Five families of alteration
All 45 grounded divergent terms across the audited oeuvre sort into five families, and all of them are construal-layer. Each row states the dictionary's attested band verbatim and Blyth's rendering, with the printed page and the work. Severity is marked honestly: 29 major, 16 mild. The largest family is the non-translation family, Family A, now pervasive across the works: where the dictionary attests an English reading, an untranslated sound is printed. The rosters below are gathered from the coverage ledgers, not hand-kept; when a further audit lands, its findings fold in here on their own.
Family A Non-translation and transliteration
the Mu archetype
Where the dictionary attests an English reading and Blyth prints an untranslated Japanese sound. An untranslated transliteration where the dictionary attests an English reading is never faithful: the answer of a Chinese master is delivered as a Japanese cipher and the English demoted or discarded.
| Term | Attested band | Blyth | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 無 Mumonkan, case 1 | “the word 'no'” · “Zhaozhou's 'no'” · “the 'no' case” | "Mu" p. 22 | major |
| 坐道場 Mumonkan, case 9 | “to sit at the awakening site” · “to preside at a monastery” | did zazen ... in a Meditation Hall pp. 90-91 | major |
| 摩訶衍 Mumonkan, case 25 | “great vehicle” · “the great conveyance” | Makaen p. 182 | major |
| 竹篦 Mumonkan, case 43 | “the bamboo switch” | shippe p. 279 | major |
| 大雄峰 Zen in Eng. Lit. (1942), case 1 | “Great Hero Peak” | Daiyu Peak p. 76 | major |
| 喝 Zen in Eng. Lit. (1942), case 2 | “an encounter shout” · “a Chan shout” | Kwats! p. 320 | major |
| 摩訶般若 Vol 1, case 2 | “the great perfection of wisdom” | Makahannya p. 69 | mild |
| 喝 Vol 2, case 1 | “an encounter shout” · “a Chan shout” | shouted "Kwatz!" p. 31 | major |
| 悟 Vol 2, case 2 | “awakening” · “to awaken” · “to realize” | satori p. 61 | major |
| 法身 Vol 2, case 3 | “teaching-body” · “body of the teaching” · “teaching body” | the Dharmakaya p. 118 | major |
| 坐禪 Vol 2, case 5 | “the seated dhyana procedure” · “regulated sitting dhyana” · “seated dhyana” | zazen p. 13 | mild |
| 公案 Vol 2, case 6 | “public case” · “public case-file” · “case record” | koan p. 10 | mild |
| 問答 Vol 2, case 7 | “question-and-answer exchange” · “questions and answers” · “spoken exchange” | mondo preface | mild |
| 喝 Vol 3, case 2 | “an encounter shout” · “a Chan shout” | "Kwatz!" p. 155 | major |
Family B Reification and register import
persons and imperatives turned into metaphysical Selves
Persons, faces, and plain imperatives turned into capitalized metaphysical Selves, essences, and Christian registers; the concrete and domestic dissolved into the abstract and devotional.
| Term | Attested band | Blyth | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 涅槃妙心 Mumonkan, case 6 | “the wondrous mind of nirvana” · “nirvana's wondrous mind” · “the subtle mind of nirvana” | the Secret Essence of Nirvana p. 76 | major |
| 孤貧 Mumonkan, case 10 | “solitary and poor” · “alone and destitute” · “orphaned and poor” | the enlightenment of absolute poverty p. 100 | major |
| 主人公 Mumonkan, case 12 | “the one in charge” · “the master of the house” · “one's own master” | True Self p. 108 | major |
| 本來人 Mumonkan, case 12 | “the person as originally present” · “the original person” | the true original self p. 109 | mild |
| 辜負 Mumonkan, case 17 | “to let down” · “to fail” · “to disappoint” | transgressed against p. 137 | major |
| 本來面目 Mumonkan, case 23 | “original face” · “original countenance” | the Original Self p. 170 | major |
| 諦聽 Mumonkan, case 25 | “listen carefully” · “listen attentively” · “pay close attention” | Hear the Truth! p. 182 | major |
| 心不是佛、智不是道 Mumonkan, case 34 | “neither mind as Buddha nor wisdom as Way” | knowledge is not the Way p. 232 | major |
| 體 Poetry & Zen, case 2 | “what something is in itself” · “its essential constitution” · “substance, as contrasted with function” · “body, in the sense of a thing's constituting form” | the Real Self unverified | mild |
| 煩惱即菩提 Vol 1, case 1 | “afflictions are awakening” · “troubles are awakening” | illusion is salvation p. 116 | major |
Family C Valence and force reversal
a reprieve becomes a beating
The attested force of the phrase reversed: a reprieve becomes a beating, a failure state becomes a virtue, an epistemic verb becomes an ontological one.
