Zen 和襌

日前無聊發現了The Zen of Python： 
rickmak$ python
Python 2.5 (r25:51918, Sep 19 2006, 08:49:13)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5341)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
>>>

The Zen of Python 中的Zen 是中文禪，如果直譯做Python 的襌，在以中文為母語的人很是奇怪，起碼我覺得得奇怪。

襌， 在中文是佛教用語，語源應是梵文音譯，而以我的認知襌更是更多和襌宗有關。襌宗是佛教的「本土化」大概己經是公論，而襌在中文的理解，強調的是不立文字， 直指本心。大概給中華文化哺育的人都會聽過六祖的故事，那句「菩提本無樹，明鏡亦非臺，本來無一物，何處惹塵埃。」。所以當看見外國人如何用這個襌字，就 會覺得他們的理解應和漢語世界相去甚遠，不然外國人不會自Zen 去立下一些原則，若Python 用Philosophy 而不是用Zen ，我會覺得更合適。

這當然是一個跨文化交流的大問題，對同一個字的不同理解，字的語源一致，但經歷了不同文化的「歸化」，結果字的實質文化意涵大大不同，以及後這字在文化交流中有甚麼角色，會否做成誤解，都是很有趣的問題。不過對外國人而言，相信Zen 是新字，字義還未定，否則不會出現Zendesk, Zen Internet。當然，西方對Zen 的理解不一定源自中國，當然可以直接源自印度，或是日本。不過大概離不開是一種「潮語」。