Offering the jade louts-root and golden pills to Sakyamuni,
To give him as many years as the grains of sand of the Ganges.
Peace and eternal joy decorate the Three Vehicles;
Prosperity and eternal life make the nine grades of immortals glorious.
Within the gate of No-Phenomena the true Law rules;
Above the Heaven of Nothingness is his immortal home.
Heaven and Earth both call him their ancestor,
His golden body provides blessings and long life.
The Buddha happily accepted his thanks, and after the Star of Longevity had taken his place the wine-cups started to circulate once more. Then the Bare-foot Immortal appeared, kowtowed to the Jade Emperor, and thanked the Buddha.
“I am deeply grateful to you for subduing the monkey fiend with your divine powers. As I have nothing else with which to express my respect, I offer you two magic pears and a number of fire-dates.”
Sweet are the Bare-foot Immortal's pears and dates,
And long will be the life of the Buddha to whom they are offered.
The lotus seat of the seven treasures is as firm as a mountain,
His thousand-golden-flower throne is as gorgeous as brocade.
Coeval with Heaven and Earth-this is no lie;
It is true that his blessings are greater than a flood.
His Western Paradise of leisure and bliss
Truly provides all the long life and blessings one could hope.
The Buddha thanked him too, and telling Ananda and Kasyapa to collect together all the offerings he went over to the Jade Emperor to thank him for the banquet. When all the guests were thoroughly drunk the Miraculous Patrolling Officer reported that the Great Sage had poked his head out.
“It doesn't matter,” the Buddha said, producing from his sleeve a strip of paper on which were written the golden words Om mani padme hum. He gave this piece of paper to Ananda and told him to stick it on the summit of the mountains. The Venerable Ananda took it through the gates of Heaven and pasted it firmly to a square boulder on the top of the Five Elements Mountain. When this was done the mountain sank roots and joined up all its seams. The Monkey King was still able to breathe and he could still stick his hands out and move them. Ananda went back to Heaven and reported that he had pasted the paper in place.
The Buddha then took his leave of the Jade Emperor and all the other deities. When he and his two disciples had gone out through the gates of Heaven his merciful heart moved him to chant a spell ordering a local tutelary god and the Revealers of the Truth of the Five Regions to live on the mountain and keep guard over him. When he was hungry they were to feed him iron pellets, and when he was thirsty they were to give him molten copper to drink. When the time of his punishment was over, someone would come and rescue him. Indeed:
The monkey fiend was bold enough to rebel against Heaven,
But was subdued by the Tathagata's hand.
He endures the months and years, drinking molten copper for his thirst,
And blunts his hunger on iron pellets, serving his time.
Suffering the blows of Heaven, he undergoes torment,
Yet even in the bleakest time a happy fate awaits.
If some hero is ready to struggle for him,
One year he will go to the West in the service of the Buddha.
Another poem goes:
His great power grew as he humbled the mighty,
He used his wicked talents to subdue tigers and dragons.
He stole the peaches and wine as he wandered round Heaven,
Was graciously given office in the Jade Capital.
When his wickedness went too far his body suffered,
But his roots of goodness were not severed, and his breath still rose.
He will escape from the hand of the Buddha,
And wait till the Tang produces a saintly monk.
It you don't know in what month of what year his sufferings ended, listen to the explanation in the next installment.
Chapter 8
Our Buddha Creates the Scriptures and Passes on Perfect Bliss
Guanyin Obeys a Decree and Goes to Chang'an
If you try to ask about the dhyana
Or investigate the innumerable
You will waste your life and achieve nothing.
Polishing bricks to make mirrors,
Or piling up snow to turn it into grain-
However many years have you wasted like that?
A hair can contain an ocean,
A mustard-seed can hold a mountain,
And the golden Kasyapa only smiles.
When you are awakened you will surpass the Ten Stages and the Three Vehicles,
And stop the four kinds of birth and the six types of reincarnation.
Who has ever heard, before the cliff of thoughts extinguished,
Under the tree that has no shadow,
The sound of the cuckoo in a spring dawn?
The path by the Cao Stream is dangerous,
The Vulture Peak is high in the clouds:
Here the voice of the ancients was a mystery.
On a cliff ten thousand feet high
Five-leaved lotuses bloom
As scent coils round the shutters of the old palace.
At that time
Your knowledge smashes all the currents of thought;
The Dragon King and the Three Treasures can be seen.
This lyric poem is set to the tune Su Wu Man. Our story goes on to how our Buddha, the Tathagata, left the Jade Emperor and went back to the Thunder Monastery, where he saw the three thousand Buddhas, five hundred Arhats, eight great Vajrapanis and countless Bodhisattvas standing under the pairs of sala trees at the foot of the Vulture Peak, all holding banners, canopies, jewels and magical flowers. The Tathagata brought his propitious cloud to a halt and addressed them thus:
“With my deep insight
I surveyed the Three Worlds.
The origin of nature
Is ultimately emptiness,
Like the great void,
Containing nothing at all.
The subjection of this evil monkey
Was a mystery beyond understanding.
It is called the beginning of life and death:
Such is the appearance of things.
When he had spoken a sacred light filled the sky with forty-two rainbows that linked North and South together. All who saw them bowed, and a moment later the Buddha gathered together some felicitous cloud and climbed to the supreme Lotus Throne, where he seated himself in majesty.
Then the three thousand Buddhas, the five hundred Arhats, the eight Vajrapanis and the four Bodhisattvas came forward to bow to him with their hands together and ask, “Who was it who wrecked the Heavenly Palace and ruined the Peach Banquet?”
“The wretch was a monkey fiend born on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit,” the Buddha replied, “whose towering crimes would beggar description. None of the heavenly generals were able to subdue him, and when Lord Lao Zi refined him with fire after Erlang had captured him, he was unharmed. When I went there he was in the middle of the thunder generals, giving a great display of his martial prowess and his spirit. I stopped the fighting and asked him what it was all about. He said that he had divine powers, was able to do transformations, and could ride a somersault cloud for thirty-six thousand miles at a single jump. I made a wager with him that he could not jump out of my hand, then grabbed him, turned my fingers into the Five Elements Mountain, and sealed him under it. The Jade Emperor opened wide the golden gates of the Jade Palace, and invited me to be the guest of honour at a Banquet to Celebrate Peace in Heaven he gave to thank me. After that I took my leave of him and came back here.” They were all delighted by the news and they congratulated him effusively, after which they withdrew group by group, each to go about his duties as all rejoiced in the divine truth. Indeed: