Journey 003: Star Pupil

The Monkey King gets a name and some special treatment from his teacher.

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Welcome to the Chinese Lore Podcast, where I retell classic Chinese stories in English. This is episode 3 of Journey to the West.

Last time, we witnessed the supernatural birth of the Monkey King. Then, we followed him on his quest for the secret of eternal youth, which took him across a continent and two oceans, landing him in the Setting Moon and Three Stars Cave of the Daoist master Patriarch Puti (2,2). Puti asked the Monkey King for his name, and after a little fun with Chinese homonyms, the Monkey King replied that he had no name and no parents.

“Then were you born from a tree?” Puti asked.

“No, I was born from stone. I just remember that there was a magical boulder on Flower and Fruit Mountain. It dissolved and I was born.”

Puti secretly rejoiced upon hearing this. He then told the Monkey King, “Sounds like you were born from heaven and earth. Why don’t you walk around and let me have a look at you.”

Well, this was a weird admissions interview. But the Monkey King got up and shambled around a couple times in the way monkeys do. Puti smiled and said, “Although you have a base body, you kind of look like a pinecone-eating rhesus macaque. So I was thinking I can use the character for macaque as your last name. Remove the part of that character that means animal, and the other elements in the character mean old and moon. What is old is ancient, and the moon embodies the negative principle. What is ancient and negative cannot be educated. So I was thinking we’d use the character for monkey instead. Remove the element of that character that means animal, and we’re left with the character Sun, whose component elements mean male and baby. That is in accordance with the theories on infants.”

So, that was a pretty roundabout way of saying hey your last name is gonna be Sun. The Monkey King was on board with that. He thanked Puti and asked him to bestow a first name as well.

“Within my sect, there are 12 characters that I give as names,” Puti said. “You’re the 10th generation of my disciples. You’re in line for the character Wu (4), so how about we call you Wukong (4,1)?”

Wukong, by the way, means Comprehending Emptiness. The Monkey King loved it, and so from that day forth, he was known as Sun Wukong. He bowed to thank Puti again, and Puti told his disciples to lead Wukong outside to perform the initiation rites. So Wukong followed them out, formally paid his respects to them, and took up residence at the sanctuary.

Each day, Sun Wukong learned language, customs, and the philosophies of the Dao alongside his fellow disciples. In their spare time, they swept the grounds, tended to the gardens, collected firewood, and fetched water. In this way, seven years passed in the blink of an eye.

One day, Puti was lecturing from his dais. When he got to a really good part, Wukong was so taken with the material that he couldn’t help but laugh and gesticulate wildly from his seat. Puti saw this and called him out.

“Why are you dancing wildly instead of paying attention?” the master asked.

“I was listening attentively,” Wukong said. “When you got to a really good part, I couldn’t help but be excited. That’s why I was jumping around. Please forgive me.”

“Well, so you recognize which parts are the good parts, huh?” Puti said. “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know how long it’s been. But I do know that I’ve often gone to the backside of the mountain to collect firewood. And the mountainside is full of peach trees. I’ve gorged myself on peaches there seven times.”

“That’s Tender Peach Hill,” Puti said. “Since you’ve feasted on peaches there seven times, you must have been here for seven years. What would you like to learn from me?”

“Whatever you want to teach me,” Wukong replied. “As long as it’s related to the Dao, I will learn it.”

“There are 360 paths to the Dao,” Puti explained. “Each one can bear fruit. Which would you like to study?”

“Please offer me some guidance, and I will follow.”

“I could teach you the Way of the Magic.”

“What does that do?”

“Magic allows you to summon immortals and cast divinations. With this path, you would be able to foretell fortune and avert disaster.”

“Would it allow you to live forever?” Wukong asked.

“No, no.”

“Well then, I don’t want to learn that.”

“Then how about I teach you the Way of Sects?”

“What does that do?”

“You would study all the sects, like Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, the Yin and Yang, and medicine. You would read scriptures and chant the name of the Buddha. You can also summon immortals and sages.”

“Can you attain eternal life that way?”

“To try to attain immortality that way is like putting a pillar in the wall,” Puti said.

“Master, I’m simple and don’t understand these jargons. What does putting a pillar in the wall mean?”

“When a man builds a house and wants to make sure it’s sturdy, he puts a pillar inside the wall. But by the time the house is ready to collapse, that pillar would have already rotted.”

Umm, that sounds like a no. So Wukong said, “It sounds like that this is no path to immortality either. I don’t want to learn it.”

