Learning the Magic Arts

T he raft of dead pine carried the Monkey King across the sea to the Southern continent, the one where people live. There he went to school in being human. He stole a set of clothes off a line, learned to walk upright in shoes and a belt, picked up the speech and the swagger of the markets, and spent his days shouldering through towns and walled cities asking after immortals. Eight, nine years went by like that. Nobody he met was chasing anything but money and fame — racing the clock, every one of them, toward the same ledger that had made him weep. So he built another raft and pushed off again, all the way to the Western continent this time, certain the gods had to be hiding somewhere past the next horizon. The Monkey King, by himself, climbed onto the raft, pushed off with all his strength, and drifted out into the great sea, riding a heaven-sent wind to the border of the Southern continent of Jambudvīpa. There he searched after the immortal Way but had no luck meeting it. He passed along the long walls and wandered the small counties, and before he knew it eight or nine years had gone by. He saw only people striving after gain and glory, none with a care for the body's end. At last he came to the shore of the Western Ocean, and thinking there must be gods and immortals beyond it, he made a raft as before and floated across the western sea, straight to the border of the Western continent of Aparagodānīya.

Deep in a forest on that western shore he heard a woodcutter singing — and the song was full of stillness and the Way, the kind of thing no ordinary axeman sings. The monkey took him for an immortal in disguise and pestered him, until the woodcutter laughed and set him straight. He was no immortal, just a poor man who couldn't leave his aged mother; but the song he'd learned from a sage who lived close by. Up that mountain, the woodcutter said, you'll find the Mountain of the Spirit-Platform and the Heart-Inch, and in it the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, and in the cave an immortal called the Patriarch Subodhi. The monkey was up the slope before the directions were done. He came upon a man cutting firewood, who was singing a song about the floating world and the Way. The Monkey King thought he must be an immortal and questioned him eagerly, but the woodcutter said he was only a poor man who could not leave his aged mother; the song had been taught to him by a divine sage who lived nearby to ease his cares. He told him — this mountain is called the Mountain of the Spirit-Platform and Heart-Inch, and on it stands the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars; in that cave is an immortal named the Patriarch Subodhi. The Monkey King thanked him and climbed toward the cave.

The Patriarch took one look at the creature on his doorstep and asked where it had come from. After a comic back-and-forth in which the monkey insisted, truthfully, that he had no name and no family, that he'd simply hatched from a stone, the old immortal decided to give him both. We'll find you a surname on your own body, he said. You're a húsūn — a monkey. Take húsūn and strip off the animal radical from the first character and you're left with 'old' and 'dark,' too withered to make new life. Strip it from the second and you're left with 'child' and 'small' — a little boy, just right for a beginner on the Way. So your surname is Sun. And the monkey, who had never had a name, was so delighted he bowed all over the floor. The Patriarch said, I will take a surname for you from your own body. I mean to give you the surname Hú. Strip the beast-radical off the character hú and you have 'old' and 'moon' — old is aged, moon is the dark principle, and the aged dark cannot bring forth life. Better to give you the surname Sūn. Strip the beast-radical off sūn and you have 'child' and 'small thread' — child is a young boy, small thread is an infant, which fits exactly the root teaching of the newborn. Let your surname be Sun. Hearing this, the Monkey King was filled with joy and kowtowed.

“He raised three fingers, set them behind his back, walked off, and shut the middle door — the entire curriculum, delivered without a word.”

Then came the given name. The Patriarch's school ran its disciples through twelve generation-words, and the monkey fell on the tenth, the word wù — 'awakened.' Paired with kōng, 'emptiness,' it made Wukong, Awakened-to-Emptiness. Good, good, good, cried the monkey, clapping, from this day my name is Sun Wukong. And just like that the stone creature off the mountaintop had a surname, a name, and a master — the whole shape of a person, handed to him in an afternoon. The Patriarch said, in my school there are twelve characters for assigning names by generation. You fall upon the character wù, 'awakened.' I will give you the Dharma name Sun Wukong — 'Awakened to Emptiness.' Will that do? The Monkey King laughed and said, Good, good, good. From today my name is Sun Wukong. And so he had his name.

