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google translate AI has a better understanding of jhāna than B. Sujato and Ajahn Brahm


From Vimutti magga in the Chinese agama, translated into English by google translate AI:

云何為禪？
What is Zen? (Zen = chinese transliteration of jhana)
思惟事故、思惟怨故、心喜樂故、離障解脫故、令平等故、方便發定故、得自在故、不以[1]一義住正受故、樂起定故。
Thinking of accidents, thinking of complaints, happy hearts, dissociation and liberation, making equality, making it easier to fix the problem, getting it freely, not living with one righteousness, accepting the failure, happy to determine the failure.


This is tragic and funny at the same time, that an AI translating (poorly) an abstruse Ancient Chinese language with technical terms unintelligible to modern literate Chinese, comes much closer to getting the Buddha's definition of Jhana correct than Ajahn Brahm and B. Sujato.  

Google correclty conveys that zen (jhana) is a active state of bliss where one can think, discern reality, make good decisions, rather than Ajahn brahm's jabrama jhana in a frozen state of stupor. 

Another important lesson from this, is that Google AI works by analyzing massive amounts of Chinese to English that people use in practice, arriving at a practical, pragmatic guess in the translation. Recall the Buddha, also had a goal of using plain language, pragmatic, describing meditation in a way all people of various fields and intellect could easily understand. He would not have described meditation using ambiguous loaded terms that would require Buddhaghosa and Ajahn Brahm to travel back in time to correct the monks and let them know that 'body = mind', 'up = down', 'stop = go', 'thinking = don't think', 'mental exploration (vicara) = keep the mind absolutely still, glued to nimitta'. 


also see:

vimt. gloss of 'vivicceva kamehi' is DESIRE for sensual pleasures, not "5 sensual pleasure objects"









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