Heaven Cannot Defeat Wukong | Journey to the West 7.1

Chapter seven, Where. The great sage escapes from the eight trigrams furnace. The mind ape is fixed beneath five elements mountain. Wealth and honor, glory and fame are predetermined by fate. No one should act against conscience to covet any of them. Far going and deep are the good results of true enlightenment and loyalty. Heaven punishes all wild and wicked deeds. If not at once, then later on. Ask the Lord of the East, the reason why disasters now strike him. It is because his ambition was high. His plans far reaching. He did not respect authority and he smashed convention. The story goes on to tell how the great sage equaling heaven was escorted by the hosts of heavenly soldiers to the demon beheading tower and tied to the demon subduing pillar. They hacked at him with sabers, sliced at him with axes, lunged at him with spears and cut at him with swords, but they were unable to inflict a single wound on him. The Southern Dipper angrily ordered all the gods of the department of fire to set him alight and burn him up, but he would not ignite. He told the gods of the department of thunder to nail splinters of thunder into him. But however hard they tried, they could not harm a hair of his body. The strong arm demon king and the rest of them then reported this to the throne. Your majesty, they said, this great sage has learned somewhere or other how to protect himself by magic. Although your subjects have hacked at him with sabers, sliced at him with axes, struck at him with thunder and tried to burn him with fire, we have not been able to harm a hair of his body. What are we to do? How can we deal with a wretch like this? The Jade emperor asked. And the Lord Lao Tzu replied to this in a memorial. That monkey has eaten the peaches of immortality, drunk the imperial liquor and stolen the pills of elixir. He swallowed those five gourds of pills of mine, fresh ones and mature ones alike. Now we have used the fire of Samadhi on him, which has tempered his body and made it a diamond one that cannot be harmed. The best course would be to let me take him and put him in my eight trigrams furnace, where I can refine out my elixir with a civil and martial fire and reduce him to ashes at the same time. The Jade emperor then ordered the six Dings and the six Gears to untie him and hand him over to the Lord Lao Tzu, who took him away in obedience to the imperial decree. At the same time, the Jade emperor summoned the illustrious Sage Erlang to his presence and rewarded him with a hundred golden flowers, a hundred jars of imperial liquor, a hundred pills of elixir, rare jewels, lustrous pearls, brocade, embroidery and other gifts to share with his sworn brothers. The true Lord Erlang thanked him for his bounty and returned to Guangjianggu. When he reached the Tushita Palace, Lord Lao Tzu had the great Sage untied, took the hook from his collarbone, pushed him into the eight trigrams furnace and ordered the priests in charge of it and the fire boys to fan the fire up to refine him. Now, this furnace was made of the eight trigrams, Qiang, Kan, Zhen, Zhen, Sun, Li, Kun and Dui. So he squeezed himself into the Palace of Sun, as Sun was the wind and where there was wind, there could be no fire. All that happened was that the wind stirred up the smoke, which made both his eyes red and left him somewhat blind with the illness called fire eyes with golden pupils. Time soon passed and without him realizing it, the seven times seven or 49 days had passed and Lord Lao Tzu's fire had reached the required temperature and burned for long enough. One day, the furnace was opened for the elixir to be taken out. The great Sage, who was shielding his eyes with both hands and wiping away his tears, heard a noise at the top of the furnace. He looked hard and saw daylight and unable to stand being in there a moment longer, leapt out of the furnace, kicked it over with a crash and was off. In the ensuing chaos, the fire boys, the keeper of the furnace, the dings and the jeers all tried to grab him, but he knocked them all down. He was like a white-browed tiger gone berserk, a single horned dragon raving mad. Lord Lao Tzu rushed up to seize him but was thrown head over heels as the great Sage freed himself. He took the as you will cudgel from his ear and shook it in the wind till it was as thick as a bowl and once more create a total chaos in the palace of heaven, not caring in the least what he did. He laid about him to such effect that the nine bright shiners shut their windows and doors and not a sign was to be seen of the four heavenly kings. Marvellous monkey spirit as the poem has it. His primordial body matches an earlier heaven, completely natural throughout 10,000 ages, fast and passive, blended with the great Monad, always