Help on Japanese terminology

[monkeycam]

Hi all

I am trying to the correct terminology for the frase "dojo of empty mind" or "dojo of no mind" using the philosophy of Mushin

I belive it would be "mushin no dojo"

Can someone with a better understanding of Japanese please help me with this

Thanks in advanced

Cameron

[Shitoryu Dude]

sounds about right to me, but my Japanese is pretty much limited to saying hello, thank you, and "more tuna please" :)

[Brian Owens]

If you repost this in the Language forum you'll probably get some input from fans of that forum who are far more knowledgable than I.

In the mean time; "Mushin no dojo" sounds correct for "dojo of no mind" as a phrase. If you want it to be the actual name of a dojo, though, a less grammatically driven name would possibly be better.

For example, Funakoshi's dojo was called "Shotokan" -- "Shoto's Hall" (Shoto was Funakoshi's pen name). That's not a full sentence with all the proper particles in it, but it gets the meaning across.

As you can see, the word "dojo" doesn't appear in Funakoshi's dojo's name. I can't really think of one off the top of my head that does, other than the ridiculous "Dojo no Hebi" [sic] of Baffling Budo fame.

[Edit] I just realized that there is, of course, the famous "Seattle Dojo" -- a very old Judo club. But still, they aren't "Seattle no Dojo." [End edit]

The tea house in Seattle where I have done Chado is called "Shoseian" -- "The Arbor of Murmuring Pines." It's not called "Shosei no Chashitsu" -- "Teahouse of Murmuring Pines."

Shotokan and Shoseian; beautiful and respected names. You might want to call your dojo "Mushinkan" -- "The Hall of No Mind" -- rather than "Mushin no Dojo" for the same reason.

[Shitoryu Dude]

Plus, Mushinkan sounds really cool.

:cool:

[monkeycam]

Thanks for the advise I will post in the language section

I see your point of mushinkan it dose make sense when you consider it but then again trying to understand the nuances of other languages has always been a hard thing for me to grasp.

[Brian Owens]

...trying to understand the nuances of other languages has always been a hard thing for me to grasp.
Me too. Especially Japanese. I had to drop out of my Japanese 101 class and will retake it in September. I wasn't devoting enough time to out-of-class study, and was falling behind.

Fortunately for Budoka, there are lots of people here that are willing to help, including several frequent posters who live in Japan. Professor Goldsbury in particular has been a font of wisdom that I have relied upon from time to time. He teaches at Hiroshima University, and if he doesn't know the answer to a question he often asks his students.

I really love the language forum.