... there are actual verses from the scriptures translated in such a way that either the essential meaning has been lost or new meanings have been added. This last category is well represented by the words “We are what we think. / All that we are arises with our thoughts. / With our thoughts we make the world.” You may well recognize these words as the opening of the Dhammapada, and some readers may wonder what could possibly be wrong with them. Isn’t this what the Buddha taught? Didn’t the Buddha say that the world is an illusion, that we become what we think? Let’s step back a bit and look at what the opening line of the Dhammapada actually says. The Pali text reads: Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya. I’d translate this as follows: “Mental states (dhamma) are preceded by mind (manopubbangama), have mind as their master (manosettha), are created by mind (manomaya).” The first two verses of the Dhammapada, both of which begin with the words Manopubbangama dhamma manosettha manomaya, state that suffering and joy inevitably arise from an impure or pure mind, respectively. Although mano can mean both “thought” and “mind,” you’ll note that there’s no mention in the Pali of “the world,” and therefore no suggestion that the world is created by our thoughts. The essential message of the two verses is that the ethical quality of the mind determines whether or not we suffer, so the Buddha was making a psychological point, not an ontological one. Our suspect quotation is from a much-loved version of the Dhammapada by Thomas Byrom. Byrom was an Englishman who taught history and literature at Harvard and Oxford, but nothing in the biographical notes supplied by publishers suggests that he ever taught or studied Pali, which may explain the poetic but very nonliteral nature of his translation. ..... tricycle/what-buddha-never-said/we-are-what-we-think
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 01:06:18 +0000
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