Tenrikyo Ofudesaki - Checking My Vocabulary
When I first picked up the "Tip of the Writing Brush" I was pretty sure that my grasp of the English language was sufficient to carry me through the poems with a good understanding of what I was reading. As I got more involved with them however I found that my ordinary use of the English language wasn't always up to the dictionary perfect usages of the translators. I offer here a brush up list of terms that I looked up in my dictionary in case there is also some question in the mind of the reader.
There are not many words that I needed to brush up on as the Poems were intended to be accessible to villagers living in an agricultural community in a particular time and place and for that reason common usages that would have been easily recognizable and direct were employed. Of course over time language changes and the meaning of common idioms tend to get lost. We will see that trying to maintain contact with the past is indeed a problem but since it is intended that the sincere work of awakening is intended to be completed quickly through our own mind now, we need not trouble our self with how things were understood in the past.
A mash up of terms, some of which appear in the Poems and others as looked up in my dictionary and of interest to me and perhaps to others when reading and playing with poems in general:
| Metaphor | -Evil- | Truth |
| Allegory | Anecdotal | Reason |
| Verse - Prose | Service | Distinguish |
| "Waka" Form | Play Playing Joy | Settle |