“Then how about I teach you the Way of Silence?”

“What kind of fruit would that bear?”

“It involves abstaining from food, refraining from movement, sitting in meditation, abstaining from speech, and performing exercises when asleep or standing up, going into trances, and being in total seclusion.”

“And that can help you live forever?”

“That would be like building the top of a kiln with sun-dried bricks.”

“Master, I’ve already told you I don’t understand this jargon. What does this saying mean?”

“If you build the top of a kiln with sun-dried bricks, even though they have taken shape, they haven’t been forged through fire. One downpour, and they will crumble.”

“So that’s a no, too. I don’t want to learn that.”

“Then how about I teach you the Way of Action?”

“What does that do?”

“It involves acting and doing, extracting the Yin and building up the Yang, drawing the bow and loading the crossbow, encouraging the flow of the humors, refining elixirs, lighting fires under cauldrons, consuming red lead, purifying autumn stones, and drinking women’s milk.”

“And that would lead to eternal life?”

“Trying to attain immortality by this path would be like reaching for the moon in the water.”

“Master, here you go again. What does that mean?”

“The moon is in the sky. Its reflection is in the water. You can see it in the water, but you can’t actually touch it. So it’s all for naught in the end.”

“Then I don’t want to learn that either.”

At this point, Puti got up, jumped off his dais, grabbed his ruler, pointed at Sun Wukong and scolded him. “You wild ape! You won’t learn this, and you won’t learn that! This won’t do at all!”

As he spoke, he approached Wukong and bonked him on the head three times with the ruler. Then, putting his hands behind his back, Puti stomped off into his private quarters and shut the center door, leaving all his disciples behind.

All the other disciples were taken aback by this, and they all gave Wukong crap, telling him, “You wild monkey. You were so out of line. Master wanted to teach you some Dao. Why did you refuse and argue with him? And now you’ve made him mad. Who knows when he’s going to come back out?”

But even as they vented at him, Wukong simply put on a wide smile and didn’t get mad at all.

That night, after everyone had gone to sleep, Wukong lay awake in bed, guessing the time by counting his own breath. When it got to around the time of the second watch, or sometime between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m., he quietly got up, got dressed, and sneaked out of the sleeping quarters. 

Following the familiar path, he made his way to the back door of Puti’s quarters. The door was half open, much to his delight. He now slid in through the door and quietly approached Puti’s bed. He saw his master lying on the bed asleep. Wukong did not dare to make a racket, so he quietly kneeled in front of the bed.

After a good while, Puti woke up, stretched, and muttered to himself, “Hard, hard, hard. The Dao is very obscure. Don’t treat gold and cinnabar as commonplace. To teach miraculous spells to any but the right man is to tire the voice and dry the tongue in vain.”

Wukong now spoke up, “Master, I have been kneeling here for a long time.”

Recognizing his voice, Puti sat up and said sternly, “You crazy monkey! What are you doing here instead of sleeping in your quarters?”

“Master, yesterday at the dais, you instructed me to come here through the back door around the third watch so that you can teach me the Dao. That’s why I dared to pay my respects to you here.”

So, the whole whacking Wukong on the head thing was a secret code, one that Wukong was able to decipher. The three conks on the head with the ruler indicated the third watch. And when Puti put his hands behind his back while walking away, that meant come by via the back door. Puti was secretly delighted that Wukong understood his meaning. “This ape really is a product of heaven and earth,” he thought to himself. “Otherwise, how could he have solved my riddle?”

Wukong now said, “There is no one else here but me. I hope you can show compassion and teach me the secret of eternal life. I will never forget your kindness!”

“You were destined for this, and I am happy to teach you as well,” Puti said. “Since you understood my riddle, come forth and listen carefully. I will tell you the secret of immortality.”

Wukong kowtowed to thank his master, and then leaned in and listened carefully. Puti told him:

“This bold, secret saying that’s wondrous and true:
Spare, nurse nature and life — there’s nothing else.
All power resides in the semen, breath, and spirit;
Store these securely, lest there be a leak.
Lest there be a leak!
Keep within the body!
Heed my teaching, and the Way itself will thrive.
Hold fast oral formulas so useful and keen
To purge lust, to reach pure cool;
To pure cool,
Where the light is bright.
You’ll face the elixir platform, enjoying the moon.
The moon holds the jade rabbit, the sun, the crow;
The tortoise and snake are now tightly entwined.
Tightly entwined,
Nature and life are strong.
You can plant golden lotus even in the midst of flames.
Squeeze the Five Phases jointly, use them back and forth
When that’s done, be a Buddha or immortal at will!”

