Thomas Cleary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Cleary (b. 1949) is a prolific, and somewhat reclusive, author and translator of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Muslim religious literature, and of the Chinese Art of War tradition of strategy and statecraft. He received a PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, but has had minimal involvement with the academic world.
His first publication, with his brother J.C. Cleary (also an accomplished scholar) was the translation of the massive Zen koan collection, The Blue Cliff Record (Japanese: Hekigan Roku) ISBN 1-59030-232-X.
Cleary also translated the monumental Avatamsaka Sutra (Huayan Jing / Flower Ornament Scripture). His most popular translation has been of the Chinese classic The Art of War (Sunzi Bingfa) by Sun Tzu.
Another major translation is of the commentaries of the 18th century Taoist sage Liu Yiming, explaining the often impenetrable metaphoric coding of the main Taoist texts, dealing with the transformation of consciousness accompanying spiritual enlightenment and with Taoist alchemy
Cleary's recent translation of the Qur'an has been praised by Muslims who know English and Arabic.[citation needed]
Early in his career, he was sponsored by the abbot Zentatsu Richard Baker of the San Francisco Zen Center while conducting his translation work.
