophy not only to the Four Books themselves, but also to Zhu Xi's influential Neo-Confucian commentaries, through which Chinese students have traditionally approached and interpreted these classic texts. While Gardner does not translate Zhu Xi's commentary directly, his own commentary is peppered with quotations from Zhu Xi, and Gardner explicitly adopts a Neo-Confucian stance when explaining how the passages from the Four Books have traditionally been read. This choice does provide an effective introduction to the Neo-Confucian commentarial tradition, and to Neo-Confucianism generally, but at the expense of occasionally obscuring the original meaning of the texts.

By contrast, Edward Slingerland, in his translation of Confucius' Analects, makes use of a range of traditional commentaries, together with modern textual scholarship, in his own attempt to make sense of the Analects (in terms of their likely original meaning, to the extent to which this can be reconstructed). There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to both of these interpretive strategies, and there is likely room for both in preparing contemporary translations and editions of classic Chinese texts.

While Gardner's The Four Books largely accomplishes what it sets out to do, I would have preferred an edition which contains the complete versions of Great Learning, Analects, Mencius, and Doctrine of the Mean, even if this meant expanding the work to multiple volumes. Also, since Gardner in many cases merely paraphrases Zhu Xi's commentary, it would have been preferable to simply include a translation of Zhu Xi's commentary alongside the original text, supplemented where needed by Gardner's own notes or additions (perhaps noting those cases in which other commentators have disagreed greatly with Zhu Xi). Nevertheless, Gardner has produced an excellent introduction both to the Four Books themselves, and to the Neo-Confucian commentary tradition of Zhu Xi, which colored the reception of these texts in China for hundreds of years (and which still does). 

Donald Ritchie, A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics

Donald Ritchie's A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics is a learned introduction to traditional Japanese aesthetic concepts, such as wabi, sabi, and mono no aware. Ritchie lived in Tokyo and wrote about Japanese culture for decades. In his Tractate, Ritchie deftly handles traditional Japanese sources, telling famous tales such as tea master Sen no Rikyu's development of the refined yet rough and simple aesthetic later associated with the tea ceremony; he also appropriately clarifies and juxtaposes Japanese aesthetic concepts using Western aesthetic thinkers and artists such as Hume, Kant, and Oscar Wilde. The "tractate" form averred to in the title is that of an extended essay, which aptly serves Ritchie's goal of creating an introduction to his topic suitable for the literate novice. Recommended. I will be using portions of this tractate as a required reading for my aesthetics class this semester.

Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

I have recently been reading Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, a set of techniques for resolving disputes in a way that is nonviolent (as the name implies) but does that meets everyone's needs without compromise. NVC was developed by a clinical psychologist named Marshall Rosenberg; Rosenberg, a student of Carl Rogers, first used NVC to mediate disputes in schools that were desegregating in the 1960s, and more recently he has traveled to hot spots such as Bosnia, Rwanda, Israel-Palestine, and northern Nigeria to try to mediate disputes between people who have literally been killing each other. More prosaically, Rosenberg also leads workshops on NVC in the U.S. and other countries.

The core of NVC involves four main steps: (1) observing actions, (2) identifying and stating feelings, (3) identifying and stating the needs which cause these feelings (when they are either met or not met), and (4) clearly articulating requests for actions. These four steps can be performed both on oneself and the person one is communicating with. Though easy to understand, it's actually quite hard to put these techniques into practice, due to the power of our habitual ways of interacting with people. My attempts to use NVC in the classroom and in my personal life have been difficult, but still effective--even if the only effect is to get greater awareness of what I am feeling and needing when someone does something (which makes it less likely that I will react with anger, resentment, or a passive-aggressive behavior).

One of Rosenberg's claims is that while people's preferred strategies for meeting their needs often conflict, the needs themselves could all be fulfilled if only they were willing to use different strategies to meet those needs. Now, like much of the theory behind NVC, I don't believe this 100%; there are surely some cases in which genuine needs conflict, such as lifeboat scenarios where there is only enough food or water for one person to survive. But like the other defects in the theory of NVC, this point does little to undermine the effectiveness of the techniques of NVC, which are quite practical. In the vast majority of human conflicts, even those involving physical violence, everyone's needs could be met without violence (even if not everyone's preferred strategies could be met without violence--such as if one side seeks to satisfy its need for security by killing off every member of the opposing side).