So Master Puti was dropping some real truths on Wukong, who took every line to heart. He then kowtowed to thank Puti for his immense kindness and left through the back door. By now, the sky in the East was starting to lighten, and he followed the same trail back to the front door of the sanctuary. He quietly snuck back in and sat back down in the spot where he was supposed to sleep. He then rang the wakeup bell and said, “Morning has come! Time to get up!”

All the other disciples woke up and tended to their daily routines, having no idea that Wukong had attained the secret of immortality.

In the blink of an eye, three more years had passed, and Patriarch Puti finally came back on the dais to deliver another lecture to the disciples about scholastic deliberations, parables, and the appearance of external conduct. Suddenly, he asked for Wukong, and Wukong approached the dais and kneeled. 

“What kind of cultivation have you been working on lately?” Puti asked.

“Recently, your pupil has begun to apprehend the nature of all things, and my foundational knowledge has become firmly established,” Wukong replied. 

“If you have penetrated the dharma nature to understand the origin, then you have entered into the divine substance,” Puti said. “However, you must guard against the Three Calamities.”

Umm … come again?

“Master, you must be mistaken,” Wukong said after thinking about his master’s warning. “I have often heard it said that if your Dao is strong and your virtue is great, then you will share Heaven’s longevity, and that you’d be impervious to the elements and diseases. So what’s up with these Three Calamities?”

“What you have learned is no common magic,” Puti explained. “You have stolen the creative powers of Heaven and Earth and invaded the dark mysteries of the sun and moon. Your success in perfecting the elixir is something that the gods and the demons cannot tolerate. So even though you have increased your lifespan, after 500 years, Heaven will strike you with thunder. You must be wise enough to avoid it ahead of time. If you can dodge that calamity, then you will share Heaven’s longevity. But another 500 years after that, Heaven will send down fire to burn you. This is no divine fire, nor is it common fire. It’s called Negative Fire, and it arises from the soles of your feet and reaches the cavity of  your heart. Your entrails would be reduced to ashes and your limbs would wither. Your thousand-year labor would be all for naught. If you manage to dodge that calamity, then after another 500 years, Heaven will send down a wind to destroy you. This is not the wind from the north, south, west, or east, nor is it the winds of the four seasons or the wind of flowers, willows, pines, and bamboos. It’s called the Mighty wind. It would enter from the top of your skull, pass through your midriff, and penetrate all your orifices. Your bones and flesh will dissolve, and your body will dissipate. You must avoid all these calamities.”

So, Heaven is apparently a petty jerk about people trying to attain immortality. Sun Wukong was put on notice, and he kowtowed to Puti and pleaded, “Master, I pray that you will take pity and teach me how to avoid the Three Calamities. I will never forget your kindness.”

“Well, it’s not hard,” Puti said, “but you’re not like others, so I can’t teach you.”

“But my head is round and points toward heaven. My feet are square and planted on the ground. I have the same orifices and organs as others. So how am I different?”

“You may resemble a human being, but you lack the human jowl,” said Puti, pointing out Wukong’s simian face, which has a more angular shape with hollow cheeks and a pointed snout.

Wukong felt his own face, then laughed and replied, “Master, I may be lacking the human jowl, but I have my cheek pouches, which humans don’t have. That should even it out.”

Puti said, “Fine, which method do you want me to teach you? The Art of the Heavenly Ladle would teach you 36 transformations, while the Art of the Earthly Multitudes would teach you 72 transformations.”

“I would like to learn more, so teach me the Art of the Earthly Multitudes.”

So Puti told Wukong to come closer. He then whispered some instructions in his ears. Wukong was the type to pick up everything quickly, so he memorized the instructions on the spot and started to practice on his own. Soon, he had mastered the 72 transformations. So, I guess Heaven may be petty about people trying to attain immortality, but it’s also pretty dumb because it apparently won’t recognize you if you turned yourself into a bird or a fish.

Then, on another day, while the master and his disciples were enjoying the evening scenery in front of the cave, Puti asked Wukong how his studies of flight were progressing.

“Thanks to your instruction, I have completed my training and can now soar across the heavens,” Wukong said.

“Then show me.”

