Can the mistakes of Tang monks chasing disciples be avoided? – People’s Livelihood and Law- Market Information Network

Can the mistakes of Tang monks chasing disciples be avoided?

Market Information Network 2022-04-01 15:52:06 Source: People’s Daily Online Comments:

When I was young, I read Journey to the West, and when I read the twenty-seventh episode of “The Three Demons of the Corpse in Tang Sanzang, the Holy Monk Hates Chasing the Beautiful Monkey King”, I was most angry. Sun Wukong beat the white bone spirit three times, but he was wronged many times by the Tang monk. He couldn’t help but secretly pity the great sage Qitian who was wronged. He couldn’t help but blame Tang monk for being ignorant.

The story tells that the four monks, master and apprentice of Tang Dynasty came to a big mountain on their way to the west to study scriptures. The four master and apprentice were hungry. Wukong used somersaults to jump into the air and searched everywhere, only to find some peach trees on another mountain in the south. Tang monk ordered Wukong to pick peaches to satisfy his hunger. As the saying goes, high mountains must be strange, but high mountains produce sperm. There used to be a pile of white bones in this mountain, absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and absorbing the essence of the sun and moon. Madam White Bone was overjoyed when she found that the four masters and apprentices of Tang Seng passed through her territory. However, Madam White Bone was timid in the heart of the Great Sage Qitian, and she also had some scruples about the Rolling Shutter General and the Tianpeng Marshal. So, I came up with a plan. I took advantage of Wukong’s Nanshan to pick peaches, and first turned into a beautiful girl, carrying a green sand pot and a green porcelain bottle, pretending to go to the temple to burn incense and repaying her vow. Give them food first. Tang Seng is mortal with naked eyes, and he doesn’t know how to cheat. Wukong just came back from picking peaches in Nanshan. But this Lady Bone used a method of dismantling the corpse, which turned into blue smoke and disappeared. Next, Mrs. White Bone changed into the woman’s parents, but she never deceived Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong beat the white bone spirit three times, and finally killed the goblin. The goblin with a broken aura turned into a pile of skeletons with a line of words on the spine. , which reads “Mrs. White Bones”.

The story of three dozen white bone spirits is well known to women and children, and needs no further words. However, the story does not end here. Sun Wukong killed Madame Baigu’s phantom body twice before, which has caused great dissatisfaction with Tang Seng. By the third time he killed Madame Baigu’s real body, Tang Seng was already furious. Tang Seng not only recited the confinement mantra, but also ignored Wukong’s pleading, wrote a book of demotion, and expelled him from his teacher’s door. From the later stories, we know that the result of Tang Seng’s expulsion of Sun Wukong from his division was actually an outright wrongful case. The question is, can such an unjust case be avoided? Or it is inevitable. Although Tang Seng was personally ordered by Guanyin Bodhisattva to undertake the great cause of studying scriptures in the West, but before he became an immortal, he was a common man after all. This is an objective limitation; on the other hand, in the one hundred episodes of “Journey to the West”, the story of three dozen white bone spirits happened in the twenty-seventh episode. At this time, the Tang monk was on his way to “fight monsters”. It’s just a “novice” with no experience to speak of. This is a subjective limitation. Constrained by two limitations, it was inevitable that Tang monks would chase their disciples.

But is that really the case? Thinking a little further, the conclusion may be different. The reason why Tang Seng misunderstood Sun Wukong was not because he was mortal, but because he was too arrogant. Although Tang Seng was a mortal, but after all, it was the Guanyin Bodhisattva who personally ordered him to go to the Western Heaven to seek the true scriptures. Naturally, he was extremely intelligent. His problem is that he believes too much in “seeing is believing”, so that he has no immunity to the provocative words of Zhu Bajie, a “pig teammate”, and ignores logic and common sense. In the story of the three dozen white bone spirits, Sun Wukong actually put forward some evidence materials. When examining these materials with logic, some clues will be found. What can be used as evidence are Sun Wukong’s defense, the frog in the girl’s jar, the toad, and the skeleton left by the white bone spirit after death. The certification of evidence should be comprehensively determined in light of the specific circumstances of the case. First of all, the scene of the story is a barren mountain and wild ridge. Why did a girl with a beautiful face and a moon appear suddenly? Where do you go to burn incense and make a wish? No doubt. Combined with the fact that all the masters and disciples were hungry, Wukong searched all over to find some peaches, why did he kill the girl who delivered the fragrant rice and fried gluten, and then turned the fragrant rice and fried gluten into frogs, The toad Secondly, if the skeletons left behind by the Baigujing are used as evidence alone, Zhu Bajie’s statement cannot be ruled out, that is, Sun Wukong injured three lives in a row, and he was afraid that Tang Seng would blame him, so he turned the corpse into a skeleton. However, if the skeleton and the toads and frogs in front are taken as a whole, Sun Wukong’s justification is more credible.

With these logical inferences, as a mortal Tang Seng may not be so decisive to drive away Sun Wukong. However, only logical inferences cannot prove the truth of the facts, but these inferences can be used as a premise to initiate professional identification. If the person killed by Sun Wukong was a demon, it would obviously belong to a specialized problem beyond the scope of his knowledge to Tang Seng, and an appraiser should be entrusted to conduct identification and judgment and provide appraisal opinions. Since according to the above analysis, it can be concluded that the person killed by Sun Wukong may be a demon, but a human being a demon, and it is a professional problem that cannot be solved by Tang monks, so professional institutions or professionals should give professional opinions. Tang monks were enlightened by Guanyin Bodhisattva to go to the west to collect scriptures, and of course, Guanyin Bodhisattva could be entrusted to give special opinions. Even if Tang Seng is unwilling to “entrust an appraisal”, Sun Wukong can hire expert witnesses to give a professional explanation on this issue. In fact, Sun Wukong made a big noise in the sky 500 years ago and has a famous reputation. He also has many immortal friends. It is not difficult to hire a few immortal witnesses to appear in court to explain the situation. Moreover, in the context of “Journey to the West”, immortal witnesses lie in court. There is almost no possibility, after all, Tang monks and gods belong to the same belief system.

Therefore, the misunderstanding between Tang Seng and Sun Wukong is that Tang Seng was overconfident and drove away the serious monster Sun Wukong. If Tang Monk knew how to be humble, made good use of logic and common sense, and realized that everyone’s understanding of the world has limitations, and entrusted professionals to give specialized opinions, this misunderstanding may not happen.

(Author: Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, Zhejiang Province)

Responsible editor: Liu Yuan