A devotional title
Doctrinal drift (minor) Sengcan, Xinxin Ming
信心銘 → “On Believing in Mind”
Attested: 信心 = trust, the trusting mind — “Inscription on Trusting the Mind,” not devotional belief
信心 in the title is trust — the settled confidence the poem itself commends — so the title is “Inscription on Trusting the Mind”; the received English “Faith in Mind” carries the same non-devotional sense. Suzuki’s title posits Mind as an object of devotional belief: subtly theistic, and long noted as contested. It stays minor because the divergence is confined to the title, a single term read against the grain, while the poem itself in his rendering is largely serviceable; the anchor opens the poem so the title can be checked against its text.
Manual of Zen Buddhism, Rider, 1935, p. 51 · T48n2010
A misplaced province
Transliteration slip (minor) Zhaozhou’s seven-pound cloth shirt
老僧在青州作一領布衫，重七斤 → “Tsin district”
Attested: 青州 = Qingzhou, in Shandong
青州 is Qingzhou (Ch’ing-chou), in Shandong; “Tsin” would render 晉 or 秦. The correct English is simply “Qingzhou,” the prefecture where Zhaozhou made his seven-pound cloth shirt. It stays minor because a misplaced place-name changes no doctrine: the koan’s force (Zhaozhou’s non-sequitur seven-pound cloth shirt) survives intact, and the romanization habits of the era make an honest slip the likeliest explanation.
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Rider, 1934, p. 71 · J24nB137 0364a07
Snow on the furnace
Fine-grained drift Ten Oxherding Pictures, VIII
鞭索人牛盡屬空，碧天寥廓信難通，紅爐燄上曾容雪，到此方能合正宗 → “not a flake of snow can fall”
Attested: 曾容雪: how could the blazing hearth ever HOLD a snowflake?
曾容雪 asks how the blazing hearth could ever hold a snowflake: snow vanishes on contact, as thoughts evaporate the instant they touch the awakened mind. Suzuki’s “not a flake of snow can fall” stops the snow from arriving at all, which loses the vanish-on-contact mechanism; and 正宗 (“the authentic lineage”) is personalised into “the spirit of the ancient master.” It stays minor because both drifts are fine-grained: hearth, snow, and scene survive in outline, and what is lost is the timing of the image, not its subject.
Manual of Zen Buddhism, Rider, 1935, p. 92 · J23nB129 0364b04
Sunset-glow, greyed out
Paraphrase drift Ten Oxherding Pictures, VI
羌篴聲聲送晚霞 → “evening mist”
Attested: 晚霞 = luminous sunset-glow; 送 = seeing off
羌篴聲聲送晚霞: flute-notes seeing off the sunset-glow. A closer English is “note after note, the flute sees off the sunset-glow”: 霞 is luminous colour, not grey mist, and the active 送 (“seeing off”) is dropped, so a bright, active image becomes a still, dim one. It stays minor because one image in one verse line is softened, not replaced: the flute, the evening, and the scene all survive, and nothing doctrinal turns on the colour of the sky.
Manual of Zen Buddhism, Rider, 1935, p. 91 · J23nB129 0363c24
A pine that isn’t there
Embellishment Dahui, Recorded Sayings
有句無句如藤倚樹 → “the wistaria and the pine tree”
Attested: 樹 = an unspecified tree, never 松 (pine)
有句無句如藤倚樹: “having a phrase, having no phrase — like a vine leaning on a tree.” That is the correct rendering: the tree is an unspecified 樹, never 松 (pine); the species is Suzuki’s embellishment. It stays minor because the added pine decorates the image without altering it: the vine still leans on a tree, the simile still works, and the surrounding passage is rendered accurately.
Studies in Zen, Rider, 1955, p. 62–65 · T47n1998A 0883a27