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The Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentary Paperback – 12 February 2013
by Red Pine (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 150 ratings
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Having translated The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, and following with The Platform Sutra, Red Pine now turns his attention to perhaps the greatest Sutra of all. The Lankavatara Sutra is the holy grail of Zen. Zen’s first patriarch, Bodhidharma, gave a copy of this text to his successor, Hui-k’o, and told him everything he needed to know was in this book. Passed down from teacher to student ever since, this is the only Zen sutra ever spoken by the Buddha. Although it covers all the major teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, it contains but two teachings: that everything we perceive as being real is nothing but the perceptions of our own mind and that the knowledge of this is something that must be realized and experienced for oneself and cannot be expressed in words. In the words of Chinese Zen masters, these two teachings became known as “have a cup of tea” and “taste the tea.”
This is the first translation into English of the original text used by Bodhidharma, which was the Chinese translation made by Gunabhadra in 443 and upon which all Chinese Zen masters have relied ever since. In addition to presenting one of the most difficult of all Buddhist texts in clear English, Red Pine has also added summaries, explanations, and notes, including relevant Sanskrit terms on the basis of which the Chinese translation was made. This promises to become an essential text for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding or knowledge of Zen.
320 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Catapult
Publication date
12 February 2013
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Product description
Review
Praise for The Lankavatara Sutra
Winner of the 2018 Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation
Buddhism can be daunting to the casual Western reader--daunting in its antiquity, the strangeness and profusion of its names, and the complexity of some of its concepts . . . Red Pine eases the path to the Lankavatara Sutra with plentiful notes, explanations, and study questions, as well as his plainspoken translation. Through his work, seekers may get closer to the notions of perception and experience of perception the sutra teaches. --Library Journal
About the Author
Bill Porter (aka Red Pine) is widely recognized as one of the world's preeminent translators of Chinese poetry and religious texts; he assumes the pen name Red Pine for his translations.
Writing as Red Pine, he was the first translator to ever translate the entirety of Han-shan's oeurve into English, published as The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Red Pine was also the first to translate into English the entirely of The Poems of the Masters. He has also translated several of the major Buddhist sutras, including the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, and Platform Sutra.
Publisher : Catapult (12 February 2013)
Language : English
Paperback : 320 pages
4.6 out of 5 stars 150 ratings
Red Pine
Bill Porter (aka "Red Pine") is widely recognized as one of the world's preeminent translators of Chinese poetry and religious texts; he assumes the pen name "Red Pine" for his translations.
Bill Porter was born in Los Angeles in 1943 and grew up in the Idaho panhandle. He served a tour of duty in the U.S. Army (1964-67), graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology in 1970, and attended graduate school at Columbia University. Uninspired by the prospect of an academic career, he dropped out of Columbia and moved in 1972 to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks and nuns, he struck out on his own and eventually found work at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where he produced over one thousand programs about his travels in China. In 1993 he returned to America with his family and has lived ever since near Seattle, Washington.
Writing as Bill Porter, he is the author of several travelogues, including Road to Heaven, which focuses on his interactions with Taoist hermits in the mountains of China; Zen Baggage; and his Guggenheim project, Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past.
Writing as Red Pine, he was the first translator to ever translate the entirety of Han-shan's oeurve into English, published as The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Red Pine was also the first to translate into English the entirely of The Poems of the Masters. He has also translated several of the major Buddhist sutras, including the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, and Platform Sutra.
Top review from Australia
Gavin Lidgard
5.0 out of 5 stars Red 'Buddha' Pine, at his best.Reviewed in Australia on 28 March 2015
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Open the doorways, journey down the passage ways and find yourself facing Buddha. Red Pine's translation makes this text a true Zen reader.
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Urbanascetic
5.0 out of 5 stars A crystal clear poolReviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2013
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Maybe not the best place to start for beginners but If you think you are ready then buy it - Confirmation, affirmation, direction.
What price clarity? What cost ignorance?
For me the best Lankavatara Sutra translation available in English.
I read D T Suzuki's version some time ago, I felt it was a struggle. I've also tried/waded through quite a few others.
I found Red Pines translation to be both poetical and much more accessible than the aforementioned attempts.
For me Suzuki's Lankavatara commentary (available free on the internet) is invaluable when getting to grips with this Sutra but the actual sutra transalation is not his best work.
Red Pines translation brought this Sutra to life for me so hopefully it will do something similar for you.
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QIreviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant maze of tangled vines - breathtaking and epicly hard to penetrateReviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 February 2016
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A far from simple read. Profoundly deep, complicated and complete. This is an awesome act of translation by red pine with the footnotes approaching the length of the translation itself. Indeed these footnotes make the actual Sutra more accessible. Be warned however this is not a simple Sutra it will require a high amount of dedication to go through this one and I'd recommend chipping away at the Lankavatara over a long period of time. If you want to hear about Zen from the mouth of the Buddha hear it is, or alternatively listen to the birds outside.
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F Nuttall
4.0 out of 5 stars Four StarsReviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 June 2018
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An informed translation with decent commentary.
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Zoltan Dul
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book of BuddhismReviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2017
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If you are interested in Buddhism I can truly recommend this book for you. It is a masterpiece in its field.
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Nish
5.0 out of 5 stars commentary is excellent !Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2014
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The commentaries in this book is really helpful to follow the deep meaning in this sutra . The best translation so far found and the one that could trust the original meaning has not been destroyed .
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The Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentary
This is the first translation into English of the original text used by Bodhidharma, which was the Chinese translation made by Gunabhadra in 443 and upon which all Chinese Zen masters have relied ever since.
