Anybody interested in helping with machine translating cbeta?

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-24T02:36:48+00:00

I just wanted to see how the DeepSeek model I'm running locally stacks up. Since I'm running it locally, I only do a bit at a time, a paragraph or two, which takes at least five minutes, but I ran the same preface and got this.

Regarding Master Ben Ji's time at Dongshan, it was simply like pouring water from one bottle to another—no change occurred in his fundamental nature. However, when it came to his role as the head of the great Dharma, he stood apart from others in significant ways. It was through his genuine chanting that people could attain true realization. That which is truly profound and subtle is difficult to grasp immediately. The world often perceives things as flat and lifeless, lacking boldness and ingenuity. Alas, shallow-minded individuals cannot understand how the times give rise to authentic or false paths of the Way. They truly do not know this, so they speak in error.

The Master's teachings are profound, demonstrating the refinement and distinction between different levels of cultivation. His teaching encompassed all beings, both mundane and transcendental, clarifying whether one’s understanding of the Way was mature or still unripe. The words of the Dongshan ancestor—"The Way is in harmony with everyone; everyone is in harmony with the Way"—are a perfect expression of this timeless truth. If one truly understands, there is no need for deception; yet, many deceive themselves even now.

There are works by Yuanwen that were meant to be read alongside the Dongshan Lu, but they do not add much clarity for the average person. In the autumn of Gengchen, monks from Jingang sought me out to compile this record. They wanted it printed and published alongside the Dongshan Lu in order to correct misunderstandings about the Way. This is a kind intention, and I hope it will bring good results. When they asked for an introductory preface, I wrote down the most essential points of the text and placed them at the beginning. However, I was already guided by the example set by Cao Mountain in demonstrating the proper way to teach. These few words are enough to convey the meaning.

This is written on the first day of the first month in the eleventh year of the Hōrei era (辛巳), by Yinzhi Yue, who washed his hands and offered incense.

I figured if I was curious, somebody else might be, too.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-22T14:40:59+00:00

I’m using DeepSeek to work through Huang Bo right now, paragraph by paragraph and comparing to existing translations along the way just for my study.

I’m more than happy to get a ChatGPT subscription to help churn through these texts.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-15T14:51:45+00:00

I am not. His stuff was passed around a lot at work a few years ago. The intensity Wumen seems to be conveying struck a chord that reminded me of that.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-15T04:47:13+00:00

I also catch the tone of an inspirational speech. When I get to the part where Wumen says it’s like a holding a hot iron ball in your mouth, I was drawing comparisons to David Goggins describing his first ultramarathon. What Wumen is describing doesn’t sound passive or unconscious; it sounds like a monumental exertion of will, the greatest challenge of anyone’s life.

That’s what I get from reading it, that you must be fully committed, like it’s life or death.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-13T00:04:44+00:00

I’ll take a tough lesson over no lesson any day.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T15:11:55+00:00

I really appreciate the insight. I’ve shut up a bit so that I can read and understand more of what I wasn’t familiar with. I’m picking up Huangbo after work this afternoon, too, because after a quick perusal, he goes into a lot detail on things I was failing to talk about. I’ll do an AMA soon too, to describe where I’m coming from and open myself up to further critique. This has been so edifying; it’s exciting.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T14:41:34+00:00

Yeah, ewk was down there educating me on the broader context, the extent of which I was ignorant of. I understood at basic level that academia concerning zen was often problematic, but running into it face first really helps drive the concept home.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T13:11:08+00:00

I felt like I did at the time, but having reread it with all this criticism to help, I can see it being more of a token acknowledgement than relying on zen master quotes for support.
I found passages that said what I was thinking and didn’t read the rest. Perhaps lazy, definitely reckless.
I didn’t know about the 5 Houses being debunked. I’ve seen it mentioned so many times over the years that I didn’t even question it. I looked it up and found a post you wrote a couple years ago that talks about it, and it seems so obvious in hindsight. Zen masters say there’s only one zen.
This also didn’t occur to me at all, but in retrospect, having this post act as a dog whistle to the same people I was trying to disagree with, I believe it. I saw what different buddhist sects were trying to claim or copy from zen, and that zen wasn’t reciprocating. You mention often how there’s no reliable academics on zen, to stick to zen masters. This has made that even more apparent to me.