For years after that Sun Wukong was nobody special — just the new apprentice. He hauled water, swept floors, tended the garden, fetched firewood, and waited. Then one day the Patriarch climbed his lecture platform and began to teach, and the talk was so fine that flowers seemed to rain from the sky and golden lotuses pushed up through the floor. Wukong, listening at the edge of the crowd, could not hold still — he scratched his ear, rubbed his cheek, grinned till his eyes vanished, and ended up bouncing on his feet and waving his arms with sheer joy. The Patriarch stopped mid-sentence. What are you doing, jumping about in my audience? For six or seven years Wukong fetched firewood, tended fire, swept the grounds, hoed the garden, and did such daily work. One day the Patriarch ascended the high seat and lectured on the Way. The wondrous teaching scattered flowers from heaven and called golden lotuses up from the earth; he set out the doctrine of the Three Vehicles, perfect and complete in the ten thousand methods. Listening at the side, Wukong was so delighted that he scratched his ears and rubbed his cheeks, his brows dancing and his eyes laughing, and he could not keep his hands from waving nor his feet from stamping. The Patriarch saw it and asked why he was capering in the ranks instead of attending.

Then teach me something useful, said Wukong, and the lesson turned into a negotiation. The Patriarch offered him the Method of the Diviners — charms, fortune-telling, casting the stalks to dodge bad luck. Will it make me live forever? No. Then I won't learn it. The Method of the Scholars, then — the textual schools, reading the scriptures and chanting the sutras. Live forever? Like a pillar built into a wall — it looks like it's holding the place up, but when the house comes down the pillar comes down with it. Won't learn it. The Method of the Quietists — meditation, fasting, sitting still. Like an unfired brick stacked at the kiln-mouth; one hard rain and it slumps back to mud. Won't learn it. The Method of the Doers — alchemy, breathing, potions. Like scooping the moon out of the water. Won't learn it. Four times the master named a famous school of the Way, four times Wukong asked the only question he cared about, and four times he heard it would not buy him an extra day. So four times he said no. The Patriarch asked what branch of the Way he wished to learn. He offered the Method of 術 — summoning immortals, planchette-writing, divining, casting yarrow stalks. Can this give long life? It cannot. Then I won't learn it. He offered the Method of 流 — the textual and scholastic schools, those of the Confucians, Buddhists, and Daoists, the diviners of yin and yang, the Mohists, the physicians, reading their scriptures and reciting their sutras. If you seek long life by this, it is like setting a pillar inside a wall. I won't learn it. He offered the Method of 靜 — quietude, fasting, stillness, sitting in trance. This too is like an unfired clay brick at the kiln-mouth. It won't last; I won't learn it. He offered the Method of 動 — exertions, alchemy, gathering and refining. To seek long life by this is like fishing the moon out of water. Then I won't learn that either.

That did it. The Patriarch came down off his platform, marched up to Wukong with his ruler in his hand, and barked, You monkey — you won't learn this and you won't learn that, so what exactly are you waiting for? And he rapped Wukong on the head, three times, hard. Then he folded his hands behind his back, turned, walked into the inner rooms, and shut the middle door in everyone's face. The other disciples were appalled; they thought Wukong had thrown away his one chance. But the monkey only sat there grinning. He had read the whole message. Three taps meant the third watch. Hands behind the back and the middle door shut meant — come round the back, alone, and I will give you what you came for. At this the Patriarch gave a shout, leaped down from the high seat, took up his ruler, pointed it at Wukong and said, You wretched monkey — you won't learn this, you won't learn that — just what are you after? He came forward and struck Wukong three times on the head, then folded his hands behind his back, walked inside, and barred the middle door, leaving the assembly. The others were furious with Wukong and reproached him, but Wukong paid them no mind, for he had taken the meaning. Striking him three times meant — hold it in mind at the third watch. Folding his hands behind him and going in to bar the middle door meant — enter by the back door, and there the secret would be passed to him.

At the third watch, with the whole cave asleep, Wukong slipped out, crept around to the back door, and found it standing open just a crack. The Patriarch was lying inside, awake, waiting. He sat up, delighted that the monkey had cracked the riddle, and at last spoke the thing he had crossed two oceans for — the true secret formula of the Way, the gathering and guarding of the body's three treasures, essence and breath and spirit, sealed up tight and never spent. Wukong took every word into his bones and bowed his thanks. The lesson he could not buy with all his refusing had been waiting for him in the dark, the moment he proved he was clever enough to come and get it. Around the hour of the third watch Wukong rose quietly, dressed, slipped out, and went round to the back door, which stood ajar. Overjoyed, he waited; and the Patriarch, awake within and pleased that he had grasped the riddle, gave him the true and secret formula — the open and the hidden made perfectly whole, the cherishing of nature and life, with no other word to it — for all of it comes down to essence, breath, and spirit; guard them, seal them fast, and never let them leak away. Wukong received the teaching, fixed it in his heart, and gave thanks.

