食腸寬大 His Belly Is Wide and Roomy
八戒口中嚷道：「他們都成佛，如何把我做個淨壇使者？」如來道：「因汝口壯身慵，食腸寬大。蓋天下四大部洲，瞻仰吾教者甚多，凡諸佛事，教汝淨壇，乃是個有受用的品級，如何不好？八戒口中嚷道：「他们都成佛，如何把我做个净坛使者？」如来道：「因汝口壮身慵，食肠宽大。盖天下四大部洲，瞻仰吾教者甚多，凡诸佛事，教汝净坛，乃是个有受用的品级，如何不好？
逐句解 Line by line
Pigsy shouted out: “They all get to be buddhas — how is it I am made a Cleanser of the Altars?”
嚷道 — shouted. He is the only one who says anything at all during the investiture, and he is complaining. And he is right, and everybody can hear that he is right. 他們都成佛 — they all become buddhas. He has counted. It is also the first noise he has made since the Chen village two chapters ago, where the novel pointedly recorded that he did not shout for his dinner. The silence lasted exactly as long as nobody gave him a reason.
The Tathagata said: “Because your mouth is strong and your body idle, and your food-gut is wide and roomy.”
口壯身慵 — a strong mouth and a lazy body. Four characters, from the Buddha, in front of everybody. 食腸寬大 — the eating-gut broad and large. It is not an insult exactly; it is a job specification, and that is worse. Pigsy asked why he was not made a buddha and is told, in effect, that he eats too much to be one and the post plays to his strength.
“Now in the four great continents under heaven there are a great many who look up to my teaching, and at every buddha-service I shall have you cleanse the altars. It is a grade with something to be had out of it. How is that not good?”
有受用的品級 — a grade with perquisites. The Buddha is selling him the job on its benefits, exactly as one would sell an unglamorous posting to somebody who has noticed it is unglamorous. 品級 is the word for a rank in the Chinese civil service — the ninth grade, the fifth grade. Heaven has a pay scale. 如何不好？ — how is that not good? The Buddha ends by asking Pigsy to agree with him, and the novel does not record Pigsy answering.
Pigsy is the only one who speaks during the investiture, and he complains. They all get to be buddhas — how is it I am made a Cleanser of the Altars? He has counted, and he is right, and everybody in the hall can hear that he is right.
It is also the first noise he has made since the Chen village, where the novel pointedly recorded that he no longer shouted for his dinner. The silence held exactly as long as nobody gave him a reason to break it.
And the Buddha's answer is the funniest and coldest thing in the chapter. Your mouth is strong and your body is lazy and your gut is wide, so at every service in the four continents you shall clean the altars — it is a grade with something to be had out of it. How is that not good? He is being sold an unglamorous posting on its perquisites, in the vocabulary of the civil-service pay scale. The novel does not record him answering.