Bruce
edited 2/19/2010 see,split
Recipe for Reiki Credibility by Pamela Miles.
Bruce wrote:Isn't Pamela Miles the one who said "The Japanese language has no words?" Hmmm, credibility?
Bruce
Thaak wrote:Bruce wrote:Isn't Pamela Miles the one who said "The Japanese language has no words?" Hmmm, credibility?
Bruce
Bruce, did you actually read what she wrote?.
The words she wrote, I found, were incredibly valuable.
Bruce wrote:Thaak wrote:Bruce wrote:Isn't Pamela Miles the one who said "The Japanese language has no words?" Hmmm, credibility?
Bruce
Bruce, did you actually read what she wrote?.
Yes.
The words she wrote, I found, were incredibly valuable.
I'm assuming you're referring to the words that Bridget most recently quoted. Your finding them valuable is okay. My point is that it's ironic that she's commenting on what makes a practitioner credible, after her (literally) incredible insistence that "the Japanese language has no words." It's very unfortunate that she's undermining not only her own credibility with such a statement, but perhaps also compromising the credibiilty of other practitioners.
Bruce
Reiki Is Not a Word
November 5th, 2009
How often have you seen information about Reiki that starts with this: Reiki is a Japanese word meaning universal life energy.
What is wrong with that sentence?
First of all, there are no Japanese words. The Japanese language is written in pictograms, not words.
I hear someone saying, “Picky, picky, picky.” And I completely own it. I am picky, picky, picky. But that doesn’t make a pictogram a word, or even a reasonable equivalent. A pictogram is a stylized picture. Even the most florid word is linear compared to a picture. Words define; pictograms suggest. And they can only be understood in context.
The definition above traces back to Hawayo Takata, the Reiki master who, with her Reiki master Chujiro Hayashi, brought Reiki from Japan to Hawaii in the late 1930s.
I want to go on record as having only the most profound admiration and gratitude for Mrs. Takata. But that doesn’t mean we freeze dry everything she said and use it without reflection.
Anyone who heard Mrs. Takata say those words also heard her say more, and likely felt her hands as well. Taking a line from a live event and turning it into the lead of an article doesn’t work. When writing, we have only our words with which to interest people. Make them count.
Use your words to tell people what they want to know about Reiki–how it can help them. If you lead with a definition that tells them nothing, you may not get a chance to elaborate.
chi_solas wrote:Bruce wrote:Thaak wrote:Bruce wrote:Isn't Pamela Miles the one who said "The Japanese language has no words?" Hmmm, credibility?
Bruce
Bruce, did you actually read what she wrote?.
Yes.
The words she wrote, I found, were incredibly valuable.
I'm assuming you're referring to the words that Bridget most recently quoted. Your finding them valuable is okay. My point is that it's ironic that she's commenting on what makes a practitioner credible, after her (literally) incredible insistence that "the Japanese language has no words." It's very unfortunate that she's undermining not only her own credibility with such a statement, but perhaps also compromising the credibiilty of other practitioners.
Bruce
Bruce your referring to what she wrote
Reiki Is Not a Word
November 5th, 2009
How often have you seen information about Reiki that starts with this: Reiki is a Japanese word meaning universal life energy.
What is wrong with that sentence?
First of all, there are no Japanese words. The Japanese language is written in pictograms, not words.
I hear someone saying, “Picky, picky, picky.” And I completely own it. I am picky, picky, picky. But that doesn’t make a pictogram a word, or even a reasonable equivalent. A pictogram is a stylized picture. Even the most florid word is linear compared to a picture. Words define; pictograms suggest. And they can only be understood in context.
The definition above traces back to Hawayo Takata, the Reiki master who, with her Reiki master Chujiro Hayashi, brought Reiki from Japan to Hawaii in the late 1930s.
I want to go on record as having only the most profound admiration and gratitude for Mrs. Takata. But that doesn’t mean we freeze dry everything she said and use it without reflection.
Anyone who heard Mrs. Takata say those words also heard her say more, and likely felt her hands as well. Taking a line from a live event and turning it into the lead of an article doesn’t work. When writing, we have only our words with which to interest people. Make them count.
Use your words to tell people what they want to know about Reiki–how it can help them. If you lead with a definition that tells them nothing, you may not get a chance to elaborate.
Bruce wrote:BTW, for Miles to be right about the Japanese language not having any words, the following would have to be true:
1. When my maternal grandmother said "Nihongo o hanashimasu," she wasn't using any words. (That's ridiculous.)
2. When she wrote the same statement in the hiragana script, which is phonetically based, she again wasn't using any words. (Again, that's ridiculous.)
3. When my father, who was a professional linguist and who studied Japanese in the later years of his life, referred to "Japanese words," he was wrong about that, just because Miles says so. (Uh, I doubt it.)
Now, even if we look only at kanji, Miles is still wrong. She's apparently ignorant about the phonetic borrowing that occurred in many of the compound Chinese characters before they were adopted by the Japanese.
Here's why it matters. People like you have referred to Miles as a leader in the reiki community. Her statements about the reiki system are likely to be more heavily weighted than those of other practitioners. Her statement about Japanese not having any words could seriously mislead reiki practitioners who don't know any better. And people who aren't familiar with reiki may believe that many reiki practitioners don't even have basic linguistic sense -- so why bother to look further at what those practitioners say. That's what I mean about Miles' statement undermining her own credibility and perhaps that of other practitioners too.
Bruce
Thaak wrote:And yet, Bruce, Linguistically, looking at the "written" language of Japanese, they don't use words. If you look at the language from the perspective of a linguistic scholar, you'll find that they don't use words.
You can fight that, and spout off about that all you want, but just because you say it, and have background with Japanese familial routes, does not make what you say true either.
Bruce wrote:Methinks shakti has nothing to contribute to the merits of the discussion, but she still feels she has to butt in with yet another ad hominem attack. Yeah, why should this time be any different?
Bruce
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