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The Tower Of Myriad Mirrors
A Supplement to journey to the West
By Tung Yüeh THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
Copyright © 2000 Regents of the University of Michigan
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-89264-142-0
Chapter One As the Peonies Glow Red, the Ch'ing Fish Breathes Out Its Spell Issuing an Elegy for the Wrongly Killed, the Great Sage Tarries The myriad things have ever been one body; Each body, too, contains a cosmos. I dare open a clear eye on the world, And strive to root anew its hills and streams. -An Old Rhyme
This chapter describes how the Ch'ing Fish confuses and bewitches the Mind-Monkey. One sees throughout that the causes of all emotions are floating clouds and phantasms.
As the story goes, after the T'ang Priest and his three disciples left the Flaming Mountain, days turned into months, until they came again to the time of green spring. The T'ang Priest sighed, "We four have traveled day in and day out, never knowing when we'll see Sakyamuni. Wu-k'ung, you've been over the road to the West several times, how much farther do we have to go? And how many more monsters will we meet?"
Monkey replied, "Don't worry, Master. If we disciples pool our strength, we needn't fear even a monster as big as heaven."
He had hardly finished speaking when all at once they spied before them a mountain road. Everywhere flowers old and newly fallen covered the ground like a tapestry. There, where tall bamboo leaned over the road stood a peony tree:
The famous flowers no sooner bloom'd than form'd this tapestry; Clusters of blossoms press together, competing with beauty strange. Like finely tailor'd brilliant clouds they face the sun and smile, Tenderly holding fragrant dew and bending with the breeze. Clouds love these famed beauties and come to protect them; Butterflies cling to their heavenly fragrance and tarry over leaving. Were I to compare their color with the ladies in the Spring Palace, Only Yang Kuei fei coquettishly leaning, half-drunk, would do. -An Old Rhyme
Said Monkey, "Master, those peonies are so red!"
The T'ang priest responded, "No they're not."
"Master," said Monkey, "Your eyes must be scorched by the hot spring sun if you insist that peonies so red aren't red. Why not dismount and sit down while I send for the Bodhisattva Great King of Medicine to clear up your eyes. Don't force yourself to go on while your vision is blurred. If you take the wrong road, it will be no one else's fault."
The Priest snapped, "Rascal monkey! You're the one who's mixed up. It's backwards to say that my eyes are blurred."
Monkey said, "Master, if your eyes aren't blurred, why do you say the peonies aren't red?"
The Priest replied, "I never said the peonies aren't red. I only said that it's not the peonies that are red."
Monkey said, "If it's not the peonies that are red, Master, it must be the sunlight shining on them that makes them so red."
When the Priest heard Monkey suggest sunlight, he decided that his disciple's thinking was even farther off. "Stupid ape!" he scolded. "It's you who's red! You talk about peonies, then about sunlight-you certainly drag in trivialities!"
Monkey said, "You must be joking, Master. All the hair on my body is mottled yellow, my tiger-skin kilt is striped, my monk's robe is gray. Where do you see red on me?"
The Priest said, "I didn't mean that your body is red. I meant that your heart is red." Then he said, "Wu-k'ung, listen to this gatha of mine." From his horse he recited:
The peonies aren't red; It's the disciple's heart that's red. When all the blossoms have fallen, It's as if they hadn't yet bloomed.
He finished the gatha, and rode on a hundred paces. There before them several hundred lasses, each one rosy as a spring bud, suddenly appeared beneath the peony tree. They frolicked, picking flowers, weaving grass mats, carrying baby boys and girls, and showing off their loveliness. When they saw the monks coming from the east, they giggled, covering their mouths with their sleeves.
The Priest was troubled. He called to Wu-k'ung, "Let's go by way of some other less traveled route. I'm afraid that in this spring meadow so fresh and green these beautiful children will lead us straight into trouble and entanglements."