Another defect in the theory behind NVC is Rosenberg's claim that humans are not inherently violent; violence, he maintains, is something against human nature which we learn through our culture or society. To the contrary, since violence has been a part of every human culture, and since rates of death by violence were higher in stone age hunter-gatherer societies than they are in today's society, it is arguable that human nature includes the propensity for physical violence, and that if anything culture is gradually shifting our behaviors to less physically violent forms. But this theoretical quibble seems to have no bearing on the effectiveness of the techniques of NVC. These are grounded in careful observation of people's behaviors, coupled with acts of interpretation which seek to clarify feelings and needs, and finally with the formulation of clear action requests that can move dialogue forward more effectively than vague or judgmental criticism and demands.

My friend Lynn Ackerson first told me about NVC several years ago, but it took me a while before I actually looked into it further. I was turned off in part by the corny terms and techniques used by Rosenberg to communicate his ideas. As shown in the picture above, Rosenberg frequently uses tattered hand puppets to convey his points about NVC. This technique would be utterly laughable except that Rosenberg does seem to be in on the joke. It's a way of getting attention and of clearly summarizing points; when the "jackal" puppet says something, we know he is giving an example of violent communication, even when it doesn't sound like it--such as when someone snivels and says "I'm sad because you hurt me". Rosenberg also occasionally sings God-awful songs on his guitar (many of which he wrote himself!).

All of this, together with the problematic theory behind NVC, should be overlooked when one is considering the effectiveness of the techniques themselves. They are the real deal, and have been field-tested by Rosenberg in the worst conditions imaginable--when talking to groups of Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria, some of who had killed relatives of those on the other side; when talking to convicted murderers and rapists in prison; when dealing with one's own road rage while driving behind the slowest car in the world! Likewise, Rosenberg's original inspiration for NVC was his own brutal experience as a child in Detroit in the 1940s, where he witnessed terrible race riots immediately upon moving to the city (in which many people were killed right in his own neighborhood), to being repeatedly beaten at his school starting on the first day because of the fact that he was Jewish. Rosenberg may occasionally indulge in cheesy or hokey antics, and his theoretical speculation seems off the mark, but NVC itself is no joke and should be practiced by more people.

Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattva's Brain

Over at berfrois, philosopher Owen Flanagan offers a precis of his recent book, The Boddhisattva's Brain, and a defense of naturalistic Buddhism. Here is an excerpt:

My answer for Buddhism is that if one subtracts the beliefs in karma, rebirth and nirvana, what remains is a philosophy that should be attractive to contemporary analytic philosophers. “Buddhism naturalized” contains a powerful and credible metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. The metaphysics is an event or process metaphysics. There are no things, only events that unfold in a great beginning-less unfolding, the Mother of all Unfoldings. The self is one of the impermanent events. The epistemology is empiricist: experience first, then reason and only then do we consult the “scriptures,” which are themselves fallible compilations of wisdom from previous experience. The ethics teaches that goodness comes from compassion and Lovingkindness to oneself and to all other sentient beings.

I believe that “Buddhism naturalized” is a serious contender, along with Confucianism and Aristotelianism, for a great wisdom tradition that offers a viable philosophy for 21st century secularists. It might seem odd to recommend these ancient theories as good for us now, but I do really think all three are worth a second look. The reason is that all three of these philosophies, from over 2 millenia ago, are less theistic, and thus more rational, in their core philosophy that the three Abrahamic traditions.

Flanagan is a balanced and rational commentator on Buddhism and other wisdom traditions, and I agree with him that these have much to offer for modern secularists (and, I would add, adherents of Abrahamic faiths as well). However, I wonder whether subtracting karma, rebirth, and nirvana from Buddhism leaves one with Buddhism at all, or something else entirely. This is not to say that we should retain these outmoded elements of Buddhism, but rather that perhaps we should abandon the label 'Buddhism' altogether. Less radically, adopting a term like 'Neo-Buddhism' (akin to the already current neo-Aristotelianism and neo-Confucianism) might make more sense then referring to naturalistic Buddhism as 'Buddhism' in an unqualified sense.

