]> 2026-10-13T00:22:41-04:00 People/Cleary, T. 0 en Thomas Cleary passed away on June 20, 2021. https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-thomas-cleary :Of his passing, renowned Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman wrote on Facebook: ::“There is no doubt in my mind that Thomas Cleary is the greatest translator of Buddhist texts from Chinese or Japanese into English of our generation, and that he will be so known by grateful Buddhist practitioners and scholars in future centuries. Single-handedly he has gone a long way toward building the beginnings of a Buddhist canon in English.” Cleary became interested in Buddhism when he was a teenager; his researches into Buddhist thought began with a desire to learn during this time of his life. When he began translating, he chose either untranslated works or—as in the case of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War''—books whose extant translations were "too limited". Cleary earned a Ph.D in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Since completing his doctoral studies, Cleary has had little involvement with the academic world. In a rare interview, Cleary stated: "There is too much oppression in a university setting . . . I want to stay independent and reach those who want to learn directly through my books." Cleary's brother Jonathon also completed his doctoral work in EALC at Harvard. The two brothers worked together to translate the koan collection ''The Blue Cliff Record''; Shambhala published the translation in 1977. Thomas Cleary's most widely disseminated translation has been of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' (''Sunzi Bingfa''). He also translated the monumental ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' (also called ''Huayan Jing'', or the ''Flower Ornament Scripture''). Another major translation was of the commentaries of the 18th century Taoist sage Liu Yiming, who explains the metaphoric coding of the main Taoist texts dealing with the transformation of consciousness, and the fusion of the human mind with the mind of Tao. In 2000, Cleary's various translations of Taoist texts were collected into four volumes by Shambhala Publications as ''The Taoist Classics''. Following the success of these publications, a five-volume collection of Buddhist translations was collected as ''Classics of Buddhism and Zen''. Another translation from the Muslim wisdom tradition is ''Living and Dying with Grace''. In 1993 Cleary published a translation of Miyamoto Musashi's ''Book of Five Rings''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cleary Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020]) false false false Person false false false false People File:Thomas-Cleary-ShambhalaPubsOfficial.jpg https://commons.tsadra.org/thumb.php?f=Thomas-Cleary-ShambhalaPubsOfficial.jpg&width=1000 true true true File:Thomas-Cleary-ShambhalaPubsOfficial.jpg File:Cleary, T.jpg File:Thomas-Cleary-ShambhalaPubsOfficial.jpg;File:Cleary, T.jpg Thomas Cleary;Thomas;Cleary;Cleary, T. false Thomas Cleary Thomas Cleary Thomas-Cleary-ShambhalaPubsOfficial.jpg Cleary, T. Thomas Cleary Thomas Cleary Harvard University Cleary, Thomas Modern Thomas Cleary passed away on June 20, 2021. https://www.shambhala.com/remembering-thomas-cleary :Of his passing, renowned Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman wrote on Facebook: ::“There is no doubt in my mind that Thomas Cleary is the greatest translator of Buddhist texts from Chinese or Japanese into English of our generation, and that he will be so known by grateful Buddhist practitioners and scholars in future centuries. Single-handedly he has gone a long way toward building the beginnings of a Buddhist canon in English.” Cleary became interested in Buddhism when he was a teenager; his researches into Buddhist thought began with a desire to learn during this time of his life. When he began translating, he chose either untranslated works or—as in the case of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War''—books whose extant translations were "too limited". Cleary earned a Ph.D in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and a JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Since completing his doctoral studies, Cleary has had little involvement with the academic world. In a rare interview, Cleary stated: "There is too much oppression in a university setting . . . I want to stay independent and reach those who want to learn directly through my books." Cleary's brother Jonathon also completed his doctoral work in EALC at Harvard. The two brothers worked together to translate the koan collection ''The Blue Cliff Record''; Shambhala published the translation in 1977. Thomas Cleary's most widely disseminated translation has been of Sun Tzu's ''The Art of War'' (''Sunzi Bingfa''). He also translated the monumental ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' (also called ''Huayan Jing'', or the ''Flower Ornament Scripture''). Another major translation was of the commentaries of the 18th century Taoist sage Liu Yiming, who explains the metaphoric coding of the main Taoist texts dealing with the transformation of consciousness, and the fusion of the human mind with the mind of Tao. In 2000, Cleary's various translations of Taoist texts were collected into four volumes by Shambhala Publications as ''The Taoist Classics''. Following the success of these publications, a five-volume collection of Buddhist translations was collected as ''Classics of Buddhism and Zen''. Another translation from the Muslim wisdom tradition is ''Living and Dying with Grace''. In 1993 Cleary published a translation of Miyamoto Musashi's ''Book of Five Rings''. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cleary Source Accessed Sept 18, 2020]) Cleary, T.;;;Thomas Cleary;;;Thomas Cleary;Thomas Cleary;Cleary, Thomas 1949 2021 2020-08-24T13:52:14Z 2459086.0779398 2020-08-24T13:52:14Z 2459086.0779398 true People/Cleary, T. 0 0 template commons 1 [[:Cleary, T.]] People/Cleary, T.# QUERY3d3ae6a495b98c1b6d2d8830da25c1de 0 200 1 template 13 <q>[[BuNayAuthor::Cleary, T.]] [[BuNayPageType::!Person]] OR [[People::Cleary, T.||People/Cleary, T.]] [[BuNayPageType::!Person]] OR [[Performer::People/Cleary, T.]] [[BuNayPageType::!Person]]</q> People/Cleary, T.# QUERYabb79ff6a154ea01a1a13e5a7bfbe4bc 0 200 1 template 3 [[Category:Library Items]] [[BuNayTopicTags::People/Cleary, T.]] People/Cleary, T.# QUERY3c00b43014445180a5104ed209e76abe Books/Shōbōgenzō: Zen Essays by Dōgen 0 en Shōbōgenzō: Zen Essays by Dōgen Books/The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra 0 en The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra Books/Transmission of Light 0 en Transmission of Light Media/Rev. Kokyo Henkel: Resource Recommendations for Learning about Buddha-Nature in the Zen Tradition 0 en Rev. Kokyo Henkel: Resource Recommendations for Learning about Buddha-Nature in the Zen Tradition Books/The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra 0 en The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of The Avatamsaka Sutra Media/Rev. Kokyo Henkel: Resource Recommendations for Learning about Buddha-Nature in the Zen Tradition 0 en Rev. Kokyo Henkel: Resource Recommendations for Learning about Buddha-Nature in the Zen Tradition Cleary, T. 0 en Cleary, T. Translator 102 en Translator BuNayTopicTags 102 en BuNayTopicTags BuNayAuthor 102 en BuNayAuthor PeopleMentioned 102 en PeopleMentioned REDI 102 en REDI