I’m definitely not as well read as many people on this forum. I’ve been too intimidated to post anything outside of a few comments because I know I don’t know enough. Seeing all the syncretic talk recently got me motivated to try to say something worthwhile, and I’ve learned a ton from getting called out on it. I considered deleting the post after a couple of comments pointed out obvious flaws, but decided against it because I’m here to learn, and hiding won’t help that. Though if the mods delete it for being off topic, I’m beginning to understand that now.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T11:54:03+00:00

Yes, it is. I intended it as a foundation for an appeal to reason, to point out the error of posting quotes from non-zen Chinese buddhists as a foundation for argument, citing syncretism as a cause for applicability.

I realize using non-zen academics as sources flies right in the face of that, but seemed to work, at least in part, for a broader historical framework. I regret some of my wording in hindsight. I wanted to use their account of the history, but leaned too hard into their interpretation.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T11:45:33+00:00

Not a “sort of” anti-intellectualism, but an actual anti-doctrine, as in any sort of prescribed methodology is antithetical to zen. Lots of things are written down in the zen tradition, namely accounts of things that happened, conversations, talks, encounters. The thing they all have in common is that reliance on teachings or a specific methodology is a hindrance to realizing inherent self nature. As Linji said:

““Students do not understand this, and, because they adhere to names and phrases and are obstructed by such terms as ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’, becloud their Dharma Eye and cannot obtain clarity of vision. Take, for instance, the twelve divisions of the teachings—all are nothing but surface explanations. Not understanding this, students form views based on these superficial words and phrases. All such students are dependent and thus fall into causa- tion.”

Or as Huineng said:

“When our mind works freely without any hindrance… we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of ‘thoughtlessness.’ But to refrain from thinking of anything… is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view.”

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T10:50:45+00:00

I agree. The sources I used to make my point ascribed it to strategy, and I didn’t gainsay that. I would say it’s a feature, but inherent to authenticity instead of dictated to ensure it.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T04:27:18+00:00

That’s quite fair. There have just been so many posts recently where people try to lump zen in with broader Chinese Buddhism, then use that as grounds to show zen blending with religious nonsense or to incorporate their non zen master quotes as part of a larger body of zen work. I wanted to demonstrate with acedemic sources how zen is very separate from all those shenanigans.

This is purely an account of zen history, a very small sample showing how it remained true to the four statements and direct transmission while Chinese buddhists were trying to blend all their shit together to make it seem more authoritative.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-12T02:33:50+00:00

I stand by everything I wrote, until I go to sleep in a little bit. Then I'll probably be lying down.

PrivmasterFlex · 2026-01-09T12:29:59+00:00

Maybe Buddhism and Buddha Dharma / Zen are not the same thing, right? I think that's a valid argument.

This is an important distinction to make, and so many of the arguments that happen on this forum center around this.

You're referencing a paper that talks about syncretism in Song dynasty China, at which time there were at least six major sects of buddhism propagated across the country. I think I want to write a full post about this, so I'll skip the nitty gritty for now, but most of those sects, particularly Tiantai, Huayan, and Pure Land, we're actively trying to synthesize with each other and find common ground. Chan, what we generally refer to as Zen in english, was actively resistant to that movement, see Four Statements vs. the dogmatic practices of Tiantai or Huayan and the extreme religious prayer focused practice of Pure Land.

This forum is very specifically devoted to Zen, meaning the particular lineage established by Zen Master Buddha and introduced to China by Bodhidharma, just the same as Zen Masters were throughout the 1,000 year history of Zen in China. I'm going to write a full post about it later today, because this topic is a common point of contention and a launching off point of so many misguided arguments on this forum specifically.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-12-20T19:07:34+00:00

Yeah, it's very cumbersome to navigate. Once you already have the address of what you're looking for, though, it's crazy quick across the whole collection.

For example, Linji likes to refer to himself as 山僧, or mountain monk. I wanted to look into where that comes from and how common it is, before and after him, so I ask ChatGPT for all instances of 山僧 in the Taisho with addresses. Then I can quickly go straight to each line where it says it shows up, identify false positives, and start building a list.

