Re-entranced

As an afterwards to Alice A. Parker's remarks on translation to the effect that "Translation, like writing, opens up a quantum field of inquiry [...]" I place this passage from Li Tongxuan Entry into the Realm of Reality as translated by Thomas Cleary

Once Sudhana had entered the building, the door then reclosed. Opening means the disappearance of delusion and the appearance of knowledge. Reclosing means that in knowledge there is no inside or outside, no exiting or entering, no delusion or enlightenment. This means wholly returning to the source.

I quote this not to suggest that there exists a mystical guide for doing the work of translation. Rather I cite the passage as an antidote to the common misapprehension that translation is solely the carrying over of a meaning from on situation to another. Translation can be viewed as building another route to a source. It is a way back to an after before or a now.

The building is forever in a state of being built even as it crumbles into ruin. Entering into the building is like tracing a translation: being there on the way to being there.

And so for day 436
22.02.2008