Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West (Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies) (20 page)

The Elder of the Void Rouses Monkey from His Dream; When the Great Sage Returns, the Sun Is Half Hidden in the Mountains.

Unable to control himself, Monkey changed into the three-headed, six-armed form in which he had rebelled in the Heavenly Palace. He struck out wildly in the air.

From behind someone called loudly, “Is Wu-k'ung no longer aware of vacuity? Is Wu-huan no longer aware of illusion?”
¹

Monkey turned his head and asked, “What country's general are you, that you dare to address me?” Looking up he saw an elder sitting on a lotus platform.

The elder called again, “Sun Wu-k'ung, aren't you awake yet?”

Monkey stopped swinging his cudgel and asked, “Who are you?”

The elder replied, “I'm the Master of the Void. I've watched you living in this false universe for quite some time, and I've come specially to rouse you. At this moment your real Master is hungry.”

Monkey began to wake up a bit. It seemed that what had happened was all an illusion. He concentrated his whole mind, shutting out what had gone before, and begged the Master for instruction.

The Master of the Void said, “You've been snared in the aura of the Ch'ing Fish.”

Monkey asked, “What kind of demon is this Ch'ing Fish that he can create a universe?”

The Master of the Void said, “When Heaven and Earth first split apart, the pure essence ascended, and the turbid sank. The half-pure and half-turbid remained in the middle, and that is man. What was mostly pure and only in small measure turbid gravitated to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, giving birth to Wu-k'ung. That which was mostly
turbid and only in small measure pure gravitated to Little Moon Cave, giving birth to the Ch'ing Fish. The Ch'ing Fish and Wu-k'ung were born in the same hour, the only difference was that Wu-k'ung belonged to goodness, while the Ch'ing Fish belonged to evil. But the Ch'ing Fish's supernatural powers are ten times greater than Wu-k'ung's, and his body is extremely large. When he takes K'un-lun Mountains as a pillow for his head, his feet rest in the Kingdom of Dark Oblivion. Now he finds the World of Reality too small for him, so he dwells in the World of Illusion, which he calls the Emerald Green World.”

Monkey said, “What are illusion and reality?”

The Master said, “There are three parts to creation: one part is No-Illusion, one part is Illusion, and one is Reality.” Then he chanted this hymn:

No springtime lads and lasses played;

They were the root of the Ch'ing Fish.

No New Emperor ever lived;

He was the energy of the Ch'ing Fish.

No green bamboo broom ever swept the hall;

That was the name of the Ch'ing Fish.

No general's commission was ever issued;

It was the pattern of the Ch'ing Fish.

No sky-gouging axes ever struck through;

They were the form of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Little Moon King ever lived;

He was the spirit of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Tower of Myriad Mirrors stood tall;

It was the creation of the Ch'ing Fish.

No man in the mirror ever beckoned;

That was the body of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Headache World ever existed;

It was the construction of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Green Pearl's tower was ever erected;

It was the heart of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Hsiang Yü of Ch'u ever strode forth;

He was the soul of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Beautiful Lady Yü ever died;

She was a delusion of the Ch'ing Fish.

King Yama was never absent from Hell;

His was the world of the Ch'ing Fish.

The World of the Ancients never existed;

It was a fabrication of the Ch'ing Fish.

Nor did the World of the Future exist;

It was the congealing of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Limitation Hexagram Palace stood firm;

It was the place of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Young Lord of T'ang ever went to war;

He was the sport of the Ch'ing Fish.

Singing and dancing were never indulged in;

That was the nature of the Ch'ing Fish.

No Lady Green-twine ever wept;

She was the exhaustion of the Ch'ing Fish.

No roll call platform was ever built;

It was the movement of the Ch'ing Fish.

No battle with P
ramit
ever ensued;

That was the brawling of the Ch'ing Fish.

For there is no Ch'ing Fish;

There is simply Monkey's desire.

When he finished, a great gust of wind arose and blew Monkey back to the mountain path. And he saw that the sun above the peony tree had barely moved.

It happened that when the real T'ang Priest awoke from his spring nap he found the boys and girls had already gone away. He was quite pleased, except that he didn't see Monkey. He woke Pigsy and Sandy and asked where Monkey had gone. Sandy said, “I don't know.” Pigsy said, “I don't know.”

All at once they saw Mu-ch'a, an attendant of Bodhisattva Kuan-yin, and a fair-faced monk riding an auspicious cloud and coming from the southwest. It fluttered down, and Mu-ch'a said, “T'ang Priest, take this new disciple. The Great Sage will return in a little while.”

