煩惱即菩提 is the non-dual identity afflictions are awakening. Blyth prints “illusion is salvation,” which leaves the band twice over and reframes a Buddhist identity as a Christian rescue: 煩惱 becomes “illusion,” 菩提 becomes “salvation.”
The confrontation
The dictionary's band
Attested band verbatim from the dictionary entry 煩惱即菩提
- afflictions are awakening
- troubles are awakening
Entry Explanation (verbatim)
The equation of afflictions with awakening is explained through knowing and sharply restricted: Dahui rejects merely saying it before the matter has been penetrated.
Blyth knew better
Corroboration: the paired clause is rendered squarely
The two clauses are built the same way, 凡夫即佛 and 煩惱即菩提, and Blyth renders the first one straight, “An ordinary man is a Buddha.” Having carried 即 as a plain identity there, he recasts it in the second clause, so the recast is a choice, not a limit of his English. The recon records the same Christianizing register recurring in the neighbouring gatha, where “(of Salvation)” is imported onto 果, the fruit.
The literal reading
煩惱即菩提 is one of the tradition's sharpest non-dual identities: 煩惱, the afflictions, are 菩提, awakening, not a means to it and not their opposite. The 即 is the hinge, is exactly, are none other than. The dictionary attests the phrase as afflictions are awakening, and its Explanation adds the discipline the Chan records put on it: the identity is not to be recited before it has been penetrated. Both nouns are ordinary Buddhist vocabulary with plain English.
The alteration
Blyth keeps the grammar of identity and changes both its terms. 煩惱, the afflictions, becomes “illusion,” a narrower and more mental thing than the passions and troubles the word carries; 菩提, awakening, becomes “salvation,” a word from another religion's economy of sin and rescue. The sentence that said the afflictions themselves are awakening now says illusion is the road to being saved, a before-and-after deliverance where the Chinese asserts a present identity. The Buddhist claim that there is nowhere else to go becomes the Christian promise of somewhere to be taken. Neither “illusion” nor “salvation” is in the band, and the pairing tilts the line toward the Beatitudes.