Caigentan
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Caigentan
The ''Caigentan'' () is a circa 1590 text written by the Ming Dynasty scholar and philosopher Hong Zicheng (). This compilation of aphorisms eclectically combines elements from the Three teachings (Confucianism, Daoism and Chinese Buddhism, Buddhism), and is comparable with Marcus Aurelius' ''Meditations'' or François de La Rochefoucauld (writer), La Rochefoucauld's ''François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)#Literary works, Maximes''. Title Chinese ''Caigentan'' combines ''cai'' Wikt:菜, 菜 "vegetables; greens; (non-staple) food; dish; course (in menu)", ''gen'' Wikt:根, 根 "roots (of plants); bottom (of mountains)", and Wikt:譚, 譚 "talk; conversation; discourse". This compound (linguistics), compound ''caigen'' 菜根 "inedible root of a vegetable; cabbage stalk" is a literary metaphor meaning "bare subsistence" (originating in Zhu Xi's ''Xiaoxue'' 小學 "Minor Learning"). The Chinese proverb ''Jiao de caigen, baishi ke zuo'' 嚼得菜根, 百事可做 literally means "[On ...
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Hong Zicheng
Hong Zicheng (, ) was a Chinese philosopher who lived during the end of the Ming dynasty. Zicheng (自誠) was Hong's ''zi'' (字, 'courtesy name'); his given name was Hong Yingming (Hung Ying-ming, 洪應明), and his ''hao'' (號, 'pseudonym') was Huanchu Daoren (Huan-ch'u Tao-jen, 還初道人, 'Daoist Adept who Returns to the Origin'). Hong Zicheng wrote the ''Caigentan'', the ''Xianfo qizong'', and several no-longer extant books. The '' Caigentan'' (菜根譚, 'Vegetable Roots Discourse') is an eclectic compilation of philosophical aphorisms that combine elements from Confucianism, Daoism, and Chan Buddhism. The 1602 ''Xianfo qizong'' (仙佛奇蹤, 'Marvelous Traces of Transcendents and Buddhas') contains legends about Daoist and Buddhist masters. The Qing dynasty catalog to the '' Siku Quanshu'' summarizes the ''Xianfo qizong'': Hong is a historically enigmatic figure. "Nothing is known about his life and career", write Goodrich and Fang (1976:678), except that he was a ...
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Gao Lian (dramatist)
Gao Lian (, fl. 16th century), was Chinese writer, dramatist and encyclopedist.Cihai: Page 2045. Gao Lian was born in Qiantang (钱塘 - present day Hangzhou). His courtesy name was Shenfu (深甫) and his Art name, pseudonym was Ruinan Daoren (瑞南道人). He is known to have written the plays ''Jiexiaoji'' (节孝记) and ''Yuzanji'' (玉簪记, "The Jade Hairpin"). Of the two, he is most noted for latter, a romantic drama about a young impoverished scholar and a Daoist nun. The piece remains a classic of the Ming Dynasty, Ming period theater in thirty-three scenes, some of which are still performed today. In his discussion of mental illness (''hsin-ping''), successfully diagnosed the condition now known as bipolar disorder. Gao advised his readers to avoid abortion and show concern for the elderly and physically weak. He suggested we attach ourselves to a major religious system or our inner emptiness will invite some manner of physical disease. Gao suggests he was a residen ...
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Parallel Text
A parallel text is a text placed alongside its translation or translations. Parallel text alignment is the identification of the corresponding sentences in both halves of the parallel text. The Loeb Classical Library and the Clay Sanskrit Library are two examples of dual-language series of texts. Reference Bibles may contain the original languages and a translation, or several translations by themselves, for ease of comparison and study; Origen's Hexapla (Greek for "sixfold") placed six versions of the Old Testament side by side. A famous example is the Rosetta Stone, whose discovery allowed the Ancient Egyptian language to begin being deciphered. Large collections of parallel texts are called parallel corpora (see text corpus). Alignments of parallel corpora at sentence level are prerequisite for many areas of linguistic research. During translation, sentences can be split, merged, deleted, inserted or reordered by the translator. This makes alignment a non-trivial task. Pa ...
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Robert Baker Aitken
Robert Baker Dairyu Chotan Aitken Rōshi (June 19, 1917 – August 5, 2010) was a Zen teacher in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959 together with his wife, Anne Hopkins Aitken. Aitken received Dharma transmission from Koun Yamada in 1985 but decided to live as a layperson. He was a socialist advocating social justice for gays, women and Native Hawaiians throughout his life, and was one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Biography Robert Aitken or Bob, as he liked to be called, was born to Robert Thomas Aitken and Gladys Page Baker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1917. He was raised in Hawaii from the age of five. He was the son of a war enthusiast and was a rebel and loner in the 1930s and 40s before the war. Living in Guam as a civilian working in construction—at the onset of World War II—he was detained by the Japanese and held in internment camps for the duration of the war. A guard at one of the internme ...
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Thomas Cleary
Thomas Cleary (24 April 1949 – 20 June 2021) was an American translator and writer of more than 80 books related to Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Muslim classics, and of ''The Art of War'', a treatise on management, military strategy, and statecraft. He has translated books from Pali, Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese language, Chinese, Japanese language, Japanese, and Old Irish into English. Cleary lived in Oakland, California. Life and work Cleary became interested in Buddhism when he was a teenager; his researches into Buddhist thought began with a desire to learn during this time of his life. When he began translating, he chose either untranslated works or—as in the case of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War''—books whose extant translations were "too limited". Cleary earned a Ph.D. in EALC, East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, and a JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. After completing his doctoral studies, Clea ...
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William Scott Wilson
William Scott Wilson (born 1944, Nashville, Tennessee) is known for translating several works of Japanese literature, mostly those relating to the martial tradition of that country. Wilson has brought historical Chinese and Japanese thought, philosophy, and tactics to the West in his translations of famous East Asian literature. Awards On November 3, 2015, Wilson was inducted into the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, for "promoting understanding of Japan through the introduction of Japanese Literature in the United States." Wilson received Japan's Foreign Minister's Commendation from the Consulate General of Japan in Miami, Masakazu Toshikage on November 15, 2005. According to the Consulate Press release: The award is "conferred upon individuals or groups that have rendered especially distinguished service in strengthening the relationship between Japan and other countries. Through his literary works and translations, Mr. Wilson has contributed greatly to in ...
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Samudra
Samudra (Sanskrit: समुद्र; ) is a Sanskrit term literally meaning the "gathering together of waters" (''-'' "together" and ''-udra'' "water"). It refers to an ocean, sea or confluence. It also forms the name of Samudradeva, the Hindu god of the ocean. The word is also present on other languages influenced by Sanskrit. Samudra in the Rigveda The term occurs 133 times in the Rigveda, referring to oceans (real, mythical or figurative) or large bodies of water as well as to large Soma vessels, e.g. RV 6.69.6 (trans. Griffith): :''Strengthened with sacred offerings, Indra-Visnu, first eaters, served with worship and oblation,'' :''Fed with the holy oil, vouchsafe us riches; ye are the lake ''samudra'', the vat that holds the Soma.'' The precise semantic field of the Vedic word is difficult to establish, and has been much debated, in particular in relation to the question whether the bearers of the Rigvedic culture had direct knowledge of the ocean. Apart from the question ...
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ...
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Four Noble Truths
In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: ; pi, cattāri ariyasaccāni; "The four Arya satyas") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones".[aFour Noble Truths: BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY Encyclopaedia Britannica, Quote: "Although the term Four Noble Truths is well known in English, it is a misleading translation of the Pali term Chattari-ariya-saccani (Sanskrit: Chatvari-arya-satyani), because noble (Pali: ariya; Sanskrit: arya) refers not to the truths themselves but to those who recognize and understand them. A more accurate rendering, therefore, might be “four truths for the [spiritually] noble” [...]";[''Arhat (Buddhism)'' Encyclopædia Britannica The truths are: * '' dukkha'' (literally "suffering"; here "unsatisfactoriness") is an innate characteristic of existence in the realm of '' samsara'';
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Chiasmus
In rhetoric, chiasmus ( ) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek , "crossing", from the Greek , , "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words". A similar device, antimetabole, also involves a reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses in an A-B-B-A configuration, but unlike chiasmus, presents a repetition of words. Examples Chiasmus balances words or phrases with similar, though not identical, meanings: "Dotes" and "strongly loves" share the same meaning and bracket, as do "doubts" and "suspects". Additional examples of chiasmus: For comparison, the following is considered antimetabole, in which the reversal in structure involves the same words: Both chiasmus and antimetabole can be used to reinforce antithesis. In chiasmus, the clauses display inverted parallelism. Chiasmus was particularly popular in the literature of the ancient worl ...
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