immobile, known as the prime mystery. After so much refining in the furnace, he is not lead or mercury. Having lived long outside the ordinary, he is a natural immortal. His changes are inexhaustible and still he has more. So say nothing about the three refuges or five abstentions. Another poem says, a single point of magic light can fill the whole of space. Likewise, that staff of his, longer or shorter, depending on his needs, upright or horizontal, it can shrink or grow. Yet another poem runs, to the apes immortal body is matched a human mind. That the mind is an ape is deeply meaningful. It was quite true that the great sage equaled heaven. The appointment as protector of the horses showed no discernment. Horse and ape together make mind and thought. Bind them tightly together and do not seek elsewhere. When all phenomena are reduced to truth, they follow a single pattern. Like the Tathagata reaching nirvana under the two trees. This time, the monkey king made no distinction between high and humble. As he laid about him to east and west with his iron club. Not a single God opposed him. He fought his way into the hall of universal brightness outside the hall of miraculous mist. Where the kingly spirit officer, the lieutenant of the helpful sage and true Lord, fortunately was on duty. When he saw the great sage charging around, he took up his golden mace and went forward to resist him. Where are you going, dumb monkey, he asked. If you go wild, you'll have me to deal with. The great sage was not in a position to argue with him. So he raised his cudgel to strike him. The spirit officer lifted his mace and advanced to meet him. It was a fine fight. Great was the fame of the brave and loyal officer. Evil, the name of the rebel who bullied heaven. The low one and the good one were well matched. Valiant heroes fighting each other. Vicious, the iron cudgel. Quick, the golden mace. Both were straight, merciless and terrible. One of them is a deity formed from the great Monad's thunder. The other is the monkey spirit, the great sage equaling heaven. With golden mace and iron cudgel, each is a master. Both are weapons from the palaces of the gods. Today they show their might in the hall of miraculous mist. A wonderful display of courage and skill. One of his folly wanting to capture the palace of the dipper and the bull. The other exerting all his strength to support the world of the gods. The fight is too hard to allow the use of magic as mace and cudgel struggle without result. As they fought together without either of them emerging as victor, the true lord sent an officer with a message to the thunder palace, ordering the 36 thunder generals to surround the great sage. Although they all fought with the utmost ferocity, the great sage was not in the least frightened and parried and blocked in left and right with his as you will cudgel, resisting his opponents in front and behind. Before long, he found that the pressure was too great from the sabers, spears, swords, halberds, clubs and maces, claws and ropes, hammer, poleaxes, battleaxes, grabs, pen and hooks and moon-shaped bills of the thunder generals. So he shook himself and grew three heads and six arms. As he shook his as you will cudgel and changed it into three cudgels and wielding the three cudgels in his six hands, he flew around and round inside the encirclement like a spinning wheel. None of the thunder generals could get anywhere near him. Indeed, perfectly round, gleaming bright, how can men learn to live forever? He can enter fire without being burned and go in the water but not be drowned. He is as bright as a money pearl, swords and spears cannot harm him. He is capable of good and capable of evil. When faced with the choice between good and evil, he might do either. If he is good, he becomes a Buddha or an immortal. If bad, he grows fur and horns. With his boundless transformations, he wrecked the heavenly palace. Nor can thunder generals and divine troops take him. Although the gods had the great sage cornered, they were unable to get near him. The noise of the shouting and the fighting had already alarmed the jade emperor who ordered the miracle official Yuyi to go to the West with the helpful sage and true Lord and asked the Buddha to subdue him. When these two sages received the order, they went to the wonderful land of the Miraculous Mountain where they offered their greetings to the four Vajrapanis and eight Bodhisattvas before the Thunder Monastery and asked them to pass on their message. The gods went to the foot of the lotus seat to inform the Tathagata who invited the two sages to his presence. When the sages had performed the three-fold obeisance to the Buddha, they stood in attendance below the throne. Will the Buddha be able to subdue the great sage? See you next time. Goodbye.