Thomas Cleary

Thomas F. Cleary
Born 1949
Occupation Author, translator
Language English
Residence Oakland, California, USA
Nationality United States
Education
  • Ph.D., East Asian Languages and Civilizations
  • J.D., Law
Alma mater
Period 1977–
Subject Eastern philosophy
Relatives Jonathon C. Cleary (brother)

Thomas Cleary (born 1949) is an author and translator of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Muslim classics, and of The Art of War, a treatise on management, military strategy, and statecraft.[1][2][3] He lives in Oakland, California, a city on the West Coast of the United States.[3]

Life and work

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.[1] 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".[1] 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.[4] Since completing his doctoral studies, Cleary has had little involvement with the academic world. "There is too much oppression in a university setting", he says.[1] "I want to stay independent and reach those who want to learn directly through my books."[1]

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.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Staff. "Interview with Thomas Cleary". Sonshi.com. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
  2. ↑ Burton-Rose, Daniel. "The Lit interview: Thomas Cleary". San Francisco Bay Guardian Online. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
  3. 1 2 Staff. "The Qur'an, Translated by Dr. Thomas Cleary". Fons Vitae. Archived from the original on 2009-12-14. Retrieved 2009-07-10. Brief biography.
  4. ↑ Staff. "Thomas Cleary". Shambhala.com. Shambhala Publications. Retrieved 2011-01-01. Brief biography plus book titles.
  5. ↑ http://www.isbnplus.com/0877738688
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