I am not a very literary person and never learned grammar at school so this has been a tremendous challenge. Please let me know if there is anything too quirky, then I can take a look at it.
A brief background to this translation. I took Ani ordination 16 years ago from HH Penor Rinpoche in India because of an experience. Since then I have been searching for this teaching of the path I briefly experienced and which I finally recognised 4 months ago in the Pali Canon. In anticipation of finding what I was looking for, over the past couple of years after some distraction I finally got back on track and down to learning some Sanskrit. Then I put all my energy into learning, Pali while translating this. Fortunately from the examples and stories contained in this Sutta I could cross reference and deduce an appropriate word from the dictionary or other sources to use. The result is this attempt at a very literal word for word translation which fills the missing gaps in my Dharma knowledge and which I can now use for personal practice.
Not being a traditionalist, for me, this Sutta spans all Buddhist traditions and schools which I see as a basis for them. I apologize if anyone finds my translation offensive as I mean no offense and this is only my personal interpretation from a very basic/limited understanding of Pali. As a trainee nun I still have many faults, desires and pride which I am working on refining from this mind/ego.
As this is a work in progress I have made some minor editing changes and added a brief introduction. The document link automatically updates these corrections or changes when I make them.
Because of changes to Google Drive I need to alter all hyperlinks associated with my topics and personal files. Unfortunately I can’t seem to edit or delete my original post so will place the new hyperlink here.
It is quite an effort on your side. I did not read it as I do not understand why you have done something like that. But I gave a Like because I admire people like you who had so much passion for Dhamma.
Thanks for your like. My reasons are stated in a note at the end of the translation. But briefly I find the current Pali translations and dictionary’s misleading because of all the overlapping definitions that don’t seem up to date with modern English usage where English is a first language. For example if I were to follow the suggestions of some I could end up with a sentence translated as: “the knowledge of the knowledge is knowledge”. Which is true but not helpful, so for my personal study I am attempting to differentiate each Pali word with a single English counterpart so I then have a clear mind map I can follow in mediation. It is a work in progress as I weave my way through numerous possible word definitions across a multitude of Suttas. So I am constantly updating my PDF at the link.
