Question 1: What is "Punctuation and Parsing of Classical Texts" (疏文斷句)?
Answer: As Upasaka Wang Muti states in the "Text and Context" section of his Spring and Autumn of Yogacara:
"When researching or studying the Buddhadharma and Buddhist texts, one should focus on two directions: text and context. When encountering doubts, one needs to collect multiple editions from various masters for comparative reading, rather than relying solely on the interpretation of one's own school, and list the meanings of the various textual interpretations one by one. And what about context? That involves understanding the background, time and space, interpreters, and geographic locations of the Tripitaka translators of the texts that the commentators of that era relied upon. It is best to consider the translation era of the sutras and treatises relied upon by the commentator to think about why they had to make such annotations or interpretations at that time. After all, Tiantai Master Zhiyi, who lived between the Chen and Sui dynasties, would not have quoted the sutras and treatises translated by the Tang dynasty's Tripitaka Master Xuanzang. Because the eras were different, the Sanskrit source texts of the translated treatises were also different.
Collecting texts and personally analyzing them through parsing, punctuation, examining every sentence and word, and the blank spaces in the text is a strenuous process. However, it reduces one's emotional reliance on one's own school. Understanding the context helps one comprehend the space-time background of that era and various anthropological historical foundations. In this way, one will not become overly protective of one's own school, which appears as irrational research and learning. Every sentient being believes their own school is supreme, but in reality, they have drifted far from a rational study of the Buddhadharma.
Why do many people fall into misunderstandings regarding the eight or nine consciousnesses, true consciousness, True Suchness, etc.? The reason lies in not looking at text and context rationally. Many scholars also use Western European philosophy—such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Foucault, etc.—for comparison. In reality, this method is akin to comparative religion. Only by thinking about the commentaries and explanations of related sutras and treatises of the same era according to different language families (such as Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Pali, Nepali, Central Asian languages), lineages, and authors—based on text and context—can one eliminate irrational emotional attachments, avoid arbitrarily inventing meanings not stated in the text itself, and avoid distorting the meanings of other schools.
In fact, many worldly matters must also be viewed in this way to avoid bringing in prejudice due to emotional reliance at any moment."
In the section "Able to Introspect" in Spring and Autumn of Yogacara, Upasaka Wang Muti highlights the importance of punctuating and parsing classical texts, stating:
"Previously, I punctuated and edited Master Kuiji's Cheng Weishi Lun Shuji. The Taisho Tripitaka edition did not display the complete text of the Cheng Weishi Lun, so I had to add it in sentence by sentence. After adding it, I re-examined the inner text of the Shuji and found that many Dharma principles required sentence-by-sentence parsing, much like the method used in the Pixun Ji (Record of Investigations) of the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra. The process was arduous; it required more time than writing programming code. Using my spare time after work, expending mental energy while my hair gradually turned white, I spent months repeatedly proofreading and editing.
In recent years, as I delved again into the works of Japanese masters regarding Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, I unexpectedly discovered that as early as the 1000s CE, Master Zennei at Sōfuku-ji Temple in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan, did exactly the same thing when annotating and compiling the 45-volume Cheng Weishi Lun Integrated Compilation. The Taisho Tripitaka edition also did not add the original texts of both the Cheng Weishi Lun and the Shuji, providing only a brief summary. However, Master Zennei's annotations within the Cheng Weishi Lun Integrated Compilation were also detailed, sentence-by-sentence explanations, not paragraph-by-paragraph annotations. This shows that such work—this method of intensive reading and precise explanation—will generally be undertaken by anyone wanting to delve deeper, to avoid swallowing things whole and mistaking a snake for a dragon.
How was I able to discover this method of annotation? Because after comparing Master Zennei's annotations with my own parsing of the Shuji, I found that he was annotating based on a sentence-by-sentence method rather than a paragraph method—this was true for at least 80 to 90 percent of the text. If I had not previously parsed the Shuji sentence by sentence myself, I would never have noticed the painstaking efforts of the ancients. Being able to intersect with a space and time from over 1,200 years ago was only possible because I was willing to put in the hard work."
Finally, the main purpose of re-editing the punctuated and parsed editions is to provide students with a systematic direction for learning. As stated in the preface to my Yogacara Notes and the Complete Translated and Authored Works of Tripitaka Master Xuanzang:
"The Complete Translated and Authored Works of Tripitaka Master Xuanzang collects the sutras and treatises translated by Master Xuanzang. Hereafter referred to as the Complete Collection, it totals 75 titles and 1,335 rolls. If classified according to the Taisho Tripitaka, the translated contents span 16 divisions: Agama, Prajñā, Avataṃsaka, Ratnakūṭa, Nirvāṇa, Mahāsaṃnipāta, Sutra Compilation, Esoteric, Vinaya, Sutra Explanation, Abhidharma, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Treatise Compilation, History/Biography, and Non-Buddhist Teachings. The translations in the Sutra Compilation, Abhidharma, and Yogācāra divisions are the most numerous. This Complete Collection organizes and parses the sentences of the sutras and treatises one by one, amounting to over 10 million words and more than 20,000 pages, and includes the Taisho Tripitaka source for each text.
The Complete Collection is numbered according to the sequential order of the sutras and treatises in the 'Catalog of Sutras Translated by Master Xuanzang of the Great Tang' found in Master Guangzhong's Compilation of the Historical Biography of Tripitaka Master Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty (Taiwan). For example, the Pratītya-samutpāda Sūtra is numbered '001. Pratītya-samutpāda Sūtra'. As shown in the table below, students can read and study them sequentially to undertake a systematic learning of the sutras and treatises translated by Master Xuanzang."