by Wu Cheng-En
Smash them first with a punch.
When the mind appears it is non-existent,
When the Dharma appears, it ceases.
When the boy and the ox both disappear,
The blue sky is absolutely clear.
All is as round as an autumn moon,
And this and that can no longer be distinguished.
This gatha refers to how the Patriarch Xuanzang came to awareness and understanding of the Heart Sutra and thus opened the gate. As that venerable elder recited it constantly, a ray of miraculous light penetrated through to him.
Eating and sleeping in the open, the three of them traveled on, and before long the heat of summer was upon them.
The blossoms were over, the butterflies' passion spent.
High in the trees the cicadas screeched.
Wild silkworms spun cocoons amid the pomegranate blossom,
As lotus flowers opened in the pool.
As they were travelling along one evening they saw a cottage beside the road. “Look,” said Sanzang, “the sun is setting behind the Western hills, hiding its mirror of fire, and the moon is rising from the Eastern sea to show its wheel of ice. How lucky that there is a family living by our path. Let's spend the night here and set off again tomorrow morning.”
“Well said,” put in Pig. “I'm a bit hungry, and if we begged some food from that house I'd have more strength for carrying the luggage.”
“Homesick ghost,” remarked Brother Monkey, “you've only been away from home for a few days, but you're already regretting that you came.”
“Elder brother,” Pig replied, “I can't live on wind and mist like you. You couldn't realize how the hunger's been gnawing at my stomach all these days I've been following our master.”
“Pig,” said Sanzang, “if your heart is still at home, you are not intended for a religious life, and you'd better go back.”
The oafish Pig fell to his knees and pleaded, “Master, please don't pay any attention to what my elder brother says: it's an insult. He says I wish I hadn't come, but in fact I've had no regrets at all. I may be stupid, but I'm straight. I just said that I was hungry and want to beg for some food, and he starts calling me a homesick ghost. But the Bodhisattva told me about the prohibitions, and you have been so kind to me; so I really do want to serve you on your journey to the West. I'll never have any regrets, I swear I won't. This is what they call 'cultivating conduct the hard way'. What right have you to say I shouldn't be a monk?”
“Very well then,” said Sanzang, “up you get.”
The idiot leapt up, and picked up the carrying-pole, chattering incessantly. Then he pressed grimly on. Before long they reached the roadside house, where Sanzang dismounted as Monkey took the bridle and Pig put down his burden. They all stood in a green shade. Sanzang took his nine-ringed monastic staff, straightened his rattan hat, and hurried to the gates, where he saw an old man lying back on a bamboo bed mumbling Buddhist scriptures to himself.
Not wanting to shout loudly, Sanzang said in a quiet voice, “Greetings, benefactor.”
The old man sprang to his feet, straightened his clothes, and came out through the gate to return his greeting. “Excuse my discourtesy, venerable sir,” he said, going on to ask, “Where are you from, and why have you come to my humble abode?”
“I am a monk from the Great Tang in the East,” Sanzang replied, “and I bear an imperial command to worship the Buddha in the Thunder Monastery and ask for the scriptures. As we find ourselves in this district at nightfall, I would be enormously obliged if you could allow us to spend the night in your mansion.”
“You'll never get there,” said the old man with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head. “It's impossible to get scriptures from the Western Heaven. If you want scriptures you'd better go to the Eastern Heaven.” Sanzang said nothing as he asked himself why the old man was telling them to go East when the Bodhisattva had instructed them to go West. How could the scriptures be obtained in the East, he asked himself. In his embarrassment he was at loss for words, so he made no reply.
Monkey, who was rough by his very nature, could not stand for this, so he went up to the old man and shouted, “Old fellow, you may be very ancient but you're a complete fool. We holy men from far away come to ask for lodging, but all you can do is to try to put us off. If your house is too poky and there isn't room for us to sleep in it, we'll sit under the trees all night and won't trouble you any further.” The old man grabbed hold of Sanzang and said, “Master, you didn't warn me that you had a disciple with such a twisted face and no chin to speak of, looking like a thunder god with his red eyes. You shouldn't let a demon of sickness like him alarm and offend a person of my age.”
“You're completely lacking in judgement, old man,” Monkey said with a laugh. “Those pretty boys may look good but, as they say, they don't taste good. I may be little but I'm tough, and it's all muscle under my skin.”
“I suppose you must have some powers,” the old man remarked.
“Without wishing to boast,” Monkey replied, “I can get by.”
“Where is your home,” the old man asked, “and why did you shave your head and become a monk?”
“My ancestral home is the Water Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit in the land of Aolai which lies across the sea to the East of the Eastern Continent of Superior Body. I learned how to be an evil monster from childhood, and my name was Wukong, or Awakened to Emptiness. I used my abilities to make myself the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, but as I declined heavenly office and raised a great rebellion against the Heavenly Palace, I brought a disaster down on my own head. My sufferings are now over. I've turned to the Buddhist faith and am seeking a good reward for the future by escorting His Tang Excellency, my master, on his journey to the Western Heaven to visit the Buddha. I'm not afraid of high mountains with precipitous paths, or of broad rivers with huge waves. I can catch monsters and subdue demons, capture tigers or dragons, walk in the sky, or burrow into the earth. As long as your mansion has a few broken bricks and tiles, a singing pot and an open door, I'll be able to rest here contented.”
