Then the Bodhisattva, by her great and vast compassion, by her boundless power of the Law, by her hundred million transformation-bodies, met intention with mind and body with intention;

爾時, at that time, is the phrase a sutra opens with, and the whole sentence is written in the cadence of scripture. 迺 is simply 乃. 以心會意，以意會身 — mind meeting intention, intention meeting body: the transformation is described as an inward act, not a conjuring trick.

and in a moment of blurred seeming she was changed into the Immortal Lingxu.

恍惚之間, in the space of a blur, is a phrase out of the Daodejing. 凌虛仙子 takes the lexical 子, zǐ. She takes the name of the wolf whose brains are still on the road behind her.

A crane-feather cloak, and the immortal wind blowing; fluttering, she seems about to pace the void.

鶴氅, a cloak of crane feathers, is the Taoist adept's costume. 步虛, pacing the void, names both a Taoist hymn and the ritual walk that goes with it. This poem is a regulated five-character 詩, rhyming 虛, 無, 殊, 軀.

A weathered face, old as pine and cypress; a beauty not to be found in ancient time or now.

秀色古今無 — a beauty that neither antiquity nor the present day possesses. The line is describing a disguise.

Going and going, she yet abides nowhere; suchness upon suchness, each with its own difference.

還 is the adverb hái. 無住 renders apratiṣṭhita, the non-abiding of the Diamond Sutra; 如如 renders tathatā, suchness. A Buddhist poem about a Taoist costume.

All comes home at last to a single Dharma; only the fiendish body stands between.

總來歸一法: the 一 before third-tone 法 gives yì. 隔邪軀 — only the fiendish body stands in the way. The couplet states the chapter's doctrine and locates the entire problem in a shape.

The Pilgrim looked and said, "Marvellous, marvellous! Is it the fiend that is the Bodhisattva, or the Bodhisattva that is the fiend?"

Two instances of 還, both hái, meaning "still." The question is put as a jest and is the most serious thing the Pilgrim says in the chapter.

The Bodhisattva laughed. "Wukong: Bodhisattva and fiend are together a single thought. If you speak of the original state, both belong to non-being."

總是一念: the 一 before fourth-tone 念 gives yí. 皆屬無有, both belong to non-being. The Bodhisattva answers a joke with the doctrine of emptiness, and in doing so settles the bear's fate before a pill has been swallowed.

The Pilgrim was enlightened on the instant. He turned about and changed himself into one pellet of elixir:

頓悟, sudden awakening, is the technical term of the Southern school of Chan — enlightenment arriving all at once rather than by degrees. It is applied here to a monkey who is about to turn himself into a poison pill.

Rolling on the tray, it is never unsettled; round and lucid, it has no quarter.

走盤, running about a tray, is the standing image for a pearl so perfectly round it will not sit still. The 不 before fourth-tone 定 gives bú. This poem rhymes 方, 商, 光, 量.

Thrice three, and it accords with Goulou; six times six, and it takes counsel with Shaoweng.

勾漏 is the mountain in Guangxi where Ge Hong went looking for cinnabar; 少翁 is Li Shaoweng, the court magician of Emperor Wu of Han, and its 少 reads shào, not shǎo.

Potsherd and bright metal, a flame of yellow gold; a mani jewel, a light in the white day.

牟尼 renders maṇi, the wish-granting jewel. 瓦鑠, potsherd and bright metal, is the base stuff the elixir gets made out of.

The lead and quicksilver of the outer arts may not lightly be weighed against it.

鉛與汞, lead and quicksilver: the outer alchemy the three fiends were discussing when the Pilgrim first laid eyes on them, and which his own autobiography dismissed as wasted labour. 論量 — 量 is the verb, liáng, to weigh, in line with the ruling at 不可量 earlier in the chapter.