Great is the significance of the majestic Law,
That saves the dead from suffering and the morass.
When they all awoke from their dreams, the sun had already risen in the East. Boqin's wife said, “Warden, your father came to me in a dream last night. He said that he had suffered long in the underworld, and couldn't find deliverance. Now that the saintly monk has wiped out his sins by reading some scriptures, King Yama has had him sent back to the rich land of China to be reborn in an important family. He told us to thank him generously, and no half measures. When he'd said this he went out through the door and drifted away. He didn't answer when I called, and I couldn't make him stay. Then I woke up and realized that it was a dream.”
“I had a dream just like yours,” replied Liu Boqin. “Let's go and tell mother about it.” As they were on the point of doing this they heard his mother shout, “Come here, Boqin my son. There's something I want to tell you.” The two of them went in to her to find the old woman sitting on the bed.
“My child, I had a happy dream last night. Your father came home and said that thanks to his salvation by the venerable monk, his sins have been wiped out and he has gone to be reborn in an important family in the rich land of China.” Husband and wife laughed for joy and her son said, “I and my wife both had this dream, and we were just coming to tell you when you called to us. So now it turns out that you it too.” They told everyone in the house to get up to thank Sanzang and get his horse loaded and ready. They all bowed to him and he said, “Many thanks, venerable monk, for recommending my father for delivery from his sufferings and for rebirth. We can never repay this debt of gratitude.”
“What powers have I that you should thank me?” replied Sanzang.
Boqin told him about what the three of them had been told in their dreams, and Sanzang was happy too. Then they gave him his breakfast and an ounce of silver as an expression of their thanks, but he would not take a single penny of it, although the whole family begged and beseeched him to do so.
“If in your mercy you could escort me for the next stage of my journey I would be deeply touched,” he said. All that Boqin, his mother, and his wife could do then was to prepare some scones of coarse wheaten flour as his provisions, and make sure that Boqin escorted him a long way. Sanzang gladly accepted the food. On his mother's orders the high warden told two or three servants to bring hunting gear as they set off together along the road. They saw no end of wild mountain scenery.
When they had been travelling for some time they saw a mountain in front of them, a high and precipitous one that towered right up to the azure sky. Before long they had reached its base. The high warden climbed it as if he were walking on level ground, and when they were half-way over it he turned round, stood beside the path and said, “Venerable monk, I must ask you to take yourself on from here. I have to go back.” On hearing this Sanzang tumbled out of his saddle to say, “Please, please, take me another stage, High Warden.”
“You don't seem to know that this is called Double Boundary Mountain,” said the high warden. The Eastern part belongs to our Great Tang, but the Western parts is Tatar territory. The tigers and wolves on that side are not subject to my control, which is why I can't cross the boundary. You mast go on by yourself. The monk was so alarmed to hear this that he waved his arms around and grabbed hold of the hunter's clothes and sleeves, weeping and refusing to let him go. When at last Sanzang was bowing repeatedly to the hunter to take his leave, a shout like thunder came from under the mountain: “My master's come, my master's come.” Sanzang stood frozen with fear at the sound of it, and Boqin had to hold him up. If you don't know who it was who shouted, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 14
The Mind-Ape Returns to Truth
The Six Bandits Disappear Without Trace
Buddha is the mind, the mind is Buddha,
Mind and Buddha have always needed things.
When you know that there are no things and no mind
Then you are a Buddha with a true mind and a Dharma body.
A Dharma-bodied Buddha has no form;
A single divine light contains the ten thousand images.
The bodiless body is the true body.
The imageless image is the real image.
It is not material, not empty, and not non-empty;
It does not come or go, nor does it return.
It is not different nor the same, it neither is nor isn't.
It can't be thrown away or caught, nor seen or heard.
The inner and outer divine light are everywhere the same;
A Buddha-kingdom can be found in a grain of sand.
A grain of sand can hold a thousand worlds;
In a single body and mind, all dharmas are the same.
For wisdom, the secret of no-mind is essential,
To be unsullied and unobstructed is to be pure of karma.
When you do no good and do no evil,
You become a Kasyapa Buddha.
The terror-stricken Liu Boqin and Sanzang then heard another shout of “My master's come.”
“That must be the old monkey who lives in a stone cell under this mountain shouting,” said the servants.
“Yes, yes,” said the high warden.
“What old monkey?” asked Sanzang, and the high warden replied, “This mountain used to be called Five Elements Mountain, and its name was only changed to Double Boundary Mountain when our Great Tang Emperor fought his Western campaign to pacify the country. I once heard an old man say that in the days when Wang Mang usurped the Han throne, Heaven sent down this mountain and crushed a monkey under it. This monkey doesn't mind heat or cold and neither eats nor drinks. He's guarded by a local tutelary god who gives him iron pellets when he's hungry and molten copper when he's thirsty. Although he's been there since ancient times, he hasn't died of cold or hunger. It must have been him shouting; there's nothing for you to be afraid of, venerable sir. Let's go down and have a look.” Sanzang had to follow him, leading his horse down the mountain.
A mile or two later they saw that there really was a monkey poking out his head out of a stone cell, and making desperate gestures with his outstretched hands as he shouted, “Master, why didn't you come before? Thank goodness you're here, thank goodness. If you get me out of here I guarantee that you'll reach the Western Heaven.”
Do you know what the venerable monk saw when he went forward for a closer look?
A pointed mouth and sunken cheeks,
Fiery eyes with golden pupils.
His head was thick with moss,
And climbing figs grew from his ears.
By his temples grew little hair but a lot of grass,
Under his chin there was sedge instead of a beard.
Dirt between his eyebrows,
And mud on his nose
Made him an utter mess;
On his coarse fingers
And thick palms
Was filth in plenty.
He was so happy that he rolled his eyes
And made pleasant noises.
Although his tongue was nimble,
He couldn't move his body.
He was the Great Sage of five hundred years ago,
Who today could not escape the net of Heaven.
High warden Liu showed great courage in going up to him, pulling away the grass that was growing beside his temples and the sedge under his chin, and asking, “What have you got to say?”
“I've got nothing to say,” the monkey replied. “You just tell that monk to come over here while I ask him a question.”
“What question do you want to ask me?” said Sanzang.