After hearing this speech, the old man said with a chuckle, “So you're a monk with the gift of the gab who suddenly switched destinies.”
“You're the gabber, my child,” retorted Monkey. “I'm too tired after the strain of the journey with my master to be able to talk.”
“It's as well you are,” the old man replied, “or you'd be talking me to death. If you have all these powers you'll be able to reach the West. How many of you are there? Please come into my cottage for the night.”
“Thank you very much for not losing your temper with him,” Sanzang said. “There are three of us.”
“Where is the third?” the old man asked.
“Your eyes are very dim, old man,” said Monkey, pointing as he continued, “Can't you see him standing in the shade there?”
When the old man, whose eyes were indeed dim, looked carefully and saw Pig's face he was so terrified that he ran into the house shouting, “Shut the gates, shut the gates, there's a monster here.”
Monkey ran after him and grabbed him. “Don't be afraid, old fellow,” he said, “he's not an evil monster, he's a fellow-disciple of mine.”
“Very well then,” replied the old man, who was trembling all over, “but what a hideous creature to be a monk.”
As the old man was talking to the three monks in front of the gates, two young men appeared at the Southern end of the farm bringing an old woman and three or four children back from transplanting rice-seedlings, for which reason their clothes were tucked up and their feet were bare.
When they saw the white horse and the carrying pole with luggage and heard the shouting at the gates of their home, they did not know what was up, so they rushed forward and asked, “What are you doing?” Pig turned round, flapped his ears, and thrust his snout at them, at which they all collapsed in terror or fled.
In the confusion Sanzang kept calling
out, “Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, we are good men, we are monks going to fetch the scriptures.” The old man then came out again, and helped the old woman to her feet.
“Up you get, wife,” he said, “there's no call for panic. This holy father is from the Tang court, and although his disciples are a bit ugly, their hearts are in the right place. Please take the youngsters inside.” The old woman clung to the old man while the two young men took the children inside.
As he sat on a bamboo chair in the gatehouse, Sanzang said indignantly, “Disciples, the pair of you are ugly to look at, and your language is too coarse. You gave that whole family a terrible fright, and got me into trouble.”
“I tell you truthfully, master,” Pig replied, “that I've grown better-looking since I've been following you. When I lived in Gao Village I looked so awful that I often used to scare twenty or thirty people to death by making a face and waggling my ears.”
“Don't exaggerate, stupid,” said Monkey with a smile, “and tidy that ugly mug of yours up a bit.”
“What nonsense you're talking, Monkey,” said Sanzang. “He was born that way, so how can you expect him to tidy his face up?”
“He could stick his rake of a snout into his chest, and not bring it out; and he could lay those fan-shaped ears down behind his head and not waggle them. That would tidy his appearance up.” Pig then tucked his snout away and laid his ears back, and stood beside Sanzang with his head bowed. Brother Monkey took the luggage inside and tethered the white horse to a post.
The old man came out again with a young man who was carrying a tray with three cups of tea on it, and when it had been drunk he gave instructions for a vegetarian meal to be prepared. The young man then brought out an old, dented, and unlacquered table, as well as a pair of benches with chipped tops and broken legs, which he put in a cool spot before asking the three of them to sit down. Sanzang then asked the old man his surname, and was told, “Your humble servant's surname is Wang.”
“How many descendants have you?”
“Two sons and three grandchildren.”
“Congratulations, congratulations,” said Sanzang; then he asked the old man how old he was.
“I have lived in my stupidity to sixty-one.”
“Splendid, splendid, you have begun a new cycle,” said Sanzang. “Benefactor,” he continued, “why did you say at first that it would be impossible to fetch the scriptures from the Western Heaven?”
“There is no problem about actually getting the scriptures,” the old man replied, “it's just that the journey will be very difficult. Only some twelve miles to the West of here is a mountain called the three-hundred mile Yellow Wind Ridge, and it's full of evil monsters. That's why I said it would be impossible to get the scriptures. But as this younger gentleman says he has so many magic powers, you will be able to get there.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Monkey. “With me, my master and my fellow-disciple, no devils, however fierce, will dare to provoke us.”
As he spoke the youth came in with food, which he put on the table with the words, “Please eat.” Sanzang put his hands together and started to recite the grace. By then Pig had already swallowed a bowlful, and the moron finished three more before the short prayer was over.
“What a chaff-guzzler,” said Monkey. “We do seem to have run into a hungry ghost.”
Old Wang, however, found the speed at which Pig ate very amusing, and said, “This reverend gentleman must be very hungry. Give him more rice at once.” The stupid creature indeed had a large stomach. Look at him, keeping his head down as he devours at least a dozen bowls. Sanzang and Monkey had not been able to finish two bowls, but the idiot would not stop and was still eating. “As this is far from being haute cuisine, I cannot press you too hard, but please take another mouthful.”
