translation-files/skills/dharma-translation/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
dharma-translation	Translate Chinese Buddhist Dharma talks into English djot with annotations. Use when the user asks to translate a Dharma talk, 开示, Buddhist lecture, or similar material from Chinese to English.

Dharma Talk Translation

Trigger

User asks to translate a Chinese Buddhist Dharma talk (开示, 讲座, 法义) to English, or convert a PDF of such material into a translated djot file.

Workflow

1. Extract source text from PDF

Prefer pdftotext -layout — it's the most reliable fallback and almost always available:

pdftotext -layout input.pdf /tmp/extracted.txt

pypdf and pdfplumber may not be installed; pdftotext (poppler-utils) is the safe default.

2. Convert to structured djot

Clean the extracted text into a djot file (original.dj) with this structure:

• # Title — h1, the talk title
• Subtitle line — date and venue, prefixed with ——
• Opening remarks — body paragraphs before the first section
• ## 一、Section Name — h2 for each numbered section (一、二、三、etc.)
• Closing line — revision date in parentheses

Strip page numbers (standalone digits separated by form feeds \f). Join broken lines within paragraphs — Chinese text joins cleanly with ''.join() since there are no inter-word spaces.

3. Translate

Translate directly — no external translation APIs. The model IS the translator.

Key approach:

• Preserve the djot structure exactly (headings, paragraphs)
• Translate section headings preserving the Chinese numbering (一、→ 1., 二、→ 2., etc.)
• Keep the original Chinese in % comment lines alongside the translation (see annotations below)

4. Annotate in djot comments

Use % comment lines before relevant paragraphs to annotate:

• Buddhist technical terms: Sanskrit equivalents (e.g., 五蕴 → five aggregates / skandhas), doctrinal context
• Cultural references: Historical figures, place names, sutra names with explanation
• Structural notes: Why the speaker frames something a certain way, organizational philosophy
• Recurring metaphors: The McDonald's analogy throughout, the lamp/light metaphor

Format:

% Chinese term (pinyin) = English gloss, Sanskrit if applicable. Brief context.
Paragraph text here...

For sutra quotes, annotate the sutra name with both Chinese and Sanskrit. For organizational terms (传帮带, 分灯, 三种精神), explain their meaning within the community's framework.

5. Output files

• original.dj — cleaned Chinese djot
• translated.dj — English translation with % annotations

Pitfalls

• Do NOT call external translation APIs. Translate directly.
• Do NOT delete comparison/对照 files — they are intentional work artifacts.
• pdftotext may produce hard line breaks at column boundaries; join within paragraphs using ''.join() for Chinese.
• Page numbers appear as isolated digits between form feeds (\f); strip them with regex.
• Djot % comments work line-by-line; place them on their own lines before the relevant paragraph.
• Keep annotations concise — one or two lines, not an essay.