So Wukong summoned all his skills, did a few somersaults, and leaped about 6 yards into the air. In the time it takes to complete a meal, he had flown about a mile and back. When he landed, he said, “Master, that was me soaring among the clouds.”

Puti chuckled, “That was not soaring among the clouds. At best you were crawling among the clouds. As the ancient saying goes, ‘Immortals visit the North Sea in the morning and reach Cangwu (1,2) by night.’ ”

“What does that mean?”

“Those who can truly soar among the clouds can start from the North Sea in the morning, make their way to the East Sea, West Sea, and South Sea, and then return by night to Cangwu, which is a location in the North Sea. It means you must be able to travel the Four Seas in one day to truly qualify as soaring among the clouds.”

“That sounds really hard,” Wukong said.

“There are no hard tasks as long as you are persistent,” Puti replied, cracking open a fortune cookie.

Wukong kowtowed and said, “Master, if you’re going to do someone a favor, you should be thorough. Please exercise your compassion and teach me how to soar among the clouds. I will never forget your kindness.”

Puti told him, “When immortals soar among the clouds, they usually stamp their feet to take off. But you’re different. I saw that just now, you used a few somersaults to take off. So I’ll lean into that and teach you the Somersault Cloud.”

After Wukong thanked him again, Puti instructed him, “Make the sign, recite the magic spell, clench your fist, give your body a shake, and leap. One somersault will take you 108,000 li!”

One li, by the way, is about a third of a mile, so one somersault would cover about 3,600 miles. For context, the width of the continental United States is about 2,800 miles. So that’s a helluva of a somersault. When all the other disciples heard their master explain the power of this method of flight, they all laughed and said, “What great fortune for Wukong. If he can master this skill, then he will never have trouble finding work as a courier.”

Umm, I’d think that someone who can live forever, transform into 72 things, and cover immense distances in one leap won’t exactly have to worry about scrounging a living. But anyway, after everyone else retired for the night, Wukong practiced his new knowledge all night and mastered the Somersault Cloud. Couple that with eternal life, and he now enjoyed a truly boundless, worry-free existence.

One day, as spring blended into summer, all the disciples were sitting under some pine trees and shooting the breeze. Some of them asked Wukong, “Hey, how come you have all the luck? Some days back, our master whispered to you the secret to transformations for dodging the Three Calamities. Have you learned them all?”

Wukong chuckled, “To tell  you the truth, thanks to our master’s instruction and my diligent practice, I’ve learned all those tricks.”

“Well then, give us a demonstration,” everyone said.

Eager to show off a bit, Wukong told them, “Please tell me what you want me to turn into.”

“How about a pine tree?”

So Wukong uttered a spell, twisted his body, and sure enough, he morphed into a pine tree that looked like the real thing. Everyone clapped and laughed, cheering him on. But all the noise they were making disturbed Patriarch Puti, and he came outside and asked, “Who’s making all that racket?”

Everyone hurriedly tidied up their clothing and paid their respects. Wukong turned back into his true form and joined them as well, explaining, “Master, we were just discussing the Dao, nothing else.”

“You all were shouting in a fashion most unbecoming of students of the Dao!” Puti scolded them. “When one opens their mouth, the divine air dissipates; when one wags their tongue, trouble ensues. Why were you all making so much noise?”

The other disciples said, “Master, to tell you the truth, Wukong was showing off his powers of transformation. We asked him to turn into a pine tree, and sure enough, he did just that. We were cheering and accidentally disturbed you. Please forgive us!”

Puti now dismissed everyone except Wukong. Once they were alone, he asked his pupil, “Why were you showing off your skills? Is that what these powers are for? If you saw a skill that someone else possessed, would you not ask them to teach you? And if someone else saw your skills, they would surely ask you to teach them as well. If you teach it to them, then it would plant the seed for trouble. But if you don’t, then they will try to harm you out of spite, and your life would be in danger.”

“Master, please forgive me,” Wukong apologized as he kowtowed.

“I won’t hold it against you, but you should leave,” Puti said.

Well, that seems like a harsh punishment for supposedly not holding anything against him. This instantly reduced Wukong to tears, and he asked, “Master, where would you have me go?”

“Go back to from whence you came.”

“I came from the Water Curtain Cave on Flower and Fruit Mountain near the kingdom of Aolai (4,2) on the Eastern Continent.”

“Then go back there at once, and I will spare you,” Puti commanded. “But you must not linger here!”

