My local Soto-shu temple here in Tokyo has Zazen sessions open to the public twice a month and I often go along. Last time everyone who attended got a Zen Calendar for 2023. There’s a lovely picture for each month, and little proverb for each day.
I thought it’d be nice to post each day’s proverb here all of this year. And I’d like to invite anyone who is interested to translate! I could do that, but my Japanese is awful! However, if there is no interest, I’ll add my own translation.
Yeah I think you’re right, I was considering putting “Start” at the beginning but I wondered if that’d be too much, so I wanted to just leave it up to the interpretation of the reader.
Make preparations (for the bad times) during the good times.
I was gonna say this could be the Japanese equivalent of “make hay while the sun shines”, but according to Jisho, the Japanese equivalent of that is (ironically enough) 思い立ったが吉日, so I wonder if either (a) there’s some subtleties in the English (or the Japanese) that I’m not really picking up on, or (b) there’s some overlap here.
Or (c) Jisho’s being too liberal with its proverb equvalencies. I’m thinking now that 思い立ったが吉日 might be closer to “there’s no time like the present” - which is to say, “do it now, don’t put it off until later”, whereas “make hay while the sun shines” is closer to “make preparations now while things are good for leaner times in the future”.
In english this distinction sounds right to me: “there’s no time like the present” = “now is the good time to start doing x”, and “make hay while the sun shines” is “if the times are good, then make the most of them”
順調な時に備えを feels more like the 2nd to me. “In the favorable times, make preparations”.
I’m guuuueeeeessing that it’s implying 備えをする.