The T'ang Priest jumped to his feet and kowtowed. Mu-ch'a said, “Bodhisattva Kuan-yin is concerned about your hardship on the Western Road and sends this little disciple to join you here. However he's very young so the Bodhisattva urges your reverence to watch after him. The Bodhisattva has already given him the religious name Wu-ch'ing (Aware-of-Desire). She says that although Wu-ch'ing is your reverence's fourth disciple, he should be placed second only to Wu-k'ung and above Wu-neng in order to complete the phrase, “make empty of desire and be purified.
²
” The T'ang Priest accepted the Bodhisattva's order and took in the disciple, then saw Mu-ch'a off.

The Ch'ing Fish demon had in fact distracted the Mind-Monkey with the sole intention of devouring the T'ang Priest.
³
Thus, while he entangled the Great Sage, he also changed his shape to that of a little monk to ensnare the Priest. How was he to know that the Great Sage had been awakened by the Elder of the Void? This shows that though evil demons use a thousand schemes, one whose mind is straight need fear no demon.

When Monkey returned through the air, he spied the little monk sitting by his Master. The monk's evil aura rose ten thousand feet, and Monkey knew right off that he was a transformation of the Ch'ing Fish. He took his cudgel from behind his ear and struck without a second thought. In an instant the little monk had turned into the corpse of a mackerel.
⁴

A beam of red light issued from the corpse's mouth. Monkey followed it with his eyes, and he saw a tower appear within the red beam. In the tower stood the Hegemon of Ch'u. He shouted, “I beg your leave, Beautiful Lady Yü!” Then the beam of red light passed to the southeast and disappeared.

The T'ang Priest said, “Wu-k'ung, I'm famished!”

When Monkey heard this, he quickly turned and with his hands clasped made a great bow toward his Master. He repeated what had just happened from beginning to end.

Now when the T'ang Priest had found Monkey missing, he was at first quite anxious. But when Monkey returned and straight off killed his new disciple, he grew angry and was about to reprimand him. Then he saw that the new disciple had become a mackerel corpse. He quickly realized that Monkey's intentions were good, while the new disciple had been a demon. And when he heard Monkey describe the fierceness of the
demon, his anger changed to joy. He said, “You've been through a lot of trouble, Disciple.”

Pigsy said, “Wu-k'ung just went to play. If that's trouble, then when we really meet trouble the Master will call it play.”

The T'ang Priest made Pigsy be quiet and asked Monkey, “Wu-k'ung, you say you passed several days in the Emerald Green World. Why has it not even been an hour here?”

Monkey said, “Though the mind is deluded, time is not.”

The T'ang Priest said, “I wonder which is longer—mind or time?”

Monkey said, “When mind is short, it is Buddha. When time is short, it is a demon.”

Sandy said, “The demon has been destroyed. The world is pure and empty. Brother, why don't you go to the village again and beg for some food? Let the Master sit for a while with a quiet mind, then we'll start again on the Western road.”

Monkey said, “All right,” and walked on ahead. He had gone just a short way when he ran into the local mountain deity. Monkey cursed him, “How insolent you are! I was looking for you the other day to ask you something, but when I said the magic words you never came. What kind of great local deity are you anyway? Quick! Stick out your leg and I'll give it a hundred whacks. Then we'll sort it out.”

The deity begged him. “Lord Great Sage, just then you were dragged beyond Heaven by the Demon of Desire. My powers are limited. How could I go beyond Heaven to kowtow to you? Please, Great Sage, weigh my merit against this guilt.”

Monkey said, “What merit do you claim?”

The deity replied, “I took your flower ball from Lord Pigsy's ear.”

Monkey dismissed him. Then, intent on begging for food, he leaped into the air. To one side he saw a path covered with peach blossoms. A wisp of smoke rose indistinctly from amidst the wood. Immediately he lowered his cloud to take a look. Finding it to be a nice house, Monkey went inside and was looking for someone he could ask for food when he came upon a quiet room. There sat a master who had gathered several disciples around him and was explicating a text. Can you guess which line he was explaining? He was discussing none other than: “It encompasses Heaven and Earth and nothing escapes it.”
⁵

1
The literal meanings of the names Wu-k'ung and Wu-huan are “aware of vacuity” and “aware of illusion,” respectively.

2
This phrase is composed of the second characters in the religious names of Monkey (Wu-k'ung), the new disciple (Wu-ch'ing), Pigsy (Wu-neng), and Sandy (Wu-ching). This line “
k'ung ch'ing neng ching
” is especially enigmatic. We translate it to reflect Buddhist perspective, with
ch'ing
being read as “desire.” To a proponent of the political interpretation, however, the sentence can mean nothing but, “Annihilate the Ch'ing dynasty and the land will be purified.” Given Tung Yüeh's interest in medicine, still another level of meaning is possible.
K'ung ch'ing
is the name of a medicinal plant whose properties are said to be effective in the cure of blindness. It is green on the outside and hollow in the center, the latter quality an apt metaphor for the spiritual condition sought by the adherent of Ch'an. With this in mind, the original sentence suggests that one attains purity in the image of this empty plant which is by nature a remedy for blindness.