michael lambe's scrapbook

Today’s message from Hozouji:

信頼は
最上の縁者
心の安らぎは
最上の幸福

shinrai ha
saijou no enja
kokoro no yasuragi ha
saijou no shiawase

Notice how the kanji for good fortune 福 has been squeezed into the word for happiness: しあわせ. This is from the Dhammapada (法句経). The story goes there was this king who used to eat a big old meaty lunch every day and then fall into a big old snorey food coma during the Buddha’s sermons. Unphased, the Buddha advised him to cut back on the fatty foods. The king did so, promptly lost a few pounds and became super alert and attentive. “Thanks Buddha!” said he, “I feel SUPREME!”, whereupon the Buddha intoned a few verses on “the supremes”: “health being the supreme attainment, contentment being the supreme treasure, blah blah blah…” and this time, miraculously, the king didn’t fall asleep! As for translating the Japanese, the biggest problem for me was how to translate は. Does the は in “信頼は最上の縁者” tell us to trust those who are “closest to us” or to make those we trust “our best family”? Jay Rubin has a good book on は and about where exactly it throws its emphasis. I cheated and looked up the Pali verses. This one’s for John Mulry (the laughing Buddha of Birmingham):

Those you trust
are your greatest kin.
Peace of mind
is the greatest joy.

Update May 6th: Some further thoughts from old pal Masaya Kanzaki:

I looked at the poem and had to think for a while.

The two lines are parallel to each other in terms of structure.

A は B. C は D (A= 信頼, B=最上の縁者, C=心の安らぎ, D=最上の幸福) is like “A is B. C is D.”

For me the beauty of the poem is this parallel structure, so I want you keep it in your translation, which would be something like:

Trust is the greatest kin.

Peace of mind is the greatest joy.

The first line is ambiguous but 「信頼は最上の縁者」 itself is ambiguous too, so you can leave the ambiguity in the translation.
My interpretation is “Trusting other people is good; it’s like the greatest kin.”

I wasn’t quite sure what 縁者 means so I looked it up in the dictionary.

It says that people used to make a distinction between 親類 and 縁者, both of which mean “relatives”.

親類 refers to relatives who are connected by blood, whereas 縁者 refers to relatives who are connected by marriage.

Going back to the poem, trust can’t create blood relations but it can create a strong bond like the one between 縁者.

Another interpretation is that 縁者 does not mean relatives. It can be seen as the combination of 縁（connection） and 者（person） to mean a person who connects you to others.

Trust is the greatest connection creator.

That’s all I can think of at the moment.

Well, I think that’s plenty. Thanks Masaya!