Hamilton Morris, I Walked with a Zombie

At Harper's, an excerpt from a new book by Hamilton Morris on Haitian zombies. Morris plans to pick up where Wade Davis (author of The Serpent and the Rainbow) left off. Here is Morris having a conversation with Alex, a Haitian whom he hired as a guide:

I have hinted but not explained to Alex why I’m in Haiti. I am fully aware that what I’m doing is considered by some to be in poor taste and, perhaps worse, slightly obvious. It is approximately six hours into our meeting that I feel at liberty to broach the subject of zombification. We are eating lunch. Alex is more than happy to offer his opinions: “Many Americans think the zombie is a myth, but in Haiti it is a fact that is not questioned except when the upper class wish to impress an American. The politicians and the rich want to abandon the traditional ways, but zombies are real. They work like a slave or a maid. They work on the computers as well, making accounts.”
“What kind of accounts?” I ask.
“Eh, like spreadsheets, they make Excel.”

Another revelation comes from an interview with Max Beauvoir, the famous Vodou priest:

“Wes Craven [director of the film version of The Serpent and the Rainbow] is a filmmaker who understands the Haitian people.”

Hat tip to thebrowser.com.

Some English Translations of the Daodejing

The Daodejing may be the single most-translated Chinese text. Nevertheless, finding an English edition of the Daodejing which is suitable for use in the classroom or individual study is something of a challenge. When I first started teaching the Daodejing, I used the Penguin Classics edition with D. C. Lau's translation. This translation dates from 1963, but is still very useful. The translation is clear, with few idiosyncratic choices. Lau's only bias is that he reads the work more as a political treatise than a mystical work (whereas in fact it may be both). The Penguin Classics edition provides an extensive introduction, glossary, and chronological table, and supplementary essays on "The Problem of Authorship" and "The Nature of the Work."

Lau's translation holds up exceptionally well, and is still referenced by other scholars. A lot has changed in the field of scholarship on the Daodejing since 1963, however. Lau's translation predates the discovery of the Mawangdui and Guodian texts of the Daodejing, for example. The Mawangdui texts were found in 1973 in a tomb dating from 168 BC. Two copies of the Daodejing were found at Mawangdui--the "A" and "B" texts, both written on silk. The A and B texts are mostly complete, though they contain differences both from each other and from the received (Wang Bi) edition of the Daodejing. For example, the order of the Dao and De books of the Daodejing is reversed in the Mawangdui texts, with the De book coming first. The Mawangdui texts also lack the chapter divisions of the received edition, and contain many (mostly minor) textual variations.

The Guodian text, written on bamboo, was discovered in 1993 in a tomb dated from before 300 BC. The Guodian text is the oldest copy of the Daodejing to be discovered, but is incomplete, though it contains 14 bamboo strips with material not included in the received edition of the Daodejing.

Some recent translations of the Daodejing have been based on the Mawangdui or the Guodian texts instead of that of the received edition. Robert Henricks, for example, has put out both a translation based on the Mawangdui texts and a translation based on the Guodian text. I have only read the former, which is published under the name Te-Tao Ching (Ballantine Books, 1989)--to reflect the reversed order of the Dao and De books in the Mawangdui texts. Henricks' translation of the Mawangdui texts is clear and a delight to read:

When the highest type of men hear the Way, with diligence they're able to practice it; When average men hear the Way, some things they retain and others they lose; When the lowest type of men hear of the Way, they laugh out loud at it. If they didn't laugh at it, it couldn't be regarded as the Way (ch. 41).