Monkey said, "Master, I've been meaning to say a few words to you, but I'm always afraid of offending you, so I haven't dared speak. All your life you've suffered from two great ills. One is using your mind too much, the other is literary Ch'an. What I mean by using your mind too much is that you are always fretting over this and that. Literary Ch'an means reciting poems and discussing principles, bringing up your past to verify the present, and talking about scriptures and gathas. Literary Ch'an has nothing to do with our real goal, and using the mind too much actually invites demons. Overcome these ills and you'll be well prepared to go to the West."
The Priest was displeased. Monkey insisted, "You're mistaken, Master. They are homebodies, we're monks. We share one road, but we have two kinds of hearts."
Hearing this, the T'ang Priest sharply urged his horse forward. But suddenly eight or nine children jumped out from the crowd and surrounded him-a wall of boys and girls. They stared at him, then began to jump up and down, shouting, "This little boy has grown up, but he still wears raggedy beggar-boy clothes!"
Being by nature a man who loved tranquillity, how could the Priest put up with these children? He tried to talk them nicely into leaving, but they would not go. He scolded them, yet still they would not go, and only kept up their taunts, "This boy has grown up, but he still wears beggar-boy clothes!"
The Priest could not think of anything to do, so he dismounted, took off his robe, hid it in his bundle, and sat down on the grass. The children would not leave him alone, and taunted again, "Give us this one-colored raggedy beggar's robe. If you don't, we'll go home and ask our mothers to make us patched robes of apple green, dark green, willow green, pi-i bird color 6 evening-cloud, swallow gray, sauce-brown, sky-blue, peach-pink, jade, lotus stem, lotus-green, silver-green, fish-belly white, ink-wash, pebble-blue, reed-flower green, five-color weave, lichee, coral, duck's head green, color of the palindrome weave, and love-weave. Then we won't need your robe!"
The T'ang Priest closed his eyes and remained silent. Pigsy did not know what was bothering the Master and only wanted to play with the boys and girls. He jokingly called them his adopted children.
Monkey watching this became restless and upset. He took his iron cudgel from behind his ear 7 and brandished it, forcing the crowd back. The children, now frightened, ran away, stumbling over one another. But Monkey's temper did not abate. In a flash he overtook them, swung his cudgel, and struck. Those sweet snail-horn tufts and peachy cheeks passed into oblivion, becoming so many butterflies and will-o'-the-wisps.
When the crowd of beauties under the peonies saw Monkey beating the children to death, they quickly dropped their flower baskets and ran to the edge of a nearby stream. Picking up slabs of rock, they came forward to meet Monkey. But Monkey did not hesitate; he knocked them dead to the ground with one sweep of his cudgel.
It so happened that Monkey, although brave and belligerent, was, nevertheless, compassionate. As he placed the cudgel back behind his ear, tears unconsciously flowed from his eyes, and he said to himself contritely, "Great Heaven! Since I became a Buddhist, I've controlled my emotions and contained my anger. I've never wrongly killed a single man. Today I struck out in sudden anger and killed boys and girls who weren't even monsters or thieves-old and young, maybe fifty in all. I completely forgot the heavy price for doing wrong."
Monkey took two steps, and was again overcome by fear. He said to himself, "I've been thinking only of hell in the future. I'd completely forgotten the hell that is right in front of me. The day before yesterday I killed a monster, and right away the Master wanted to chant the charm. Once when I killed several thieves, the Master renounced me on the spot. When he sees this pile of corpses today, he'll really be angry. If he chants the charm a hundred times, this noble Great Sage Sun' will be one skinned monkey. Will I have any honor left then?"
