廣智獻計 Guangzhi's Counsel
正說話處，有一個小和尚，名喚廣智，出頭道：「公公要得長遠，也容易。」老僧聞言，就歡喜起來道：「我兒，你有甚麼高見？」廣智道：「那唐僧兩個是走路的人，辛苦之甚，如今已睡著了。我們想幾個有力量的，拿了槍刀，打開禪堂，將他殺了，把屍首埋在後園，只我一家知道，卻又謀了他的白馬、行囊，卻把那袈裟留下，以為傳家之寶，豈非子孫長久之計耶？」老和尚見說，滿心歡喜，卻才揩了眼淚道：「好，好，好，此計絕妙。」即便收拾槍刀。正说话处，有一个小和尚，名唤广智，出头道：「公公要得长远，也容易。」老僧闻言，就欢喜起来道：「我儿，你有甚么高见？」广智道：「那唐僧两个是走路的人，辛苦之甚，如今已睡著了。我们想几个有力量的，拿了枪刀，打开禅堂，将他杀了，把尸首埋在后园，只我一家知道，却又谋了他的白马、行囊，却把那袈裟留下，以为传家之宝，岂非子孙长久之计耶？」老和尚见说，满心欢喜，却才揩了眼泪道：「好，好，好，此计绝妙。」即便收拾枪刀。
逐句解 Line by line
While they were speaking, a young monk named Guangzhi put his head forward and said, "If Grandfather would have it for good, that is easy enough."
要得長遠 — 得 is dé ("to have, to obtain"), 長 is cháng. Guangzhi answers, word for word, the question his master asked into the air a moment ago. 也容易, "that is easy" — two graphs, and a monastery has become a murder.
The old monk, hearing this, brightened up and said, "My son, what fine notion have you?"
我兒, "my son": the family idiom again, and this time it is spoken across a proposal that has not yet been made. The old man brightens before he has heard it.
Guangzhi said, "Those two Tang monks are travellers, and worn out with hardship; by now they are fast asleep.
辛苦之甚 takes shèn ("exceedingly"). 睡著了 — here 著 is zháo, the resultative: the goal of sleep has been attained. Contrast 朦朧著醒眼 in the next passage, where the Pilgrim is not asleep at all.
"Let us find a few strong men, take up spears and knives, break open the meditation hall, and kill them.
The plan is delivered in the flat, sequential grammar of household business — find men, take tools, open a door, kill. 將 is the coverb jiāng. Nothing in the syntax marks this as different from sweeping the hall or fetching rattan beds.
"Bury the corpses in the back garden; only our own household will know of it. Then we take his white horse and his baggage too,
只我一家知道: "only our one household will know." The word 家 ("family, household") is doing appalling work — this is a celibate monastery, and its crime is to be a family secret.
"and keep the cassock here, to be the treasure handed down in the family. Is that not a plan for the long fortune of our sons and grandsons?"
以為 takes wéi, "to make it into"; 子孫 is zǐ sūn, "sons and grandsons"; 長久 again cháng. 傳家之寶 — "the treasure passed down in the family" — is the phrase toward which the whole chapter has been walking. Monks who have renounced posterity are planning an inheritance.
Hearing it, the old monk was filled with joy. He wiped away his tears and said, "Good, good, good — the plan is exquisite." And at once they set about gathering spears and knives.
揩了眼淚: he wipes the tears away. They were real tears, four lines ago. 絕妙, "utterly exquisite" — a term of art from painting and poetry, applied here to a proposal of murder, by a man who then goes to fetch the knives.
The monk who proposes the murder is called 廣智 — "Broad Wisdom." His brother-disciple, who will propose the fire, is 廣謀 — "Broad Scheming." Wú Chéng'ēn does not draw attention to the names, and does not need to: they are ordinary Chan dharma-names, of the sort a master bestows to mark what he wishes a disciple to cultivate. Broad Wisdom has cultivated it. Within four lines of hearing his master's longing, he has produced a complete and workable plan, and his master, weeping over a robe, calls it 絕妙 — exquisite — and dries his eyes.
What makes the passage terrible is its domesticity. 只我一家知道, "only our own household will know"; 傳家之寶, "the treasure handed down in the family"; 子孫長久之計, "a plan for the lasting fortune of our sons and grandsons." Every phrase belongs to the Confucian lineage-household, and every phrase is spoken inside a Buddhist monastery whose members have, by definition, no sons, no grandsons, no house, and nothing to hand down. The vocabulary of the family has entered the cloister and quietly eaten it out from within. The murder is not an aberration; it is what this house means by continuity.