The Hackett edition of Henrick's translation contains a very helpful philosophical introduction, and some useful textual notes throughout. I used Henricks' translation when I taught an undergraduate seminar on Indian and Chinese philosophy in the spring of 2010. The translation and ancillary materials worked well, but I decided it is better to use the received, Wang Bi edition of the Daodejing when students are reading the text for the first time. This is largely because the Wang Bi edition is the one referenced by all of the classical commentaries and by most contemporary scholarship. It was also a distraction to have to explain to my students the various ways in which the edition we were studying differed from the received edition, and how this might affect their subsequent reading about the Daodejing.

The last time I taught the Daodejing, in the spring of this year, I used the translation by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo (Hackett Publishing, 1993). This translation contains a brief (but nonetheless helpful) introduction by Burton Watson, a glossary of Chinese words, and, most surprisingly, works of original calligraphy by translator Stephen Addiss. This translation of the Daodejing is currently my favorite, because it is the clearest and most literal that I have yet to find. The Daodejing is a very terse text, even by the standards of classical Chinese, and partially on account of this it gives rise to many difficulties in interpretation. Most translations of the Daodejing contain as many interpretations as straight translations, but Addiss and Lombardo endeavor to adhere as closely as possible to the original text of the received edition, even where this makes for hard going in English. For example, here are the first two lines of the first chapter of the Daodejing, as translated by Addiss and Lombardo: "Tao called Tao is not Tao. / Names can name no lasting name." Addiss and Lombardo capture the concision of the original text, and this makes it all the more useful for teaching purposes, because it lets students grapple themselves with the issues of interpretation. It is not for nothing that the esteemed scholar of Daoism, Livia Kohn, has said of Addiss's and Lombardo's work that "This is by far the best translation on the market today, and I have been praising it to whoever would listen." (Incidentally, Addiss's calligraphy is also of high quality, and contains both traditional and contemporary pieces, which seem to resonate with the spirit of the Daodejing.)

Despite all these strengths, I will not be using the Addiss and Lombardo translation the next time I teach the Daodejing. The translation is excellent, but the Hackett edition is lacking in terms of a sufficiently robust historical and philosophical introduction, and in terms of providing sufficient interpretive notes and commentary to help students who may be struggling with the text. The glossary of terms also suffers greatly from the fact that it seems to only make reference to those Chinese characters which happen to appear in the one line of Chinese text which has been printed alongside each of the chapters of the English translation. Given the brevity of the text, it would have made much more sense to provide a complete facing-page copy of the Chinese characters, instead of choosing somewhat arbitrarily to restrict the Chinese to one line per chapter.

Hackett has another good translation of the Daodejing in print, this one by noted sinologist Philip J. Ivanhoe (first published in 2002, and reprinted in 2003). Ivanhoe's translation is clear, adheres closely to the text of the received edition, and contains few idiosyncratic readings: "A Way that can be followed is not a constant Way. / A name that can be named is not a constant name." The Hackett edition contains a brief but helpful introduction, fairly extensive textual notes, and an appendix which discusses the language of the Daodejing. I would have liked to have seen a more extensive introduction, and more extensive notes discussing the interpretation of both individual lines and whole chapters of the text. Nevertheless, I am currently planning on using Ivanhoe's translation the next time I teach the Daodejing.

Two other recent translations are worthy of note. The first is Roger T. Ames' and David L. Hall's Daodejing: "Making This Life Significant": A Philosophical Translation (Ballantine, 2003). This edition contains the original Chinese text from the Wang Bi edition and a medium-length commentary by the translators alongside each translated chapter. This seems like a promising format for an edition of the Daodejing intended for use by students and scholars. This edition contains both a historical introduction and a separate (and lengthy) philosophical introduction, a glossary of key terms, a thematic index, and an appendix with a translation of a text called The Great One Gives Birth to the Waters (which comprises the 14 bamboo strips found in the Guodian text of the Daodejing that have no parallel in either the Mawangdui texts or the Wang Bi edition).