| Term | Attested band | Blyth | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 不昧因果 Mumonkan, case 2 | “not blind to cause and effect” · “not obscuring cause and effect” · “not ignorant of cause and effect” | No one can set aside (the law of) cause and effect p. 45 | major |
| 放汝三頓棒 Mumonkan, case 15 | “spare you three rounds of blows” | A beating is what you want! p. 128 | major |
| 無記 Mumonkan, case 19 | “unresponsive blankness” · “indeterminate dullness” · “blank unknowing” | lack of discrimination pp. 147-148 | major |
| 觸背 Mumonkan, case 43 | “touching it or turning away from it” · “touching it or going against it” | you omit its reality p. 279 | mild |
| 是非 Poetry & Zen, case 1 | “as soon as right and wrong arise, the mind is thrown into confusion” | this and that unverified | mild |
Family D Wrong concrete referent
the cypress becomes an oak
The koan's concrete object replaced by a different object. These koans work by irreducible concreteness; the concreteness survives, pointing at the wrong thing.
| Term | Attested band | Blyth | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 庭前柏樹子 Games, case 1 | “the cypress tree in the courtyard” · “the courtyard cypress” · “the juniper tree before the hall” | The oak tree in the (temple) front garden p. 154 | major |
| 麻三斤 Games, case 2 | “three catties of hemp” · “three pounds of hemp” | Three pounds of flax p. 135 | mild |
| 庭前柏樹子 Mumonkan, case 37 | “the cypress tree in the courtyard” · “the courtyard cypress” · “the juniper tree before the hall” | The oak tree in the (temple) front garden p. 246 | major |
| 水牯牛過窗櫺 Mumonkan, case 38 | “the water buffalo passes through the window lattice” | A reddish-yellow cow passes by a window p. 251 | major |
| 貓兒 Zen in Eng. Lit. (1942), case 3 | “cut the cat” · “cat-cutting” · “cutting the cat” | kitten p. 327 | mild |
| 露地白牛 Vol 3, case 1 | “the white ox in the open ground” · “the white bull standing in the open” | the white cow of the dewy ground p. 163 | major |
| 奪人不奪境 Vol 3, case 3 | “take away the person, not the surroundings” · “person taken away, surroundings not taken away” · “remove the person but not the scene” | take away the person, not the thing p. 152 | mild |
| 庭前柏樹子 Vol 3, case 4 | “the cypress tree in the courtyard” · “the courtyard cypress” · “the juniper tree before the hall” | The oak tree in the front garden p. 64 | major |
| 金佛 Vol 3, case 5 | “a gold buddha does not pass through the furnace” · “the gold buddha cannot cross the furnace” | the iron Buddha p. 65 | mild |
| 水牯牛 Vol 3, case 6 | “a water buffalo” · “the water buffalo” | a water-coloured ox p. 57 | major |
| 水牯牛 Vol 3, case 7 | “a water buffalo” · “the water buffalo” | the ox of the danapati p. 79 | major |
| 水牯牛 Vol 5, case 1 | “a water buffalo” · “the water buffalo” | a cow p. 44 | major |
Family E Dropped load-bearing element
a graph the case turns on, silently absent
A graph the case turns on, silently absent from the English. These are the mild findings: real, band-grounded, and marked mild, never inflated.
| Term | Attested band | Blyth | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| 正法眼藏 Mumonkan, case 6 | “the treasury of the true eye of the teaching” · “the treasury of the true teaching eye” | I have the Eye of the True Law p. 76 | mild |
| 離微 Mumonkan, case 24 | “separation and subtlety” · “the separated and the subtle” | Both speech and silence transgress p. 175 | mild |
| 即心是佛 Mumonkan, case 30 | “this very mind is Buddha” · “mind itself is Buddha” | The mind is the Buddha p. 215 | mild |
| 鳥道 Vol 2, case 4 | “a bird's trackless flight-course” · “a bird's course through open air” · “the trackless bird-course” | the Way of the Birds p. 95 | mild |