“Master, I have been away from home for 20 years, and I do miss my little monkeys. But I dare not leave before repaying your immense kindness.”

“There’s no need to speak of repayment. Just don’t cause any trouble for me, and that’ll be payment enough!”

Seeing that he had no choice, Wukong kowtowed and took leave of his master and fellow disciples. But before he departed, Puti gave him one more warning: “Once you leave, you will no doubt cause trouble. Whatever wicked deeds you commit, you must not tell anyone that you are my pupil. If you let so much as half a word slip about that, I will find out, and I will flay you, pierce your bones, and pin your soul so deep in hell that you will never see the light of day!”

“I will never dare to mention you,” Wukong promised. “I will just say that I taught myself these skills.”

And with that, he thanked his master once more, and then summoned the somersault cloud and flew back toward the East. Within a couple hours, Flower and Fruit Mountain was within sight. He couldn’t help but say to himself in amazement:

“I left weighed down by bones of mortal stock.
“The Dao attained makes light both body and frame.
‘Tis this world’s pity that none firmly resolves
To learn such mystery that by itself is plain.
‘Twas hard to cross the seas in former time.
Returning this day, I travel with ease.
Words of farewell still echo in my ears.
I ne’er hope to see so soon the eastern depths!” 

Soon, he descended from the clouds onto the mountain and started walking. But suddenly, he heard the sad cries of monkeys, so he shouted, “Little ones, I’m back!”

Instantly, thousands of monkeys emerged from all around. They surrounded him, kowtowed, and cried, “Great King, how could you have left us for so long?! We were stuck here yearning for you! Recently, a demon has been bullying us and trying to seize our cave. We’ve been risking our lives to fight him. But he managed to take a lot of our stuff and capture a lot of us. We’ve been restless trying to protect what is ours. Thank goodness you’re back! If you delayed any longer, our cave would belong to someone else!”

Wukong flew into a rage and asked, “What kind of demon dares to be so rude? Tell me in detail, and I’ll go pay him back!”

“That scoundrel calls himself the Demon King of Chaos. He lives to the north of here,” his monkey troupe told him.

“And how far away does he live?”

“Whenever he comes and goes, he’s accompanied by clouds, mist, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. So we don’t know how far he traveled.”

“In that case, no need to fear. Just hang out here and I’ll go find him,” Wukong reassured his clan. He then took to the air and flew north. 

Before long, Wukong came upon a treacherous looking tall peak. Just as he was scoping it out, he heard someone talking. He descended onto the mountain and saw a cavern under a cliff that was named Water Belly Cave. In front of the cave, a few demon lackeys were dancing and prancing. When they saw Wukong coming, they turned and ran.

“Stop!” Wukong barked. “Relay a message for me. I am the master of the Water Curtain Cave of Flower and Fruit Mountain to the South. That Demon Bastard of Chaos has been bullying my little ones, so I have come to have it out with him!”

The demon lackeys rushed inside their cave and relayed the challenge to their leader. The Demon King of Chaos laughed, “I’ve often heard those little monkey demons say they have some king who left to go pursue the Dao. I guess he’s back now. What does he look like? What kind of weapon does he wield?”

“He didn’t have any weapons,” the lackeys reported. “He’s bald and wears a red shirt tied at the waist with a yellow sash. And he had on a pair of black boots. He doesn’t look like a mortal, sage, or god. He’s just shouting his challenge while standing outside barehanded.”

“Then bring me my armor and weapon!” the Demon King of Chaos ordered. Once he donned his armor, he took his cutlass in hand, and led his gang of demon lackeys out of the cave. 

“Who is the leader of the Water Curtain Cave?!” the demon king shouted.

Wukong took a close look at his foe and saw that he was quite tall and had a round waist. He wore a dark gold helmet, black battle robe, black armor, and pleated boots, looking quite the fearsome warrior. He wielded a cutlass with a shimmering blade.

Well, we know all the skills that Sun Wukong had learned. To see how he will fare in his first real test, tune in to the next episode of the Chinese Lore Podcast. Thanks for listening!

Music in This Episode

• “Luỹ Tre Xanh Ngát Đầu Làng (Guzheng) – Vietnam BGM” by VPRODMUSIC_Asia_BGM
• “Ravines” by Elphnt (from YouTube audio library)
• “Dark Toys” by SYBS (from YouTube audio library)
• “Whisper3” by PeriTune
• “All For You – Traditional Chinese Style Instrumental” by kaazoom