Three years on, the Patriarch sat Wukong down with bad news. He had won long life, yes — but heaven does not like a creature stealing immortality out from under it. Every five hundred years or so, heaven would send a calamity to wipe him out. First a bolt of thunder aimed straight at his head. Survive that, and five hundred years later a fire would come for him, a fire from inside that burned him hollow. Survive that, and a wind would come — not a wind off the sea but a wind that bores in through the crown of the skull and unmakes the body from the inside. These were the Three Calamities, and unless he could learn to dodge them, all the immortality in the world would only buy him a longer wait for the axe. After three more years the Patriarch told him, this Way is a wondrous thing, but it steals the creative power of heaven and earth and invades the secret of sun and moon. Once the elixir is formed, gods and demons cannot abide it, and there are the Three Calamities to beware. Five hundred years on, heaven will send down a thunder-calamity to strike you — you must foresee and dodge it, and surviving it your years are as heaven's. Another five hundred years, heaven sends a fire-calamity to burn you — not common fire, but a fire born within that scorches you hollow. Another five hundred years, a wind-calamity comes to blow upon you — not a wind from any quarter, but one that bores in at the crown and passes through the body, undoing the six organs, so that all your cultivation melts away.

There are two sets of these escape-arts, the Patriarch said. The Heaven-Tally count comes to thirty-six transformations. The Earth-Fiend count comes to seventy-two. Wukong did not hesitate. Teach me the seventy-two, he said — the more the better. So he learned the Seventy-Two Transformations, the whole catalogue of shapes a body could take to slip a calamity or fool an enemy. And once he had those, he wanted to travel like a god too. The Patriarch taught him the cloud-somersault — pinch the spell, say the words, clench your fists, give your body one good shake and leap — and a single somersault carries you a hundred and eight thousand li. The Patriarch said, there is the Heaven-Tally set, which comes to thirty-six transformations; and there is the Earth-Fiend set, which comes to seventy-two transformations. Wukong said, Your disciple would grab for the greater share — let me learn the seventy-two Earth-Fiend changes. And the Patriarch taught them to him until he had them all. Then he taught him the cloud-somersault — with this cloud, pinch the secret sign, recite the true words, clench your fists tight, shake your body once, and leap up — and a single somersault covers a hundred and eight thousand li.

It should have ended happily there — a fully equipped immortal, light as thought, every shape in the world at his command. But Wukong was still Wukong. One day the other disciples, who had never seen what he could do, coaxed him into a demonstration. Pleased to be asked, he pinched the spell and turned himself into a tall pine tree, standing there green and swaying for the crowd. They burst out clapping and whooping — Good monkey, good monkey — and the racket carried straight to the Patriarch, who came storming out. What is all this shouting, he demanded, this is no way for people cultivating the Way to behave. The disciples gave Wukong up at once. He'd done a transformation, they said, to entertain us. One day the disciples, who had heard of his new arts, pressed him to show them something, and Wukong, pleased, could not resist. He pinched the sign, said the words, and changed himself into a pine tree. The crowd clapped and roared with laughter — Fine monkey, fine monkey. The noise startled the Patriarch, who came hurrying out, dragging his staff, and cried in anger, What is all this bawling and shouting? This is no fit conduct for those cultivating the Way. The disciples confessed at once that Wukong was performing a transformation for our amusement.

The Patriarch sent the crowd away and turned on Wukong alone. You think a gift like that is a party trick, he said. The moment you have something other people want, you'll flaunt it, and flaunting it will get it taken — or get you killed. Pack up. Go. And here is the one rule you will keep for the rest of your life — never, anywhere, to anyone, breathe a word that I was your teacher. Say so much as half a syllable of it and I will know, and I will flay you and grind your bones and bury you so deep you will not climb back out in ten thousand ages. Wukong begged, but the Patriarch was done. So the monkey made his bows, pinched the spell, gave his body one shake — and somersaulted home across the sea, a god now, and an orphan of his own making. The Patriarch dismissed the others and said to Wukong, Going off like this, you are bound to come to no good. With a nature like yours, the moment you have a skill you will show it off before others — and someone will covet it, and to keep it you will teach it, and to learn it from you others will harm you, and you will not save your own life. You must go. And he charged him — you are never to say that you are my disciple. If you let slip half a word of it, I will know, and I will flay this monkey's hide and crush his bones and banish his spirit, so that for ten thousand ages he shall not turn over and rise again. Wukong pleaded, but in vain. He made his bows, took his leave of the assembly, pinched the sign, shook his body, mounted the somersault cloud, and returned to the Eastern continent.

悟空 The original Chinese · honored as an artifact

天花亂墜，地湧金蓮。妙演三乘教，精微萬法全。

Opening lines, classical Chinese · Journey to the West 西遊記 · Wu Cheng'en (attrib.)