I saw an interview with Ursula K. Leguin some years ago, and she mentioned the English translation of the Chinese quotation from which she took the title for her book Lathe of Heaven, the interview being done during the time of the remake of the new and re-release of the old movies. She made a passing comment that after writing the book, she found that the translation of the quote was actually pretty inaccurate, but didn’t elaborate.
Anyone out there can do any better? I don’t have access to the Chinese source, so I can’t post what it looks like.
I think that’s a bit off. The expression comes from the works of Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu. The specific passage that Leguin is supposed to have taken it from is this:
It’s true that the last sentence isn’t particularly well translated. The original is:
I think “lose to the heavenly scales” is closer. In Chuang Tzu’s philosophy, balance is of prime importance, and it is symbolized by a great heavenly scale, which is what he’s talking about here. It’s not an “equalizer” but rather something something with which your soul is weighted, with the goal of achieving balance between all things. If you do not follow the path laid out in the book, the heavenly scale will be out of balance.
“Harmonizer” suggests that it’s something that brings balance. It doesn’t, it measures balance. It’s like the scales of justice, or those used to judge who will enter heaven in Christianity. You can also see it as the universe’s balance itself, but I do not think it is to be seen as something that “harmonizes” or gives balance.
It isn’t clear to me what you’re basing your argument on. Do you have a textual defense for your claim? In this translation of the Zhuangzi, it speaks of the heavenly element, which it equates to the lathe of heaven, as harmonizing.
Are you just arguing from general Chinese metaphysical principles?
是以聖人和之以是非，而休乎天鈞，是之謂兩行。 Therefore the sagely man brings together a dispute in its affirmations and denials, and rests in the equal fashioning of Heaven. Both sides of the question are admissible.
Lin Yutang translates the passage above as: Wherefore the true Sage brings all the contraries together and rests in the natural Balance of Heaven. This is called (the principle of following) two courses (at once).
The word “鈞” was a measure of weight until the Ming era and is thus associated with scales.
The original Chinese text you linked to doesn’t include “天鈞”. “Tempered and harmonised by the Heavenly element in our nature” corresponds to:
和以天倪
In this case, the important concept is “天倪” (tian-ni). Here’s what a Taiwanese researcher has to say about the concepts of tian-jun and tian-ni:
What’s very difficult when translating classical Chinese texts, especially philosophical ones, is that very often the important concepts have no equivalent in English. Translators often seem to not agree on term, which complicates things greatly for English readers.
In it, the author discusses what the origin of the expression tian-jun might be. One of the possible meanings of the jun character is “potter’s wheel”. This is where the English translators got “lathe”. However, the author states that this is one of several hypotheses.
The first meaning of 鈞 was a unit of measure. From there, it came to mean “average” and “equivalent” and later “to measure”. I couldn’t find where the “potter’s wheel” meaning came from, but I find that the use of “lathe” in English distracts from the more contextually accurate notion of “balance” and “equilibrium”, even though “lathe” might be somewhat etymologically correct.
Incidently, if you switch the two characters around, you get: 鈞天, which is one of the nine heavens, more specifically, the middle heaven.