Seen Somewhere

[greenstorm]

These tenses--past, present and future--are not the tenses of time; they are tenses of the mind. That which is no longer before the mind becomes the past. That which is before the mind is the present. And that which is going to be before the mind is the future. Past is that which is no longer before you. Future is that which is not yet before you. And present is that which is before you and is slipping out of your sight. Soon it will be past.... If you don't cling to the past...because clinging to the past is absolute stupidity. It is no longer there, so you are crying for spilled milk. What is gone is gone! And don't cling to the present because that is also going and soon it will be past. Don't cling to the future--hopes, imaginations, plans for tomorrow--because tomorrow will become today, will become yesterday. Everything is going to become yesterday. Everything is going to go out of your hands. Clinging will simply create misery. You will have to let go.
- Osho The Great Zen Master Ta Hui Chapter 10

Points for idiosyncratic translation which includes slightly-archaic colloquialisms, points for meaning.

Comments

[arrogant-gamer.livejournal.com]

Hi

That translation reads very well; the translator did a good job of localizing.

Point of interest: the past tense in Mandarin is more to do with the completeness of events then there actually place in time.

(See, no exclamation marks, I'm going cold turkey)

z.