an shin ritsu mei
安心 are for me, two of the most recognizable kanji in the Japanese language due to their frequent, frequent use in Japanese advertising. They combine a concept of ease with the kanji for heart, mind, or spirit to make peace of mind. 立 is the kanji for stand, but is used in compounds like independence (自立）or national (国立). Combine that with 命 (which can mean life, command, spirit, or decree) and you get peace of mind once again.
Definition: いろいろ悩まないこと。
Translations:
1. An unwavering sense of calm and security... due to faith
2. Keeping a level head at all times
3. Spiritual peace and enlightenment
I have some qualms about today's selection though. The first is that the textbook definition I typed above says nothing about religion or faith. It translates strictly as "Not worrying about everything." I suppose the religious meaning is buried somewhere in the cultural connotation of the kanji themselves.
Second, looking at the translations with a western mind, I think of faith as a belief in a God, Jesus, or Flying Spaghetti Monster who promises that everything will be alright in the end. I don't think this is the kind of spirituality that the Japanese might have in mind when they use it, or that the Chinese might have had in mind when they coined it. I think this might have more to do with the idea of spiritual and ascetic practice, with a zen-like calm and sense of acceptance of/oneness with the universe as it is.
Today's picture... I could justify it by saying it does in picture form, what today's
四字熟語 does to my mind: it gets my own ethnocentric notions of religion (represented , of course, by the Flying Spaghetti Monster) all tangled up with something very culturally Japanese, the former almost polluting or perverting the latter, if you will. The truth is I found the picture online and was like "That's hilarious."
例文： この絵を見て、気分が悪くならないですか？安心立命ができるジャン!
Can you look at this picture without getting upset? Your emotional self control is awe-inspiring!
3 comments:
ホイボッビ。もし、僕の母様この絵画を見ちゃたら、安心立命のはできないぞ！
っけ
That flying spaghetti monster is a such a stud. Now I know why Brett joined his priesthood.
I do think that you are right about cultural meaning being contained within the characters. I don't want to get too much into my personal view of "religion" in Japan, but I think that for speakers of Japanese the "faith" represented in "Anshin Ritsumei" derives from a number of different sources, not all of them corresponding to what an English speaker might consider God/gods/the spiritual. (Pomo quotation marks, move out!) I actually think that a one translation of this that would be best understood by your average English speaker (who has no use for a deep and nuanced knowledge of these things) is just "zen." See my example sentence for more on what I mean.
One of the fun things about thinking about/researching this comment was checking all the google results that I got for 安心立命. A good number of them are pages set up by shady/somewhat shady religious organizations offering respite to the modern Japanese from their harried lifestyles.
Anyway, my example sentence for the day:
最近珍しい、安心立命タイプの彼だから、その程度のことで動揺することはないだろう。
He's one of those rare "zen" types, so thats not the kind of thing that would ruffle his feathers.
僕は夜中で寝ながらたくさん変な物事するけど、次の日全然覚えない。気にしないだから、それが安心立命の意味だよ。
In the middle of the night I often do a bunch of crazy crap while I'm sleeping, but I don't remember any of it the next day. I don't really mind it, and that's the real meaning of peace-of-mind.
A reach, I know, but this was a hurried submission.
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