Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West (Michigan Classics in Chinese Studies) (21 page)

3
In
Journey to the West
all manner of monsters and demons try to devour the Tang Priest, because to eat even a bit of his flesh would assure them immortality.

4
Mackerel is the literal meaning of the Chinese term
ch'ing yü
(Ch'ing Fish). See also
chapter 1
note 1.

5
This is taken from an almost identical line in the “The Great Treatise” of the
I Ching:
“It encompasses all the transformations in the heavens and on earth, so that nothing escapes it.” Here, “it” refers to the
I Ching
, which was believed to contain the principles underlying all phenomena. By partially quoting this line, Tung Yüeh seems to be saying that desire, too, encompasses all things.

Q.   
Journey to the West
is not incomplete; why a supplement?

A.   
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
comes after the episode “Flaming Mountain and the Banana-leaf Fan” (chapter 61) and before “Cleansing the Heart and Sweeping the Pagoda” (chapter 62). The Great Sage
¹
devised a scheme to obtain the Banana-leaf Fan and cool the flames.
²
In this he merely uses his physical strength. The forty-eight-thousand years
³
are the amassed roots of desire. To become enlightened and open to the Great Way, one must first empty and destroy the roots of desire. To empty and destroy the roots of desire one must first go inside desire. After going inside desire and seeing its emptiness, one can then go outside it and realize the reality of the root of the Way.
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
deals with the Demon of Desire, and the Demon of Desire is the Ch'ing Fish.

Q.   The original text of
Journey to the West
has a million monsters. They all want to butcher the T'ang Priest and eat his flesh. In
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
, the Ch'ing Fish merely enchants the Great Sage. Why is this?

A.   Mencius said, “There is no better way of learning than to seek your own strayed heart.”

Q.   The original
Journey to the West
always begins an episode by telling what monster or evil spirit will be encountered. Your description of the Demon of Desire doesn't make clear at the beginning that it is in fact the Demon of Desire. Why is this?

A.   This is the main point of departure for
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
. For men, desire is a demon without form, without sound—a man may not be conscious of it or know about it. It may enter by way of grief, indulgence, a single doubtful or vacillating thought, or sensory perceptions. It seems as if the desire that enters the sphere of your thoughts cannot be stopped or changed or ignored; as if once it enters it can in no way be expelled. But to recognize desire as a demon is to achieve success. Therefore, when the Great Sage was in the belly of the Ch'ing Fish, he didn't know it. Moreover, he didn't know when he leapt out of the Ch'ing Fish that he would shortly kill it. The deluded man and the enlightened one were not two different people.

Q.   In your novel the World of the Ancients is concerned with the past. The World of the Future is concerned with the future. But how in the days of early T'ang
⁴
can you have the soul of the Sung Prime Minister Ch'in Kuei being punished?

A.   
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
is a dream of desire. If, for example, on the third of the first month, you see in a dream that you will be in a fight and receive wounds to your hands and feet on the third of the third month and when the third of the third month arrives and you are, in fact, in a fight, what your eyes see is no different from what you dreamed. The third of the first month is not the third of the third month. Rather, what you dreamed and saw is an indication that there is no place the heart cannot reach. And since there is no place the heart cannot reach it cannot really be left to stray.

Q.   When the Great Sage is in the World of the Ancients he is Beautiful Lady Yü. How does he become so lovely? In the World of the Future, he is King Yama of Hell. How does he become so fearsome?

A.   When the heart goes into the future, it is in a most precarious situation. If one doesn't fortify his spirit he is sure to be utterly defeated. By exterminating the Six Thieves, Monkey expelled evil. Punishing Ch'in Kuei established his direction. In paying respect to Yüeh Fei he returned to the right. This is basically how the Great Sage broke out of the Demon Desire.

Q.   When the Great Sage is in the Emerald Green World, he sees that the T'ang Priest is a general. Why?

A.   There is no need to discuss this. You need only see the nine words on his banner: “The Supreme and Venerable Commander for Wiping out Desire.”

Q.   In the thirteenth chapter, the Tang Priest weeps in Crying Ospreys Hall while the girl playing the
p'i-p'a
sings her song. There is a heavy feeling of mournful wind and bitter rain.

A.   The roots of desire in this world can be summed up in one word: “sorrow.”

Q.   The Great Sage suddenly has a wife and children. How can this be?

A.   Dream thoughts are upside-down.

Q.   When the Great Sage emerges from the Demon of Desire, there is the chaos of the five colored banners. Why is this?

A.   The
Purity S
tra
says that when chaos runs its course, there is a return to the root. When desire reaches its extremity, you see your own nature.

Q.   When the Great Sage comes across peonies, he immediately enters the Demon of Desire. When he fights in the vanguard rushing the enemy's barricades, he immediately escapes desire. Why is this?

A.   In killing desire, one must be prepared to cut it in half with a single stroke.

Q.   Can one really gouge holes in heaven?

A.   Here is the author's intention: If the Great Sage hadn't encountered the men who dug holes in heaven, he could never have entered the Demon of Desire.

Q.   In the original
Journey to the West
, the monsters all have the heads of cows and tigers, make noises like a jackal, or glare like a wolf. Now in the first fifteen chapters of
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
, the descriptions of the Ch'ing Fish show it to be young and delicate, almost human. How is this?

A.   Your four words—young, delicate, almost human—precisely describe the shape this foremost demon has assumed since the beginning of time.

1
I.e., Monkey.

2
The Tower of Myriad Mirrors
was conceived as a supplement to be read in the context of events that transpire in chapters 59 to 61 of
Journey to the West
. There, master and disciples had found their route blocked by a flaming mountain, and Monkey had to battle the Demon Bull King and dupe Lady Rakshas to wrest from them a fan capable of suppressing the flames. See introduction, pp. 7-8.

3
This perhaps refers to the time since the beginning of human history.

4
The T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-907) and the Sung dynasty (A.D. 960-1279).

An Lu-shan

Ch'an (Zen)

Chang Chieh

Chang Ch'iu

Chang Chün

Chang Fei

Chang Han

Chang Hsien

Chang Liang

Ch'ang O

Chao (Sung royal family name)

Chao Ch'eng

Chen-chiang

Ch'en Hsüan-tsang