While I like the format of Ames' and Hall's translation, and I like their stated goal of creating an edition of the Daodejing with specialized commentary by and for philosophers (not just sinologists), in practice I find fault with several characteristics of this edition. For one thing, I would have liked to see more traditional commentaries and contemporary scholarship cited in their chapter by chapter commentaries. More importantly, I found the style of their translation wanting, in part because it seems (for lack of a better expression) "too clever by half": "Way-making (dao that can be put into words is not really way-making; / And naming (ming) that can assign fixed reference to things is not really name-making." Their translation contains too much interpretive interpolation for my taste, and does not convey the graceful (albeit frequently ambiguous) simplicity of the original. Ames' and Hall's interpretive commentaries and introductions also seem biased and idiosyncratic, containing their own philosophical musings when it would be more helpful to provide a context for interpretation grounded in the traditional commentaries on the one hand and recent work by scholars on the other. Indeed, this tendency toward the idiosyncratic is seen in the tile of their work itself: the phrase "Making This Life Significant" is inserted after Dao De Jing, and this choice reflects the heavy-handed approach Ames and Hall fall into in attempting to reveal the work's philosophical significance.

The last translation I will mention is by Edmund Ryden, and published by Oxford World's Classics (2008). The translation is based on the received edition of the text, but Ryden occasionally also makes use of the Mawangdui and Guodian texts for some of his readings and interpretations. Each chapter of the translation is cross-referenced with the corresponding section of the Mawangdui texts (and the Guodian text, where appropriate). This edition has a very informative introduction by Benjamin Penny, a very brief commentary on each chapter prior to the translation, textual notes, and an index of key terms and images which appear in the text. This apparatus is useful, though I would have liked to see more extensive introductory comments on each chapter with at least a few references to classical commentaries and contemporary scholarship. The main problem with this edition, at least for me, lies in the idiosyncracies in Ryden's translation. For example, Ryden translates de as "life force," and he uses feminine pronouns whenever referring to the Dao: "Look at her and you do not see her: name her invisible; / Listen to her and you do not hear her, name her inaudible" (ch. 14). Neither of these choices is woefully misleading or inaccurate, and both are thought-provoking, but I find these and other unusual choices in Ryden's translation to be quite distracting, especially when taken as a whole.

Wang Bi on Progress and Goals

"Being good at making progress lies in not hurrying, and being good at reaching goals lies in not forcing one's way." -- Wang Bi (226-249), Outline Introduction to the Laozi.

John R. McRae, Seeing through Zen

I recently read a book about the early history of Zen Buddhism called Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Geneaology in Chinese Chan Buddhism, by John R. McRae, a professor of East Asian Buddhism at Indiana University.

McRae's book presents a summary of the early history of Chan, from its origins in China during the Tang Dynasty, through its mature development during the Song. McRae criticizes a lot of the previous histories of Chan, for naively treating legendary stories as factual, and for adopting both an overly-romanticized view of Chan during the Tang Dynasty on the one hand, and an overly-cynical view of Chan during the Song Dynasty on the other. There has been a tendency to regard Tang-Dynasty Chan as uniquely authentic and rigorous, and to regard Song-Dynasty Chan as having degenerated from its original state of rigor and sincerity. Interestingly, this conceit seems to have originated in part as a literary device among Chan texts from the Song Dynasty itself.

McRae's book is formed from a collection of essays which were edited together to form a single continuous narrative. While his history of early Chan is not comprehensive, the resulting text does not feel too broken-up, and it works well as a general introduction to recent work on the history of early Chan.

I will probably have more to say about Seeing through Zen in a later blog post, as it is a text rich with implications both for historians and practitioners of Zen, and at some point I would also like to write about another book by McRae, The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism. Until then, I would just like to highly recommend both of these works to anyone interested in the history of Zen.

How Not to Write a Novel

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, here is a list of practical advice on how to write a book from 23 successful authors. The list was compiled by Steven Silberman, author of the famous article "The Geek Syndrome," who is currently working on a book on autism and neurodiversity.

In terms of works of fiction, the best how-to book I have read is How Not to Write a Novel, by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. This book was recommended to me by my friend Teresa Milbrodt, a creative writing professor (and excellent writer) who blogs at The Continuing Adventures of Walks-Far Woman. My own native genius was the source of another way not to write a novel, which was to simply desist from trying. (For some reason, Mittelmark and Newman neglected to include that bezel of wisdom in their otherwise admirable text.)