In addition to presenting one of the most difficult of all Buddhist texts in clear English, Red Pine has also added summaries, explanations and notes, including relevant Sanskrit terms on the basis of which the Chinese translation was made. This promises to become an essential text for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding or knowledge of Zen.
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Given the illusory character of reality, the Lankavatara Sutra posits a middle way between essentialism and nihilism. According to the text, the Buddha's wisdom recognizes that the world does not exist. But the Buddha's compassion recognizes that the world does not not exist. We may compare this to a statement given in the first chapter of the Daodejing: "Always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its [the Dao's] secrets / But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations." This seems compelling and ties into a sort of dialectical way of thinking about difference and unity. The Buddha likens phenomena to the ocean and its waves. According to the Buddha, there are both no distinctions and not no distinctions between the ocean and its waves; they are both the interpenetrating and yet distinct. This is similar to Fazang's commentary on the Flower Ornament Sutra. And 1200 years before Deleuze.
And yet I can't help, as a Marxist, but think about the political implications. Buddhism has its root (if I may generalize for a second) individual cultivation of a certain kind of wisdom about the nature (or non-nature) of things. So there is essentially no political element. When Mahamati asks about power and wealth and kings, the Buddha cryptically replies, "A statement about kings is about no kings." And yet, in Mahayana Buddhism, there is the element of the bodhisattva, who forgoes enlightenment in order to assist others in their own paths to enlightenment. Here comes a political element in the form of compassion. Yet what would a politics based on compassion look like? Certainly we can make a link to Deleuze and Guattari's suggestion of revolutionary politics based on the process of de-individuation. And yet, the Lankavatara Sutra has no answer for if one considers the exploitative nature of class society. Does compassion for all living beings lead to ultimate nonviolence and a rejection of revolutionary politics, or does compassion for the many outweigh compassion for the few, opening up the potential for revolutionary politics? The text would seem to lean towards the latter, which is a position that fundamentally reproduces class society. (less)
The evasiveness of the concept makes the Sutra a necessarily difficult read. I do not believe it is a good place to start for curious philosophers or nascent Buddhists. However, it offers a tremendous amount for the prepared mind and Red Pine's footnotes are invaluable.
Neither the Sutra nor the translator are afraid of repeating themselves. This was tremendously helpful for me. For example, consider the attributes of knowledge - how learning changes the way we act and think. The Lankavatara Sutra claims that fully embodying the Dharma has no attributes nor does it not have no attributes. It's pretty confusing. The "third way" - the path between having no attributes and having attributes - appears throughout the Lankavatara Sutra. The Buddha points out the frivolity of the distinction through analogy. Pieces of the ocean cannot be sliced into distinct sections and yet the ocean's wave are a distinct phenomenon with no clear beginning or end.
This is just one such analogy that appears in many different forms with many different contexts. I can't say that I live in a world full of rich emptiness after reading this Sutra, but I can say it has helped me enjoy a cup of tea. (less)
Moreover on the next page of the book, it mentions how the title of the book contains a combination of "lanka" and "avatara" Moreover on page 2 it states; "Chinese commentators say lanka means "unreachable Maybe it does, but I don't know what they base this on. The only definition I can find is that the word refers to the island we now call Sri Lanka... which mean "to go to" or "to go beyond." But if that were true, it would be "reachable." (p. 2) Chinese commentators say lanka means unreachable. However further interpretations mean to go to, which suggests that lanka means reachable; another interpretation is that it originates from an island.
Further on down the line in the translators preface on p. 15 it states "Of course, the Lanka consists in more than these two phrases. But if you keep these two in view, you won't be distracted by the attractions of the Buddha's teahouse. Written in language that would later become part of the Yogacara school of Buddhism, the Lanka provides a view of how the mind works and how the path to enlightenment works."
On the same page it later sates; "The five dharmas divide our worlds into name, appearance, projection, correct knowledge, and suchness; the three modes of reality do the same with imagined reality, dependent reality, and perfected reality; and the eight forms of consciousness include the five forms of sensory consciousness, conceptual consciousness, the will or self consciousness, and an eighth form, known as repository consciousness where the seeds from our previous thoughts, words and deeds are stored and from which they sprout and grow." (p.15-16)
What does this mean? When you name something you are defining it. When God commanded Adam to multiply and be fruitful, he also suggested for him to name the animals of which he claimed. Naming something is like giving a generality of definitions towards one definition. Appearance is only that, an appearance. We never see the object in full but only part of an object. And imagined reality can go back to reality vs illusion. A quote on page 31 can help us with this analysis;
"The Lord of Lanka felt an awakening and transformation of his consciousness, as he realized what appeared was nothing but the perceptions of his own mind, and he found himself in a realm free from such projections."
However it is important to remember, as it suggests in p.61 that this is all in the formation of the mind.
"A statement about birth is about no birth. A statement about permanence is about no permanence." It goes on like that for different terms but you get the idea. What is, is its opposite. A statement about birth negates itself. It is all an illusion, because as the mind perceives the world in a solipsistic sense.
The Lankavatara Sutra translated by Red Pine is a thoughtful, engaging text both for the serious scholar of Buddhism and also for the weary traveler of Buddhism. Ancient texts contain great meaning that only matters if we gain meaning and understanding from them. (less)
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This Sutra was the only Sutra that Bodhidharma brought with him from India to China. It is a storehouse of wisdom for anyone treading the bodhisattva path.
Definitely one to read slowly and carefully for spiritual and Zen practitioners alike. (less)