But after all, Mind-Monkey was intelligent and resourceful. He came up with another idea. He knew our old monk was a man of culture, but he was also overly compassionate, and the bones in his ears were soft. To himself he said, "Today I'll write a eulogy for these wrongly killed innocents. I'll put on a crying face and read it as I walk. When the Master sees me crying so, he'll surely be suspicious and say, 'Wu-k'ung, what's happened to that old pluck of yours?' I'll say, 'There are monsters on the Western road.' The Master's suspicion will increase. He'll ask, 'Where are these monsters? What are they called?' I'll say, 'They're called "man-beating monsters." If you don't believe me, take a look and you'll see that the crowd of boys and girls have become bloody corpses.' When Master hears how terrible the monsters are, his courage will fail and his heart will leap. Pigsy will say, 'Let's get out of here.' Sandy will say, 'Let's go, fast!' When I see that they're well shaken, I'll comfort them with one word: 'Everything's been taken care of by Kuanyin. There's not one tile left unbroken in the monster's cave!"'
Monkey straightaway found a rock to use for an ink-stone and broke a plum branch for a brush. He ground mud into ink and stripped bamboo to make paper. Then he wrote out the eulogy. Gathering up his sleeves like a scholar, he swaggered with long strides and loudly recited:
I, Monkey, first disciple of the Great Buddhist Master Hsüan-tsang, who received from the legitimate Emperor of the Great T'ang a hundred-pearled cassock, a five-pearled abbot's staff, and the title 'Brother of the Emperor,' as the Master of Water-curtain Cave, Great Sage Equal of Heaven, Rebel in the Heavenly Palace, and Eminent Guest in the Underworld, Sun Wuk'ung, do reverently offer as sacrifice clear wine and simple food and write this message to you, spirits of the boys and girls in the spring wind, against whom I bore no grudge and harbored no enmity:
Alas! The willows by the gate have turned to gold; orchids in the courtyard are pregnant with jade. Heaven and Earth are unkind; the green-in-years reach no fruition. Oh, why do their waistbands drift among peach blossoms this third month on the River Hsiang? Why do the white crane's clouds twine with the endless mist to the Ninth Heaven? Ah, Ye spirits, how can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
And furthermore, where dragons and snakes are coiled around bronze columns, in the great hall busy with silkworms, with her jade lute weeping for the wind and rain, in the tower, crying like a tiger-such was the decorum of the White Girl. Oh, why, when spring clothes are ready and spring grasses green, and when spring days grow longer, are spring lives cut short? Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
Alas! A hobbyhorse ride of a mile, a firefly bag half-filled-Little Boy Fate had no call for anger. The money for washing has not been given, but little bird shoes have flown to the Western Abyss; a pair of pillars, first decked in red, now don white goosefeather robes and play in the Purple Vale. Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
And think of Confucius, who, as a lad of seven hid in the bed curtains and chirped like a cricket! And think of Tseng Shen, who when only two feet tall offered lichees from under the stairs! Oh why do you no longer speak of such proprieties? Jade is split in the southern field, a lotus shatters on the eastern lake. The jujubes, floating red, are not gathered; the sap that hangs from the t'ung tree is not chewed. Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
Alas! Not to the South or North or West or East can I write lines to bring back your souls. Are you Chang or Ch'ien or Hsü or Chao? How can I tell from these old gravestones? Ah, Ye spirits! How can I send you off? I bear a secret sorrow for you.
By the time Monkey finished reading, he had come to the peony tree. He saw the Master asleep, his head drooped on his chest, while Sandy and Pigsy lay sleeping with their heads on a stone. Monkey laughed to himself, "The old monk is usually more vigorous-he's never been so drowsy. My stars are lucky today! I won't have to suffer from the charm."
Then he picked some grass and flowers, and after rolling them into a ball, stuffed them in Pigsy's ear. He yelled in the other ear, "Wu-neng!12 Don't have upside-down dreams!"
Pigsy mumbled a reply in his dream, "Master, why are you calling me?"
Monkey realized that in his dream Pigsy mistook him for the Master, so he imitated the Master's voice and said, "Disciple, Bodhisattva Kuan-yin passed here and asked me to give you her regards."
With his eyes closed Pigsy mumbled through the grass, "Has the Bodhisattva said anything behind my back?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Tower Of Myriad Mirrors by Tung Yüeh
Copyright © 2000 by Regents of the University of Michigan . Excerpted by permission.
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