“We have eaten enough,” said Sanzang and Monkey; but Pig said, “What are you going on about, old fellow? Who's been telling your fortune? Is that why you're going on about quizzing? Anyhow, as long as there's rice, give me some more.” In a single meal the idiot ate all the rice in the house, and still said that he was only half-full. Then the table was cleared away, bamboo beds were set out for them in the gatehouse, and they went to sleep.
At dawn the next morning Monkey went to saddle the horse while Pig packed the luggage. Old Wang told his wife to prepare some pastries and hot water for then, after which the three of them thanked him and said good-bye. “If anything goes wrong on your journey,” the old man said, “you must come to our place.”
“Don't be so discouraging, old fellow,” said Monkey. “We're dedicated, and there's no turning back for us.”
With that they whipped the horse, picked up the carrying-pole, and headed West.
Alas! On their journey there was no good path to the West, and there were undoubtedly demons and great disasters in store for them. Before they had been going for half a day, they reached the mountain. It was most precipitous. Sanzang rode as far as the edge of a cliff, then dismounted to have a look.
High was the mountain,
Craggy the ridge;
Steep the cliffs,
Deep the valleys.
Springs could be heard,
And sweet smelt the flowers.
Was that mountain high?
Its summit touched the azure heavens.
Were the gorges deep?
At their bottom you could see the Underworld.
In front of the mountain
Were rolling white clouds,
And towering crags.
There were no end of myriad-fathom, soul-snatching cliffs,
In which were twisting caves for dragons,
Caves full of stalactites dripping with water.
He saw deer with branching antlers,
And river-deer gazing with fixed stare,
Coiled, red-scaled pythons,
And mischievous, white-faced apes.
At evening tigers climbed the hills to find their dens;
Dragons emerged from the waves at dawn,
To enter their caves with thunderous roars.
Birds flying in the grass
Rose in a flurry;
Beasts walking in the woods
Hurried helter-skelter.
Suddenly a pack of wolves ran past,
Making the heart pound hard with fear.
This is a place where caves are linked with caves,
And mountains stand with mountains.
The green of the peak made it like ten thousand feet of jade,
As a myriad clouds were piled above it like a cover of bluish gauze.
While Sanzang urged his silvery steed slowly forward, Monkey strolled ahead on his cloud and Pig ambled along with the carrying-pole. As they looked at the mountain they heard a whirlwind blowing up, and Sanzang was alarmed.
“Wukong,” he said, “there's a whirlwind coming.”
“What's there to be afraid of about a wind?” said Monkey. “It's only weather, after all, and nothing to be scared of.”
“But this is a very evil wind, not like a natural wind at all,” Sanzang replied.
“How can you tell?” Monkey asked.
“Just look at it,” said Sanzang:
“Mighty and majestic it howls and roars,
Coming out of the distant heavens.
As it crosses the ridge the trees moan,
The trunks bend when it enters the wood.
“The willow on the bank is shaken to its roots,
And flowers and leaves go swirling round the garden.
On the fishing boats gathering in nets, they pull hard on the cables;
Ships lower their sails, and all cast anchor.
“The traveler loses his way in mid-journey,
The woodcutter in the hills cannot carry his load.
The monkeys scatter in the orchards of fairy fruit,
The deer flee from the clumps of rare flowers.
“Locust trees and cedars collapse before the cliff,
; While pine and bamboo in the valley are stripped of leaves.
There are stinging blasts of dirt and sand,
And waves boil on rivers and seas.”
Pig went up to Monkey and grabbed hold of him. “Brother,” he said, “this is a terrific storm. Let's take shelter.”
“You're useless, brother,” replied Monkey with a mocking laugh. “If a big wind makes you want to hide, what are you going to do when you meet an evil spirit?”
“Elder brother, have you never heard the saying, 'Avoid a pretty girl as you would an enemy, avoid a wind as you would an arrow?'“ Pig replied. “There's no reason why we shouldn't take shelter.”
“Stop talking, will you, while I get a hold on that wind and take a sniff at it,” said Monkey.
“You're talking through your hat again,” said Pig with a grin. “As if you could get a hold on a wind. Besides, even if you did, your hand would go through it.”
“What you don't know, brother, is that I have a magic way of catching winds,” Monkey replied. Letting the head of the wind pass, the splendid Monkey grabbed the tail and sniffed at it. It had rather a foul stench. “It certainly isn't a good wind,” he remarked. “It smells like either a tiger wind or a monster wind. There's definitely something suspicious about it.”
Before the words were out of his mouth, a ferocious striped tiger leapt out at the foot of the slope, slashing with its tail and rushing towards them. Sanzang was so scared that he could no longer keep his seat in his carved saddle, but fell headfirst off his white horse and lay sprawled in a witless heap beside the path.
Pig threw down the luggage, grabbed his rake and, not letting Monkey move forward, roared, “Animal, where d'you think you're going?” He went straight after it and smote it on the head. The tiger stood up on its hind legs, and with a swing of its front left claws ripped at its own chest. There was a tearing noise as its skin all came off, and then the creature stood beside the path. Just see how hideous was:
A gory, skinned body,
Round, red legs and feet.
Fiery, matted hair,
And straight, bristling eyebrows.