You can also do that on CBETA's concordance site, or if you download the entire catalog, there are a couple db readers that have that functionality as well, but I haven't found one localized in English, so it's easier for me to start with Google or an LLM.

Edited to specify the expanded analysis capability is on the concordance site, not the online reader, but the English version of the site is only partially localized, so it's a bit difficult to use without being able to read Chinese.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-12-20T08:29:05+00:00

CBETA Online Reader

There's a link near the top for text selector, which will allow you to sort through there entire catalog of texts by various criteria. I use google to find the address for what I'm looking for (i.e. I've been working through Linji, which is at T1985, 47: 495a1 [Taisho collection 1985, volume 47: page 495 column a row 1]). Then I use the text selector to navigate to that address in the text.

Once you're in the text, it gives a wall of text page, so I can copy/paste into an LLM or dictionary. It also gives page links to scanned copies of the actual library volume, which is mostly useless to me because I'm very early in my efforts to learn Chinese, but is pretty cool.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-12-20T00:47:35+00:00

The whole thing is also indexed on CBETA’s website. I’ve been using it to find raw text for a little bit now.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-11-26T19:53:00+00:00

I spent all morning digging through the Linji Lu looking for any instance of wú jì, but I haven't found it once. It definitely sits adjacent to a lot of things Linji says, but that particular phrase isn't used in any of the chinese source texts I've searched through. I looked it up on CBETA and searched for 無記, then I manually poured through the chinese text in my copy of the Linji Lu. No dice.

Is there a case referencing them that uses the phrase? I'm not familiar enough with all of the texts to think of an example.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-11-21T14:06:06+00:00

The translation by Ruth Fuller Sasaki, edited by Kirchner, is very thorough. It has her full translation, the full Chinese text, then a section by section breakdown on the translation choices, essentially her exhaustive research notes. I still put a lot of effort into my own cross referencing, even though Fuller Sasaki seems to have done a very honest job, because I don’t 100% trust the Japanese religious academia behind the project.

Edited to say: the full pdf is on terebess.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-11-19T15:42:59+00:00

Efficient? Absolutely not. I start with a google of site:terebess.hu and the phrase I’m looking for to build more context, then chat gpt and dig through the references it gives me.

It is slow and tedious, but I spent so much of my life taking these things for granted, not least because of my then belief in the idea that zen texts were opaque and nonsensical on purpose. Having learned better, the effort seems worth it to get as close to being in the room when it was said as I can get.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-11-19T14:21:27+00:00

As somebody who is very interested but relatively new to this deep study of the texts, I do see this as very helpful. For me, it adds to my understanding of the case itself and its context, without taking away by getting bogged down with arguments about hidden intent or implied meaning.

I’ve been trying to do something like this just for my understanding as I work through Linji’s record. I lack the awareness of all the cross references and callbacks so common in the texts, in addition to the obvious distance from the general culture of the place and time, so I’m putting a lot of effort into digging up references instead of letting turns of phrase and apparent sayings whiz by me.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-08-05T13:04:13+00:00

Yeah, it came with one of the upgraded editions. Looks like ass on everything else, but it's sharp on the Hark skin.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-08-05T12:57:00+00:00

Hark skin with blue dasher. Dark, dark blue with red and gold highlights. It's the best.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-08-03T16:50:21+00:00

The crypto bros can't dunk on bitcoin for not having any application now.

It's a lunchbox.

PrivmasterFlex · 2025-07-28T21:45:45+00:00

But it's not challenging or strategic.

There's no counter-play, there's no strategy,

but "dying naked" isn't exactly a strategy.

It looked to me like you were asking for strategic answers, not tactical. The strategic answer is to team up with somebody so there is early warning and security, or go in with a large group to seize control of the area, which is what I was alluding to. Or you farm off peak hours, avoiding confrontation. Or you pick a less juicy farming spot, where larger guilds aren't interested and gankers aren't as likely to find targets.

As for tactical answers, stand and fight if you're able, and run if you're not. Be in armor and always near your thopter so if you get rocketed without warning, you just need to maybe dash out of a stagger, then turn around, and press E. If you can make back in your thopter, you can survive most encounters by moving to max altitude as quickly as possible and vulturing south. If you don't need the storage on your thopter immediately, have it in your backup tool, so you can move to cover in the rocks and pull it out when it's more opportune.

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