祖師誡別 The Patriarch's Parting Warning
悟空聞此言，滿眼墮淚道：「師父，教我往那裡去？」祖師道：「你從那裡來，便從那裡去就是了。」悟空頓然醒悟道：「我自東勝神洲傲來國花果山水簾洞來的。」祖師道：「你快回去，全你性命；若在此間，斷然不可。」悟空領罪，上告尊師：「我也離家有二十年矣，雖是回顧舊日兒孫，但念師父厚恩未報，不敢去。」祖師道：「那裡甚麼恩義，你只不惹禍，不牽帶我就罷了。」悟空見沒奈何，只得拜辭，與眾相別。祖師道：「你這去，定生不良。憑你怎麼惹禍行凶，卻不許說是我的徒弟。你說出半個字來，我就知之，把你這猢猻剝皮銼骨，將神魂貶在九幽之處，教你萬劫不得翻身！」悟空道：「決不敢提起師父一字，只說是我自家會的便罷。」悟空闻此言，满眼堕泪道：「师父，教我往那里去？」祖师道：「你从那里来，便从那里去就是了。」悟空顿然醒悟道：「我自东胜神洲傲来国花果山水帘洞来的。」祖师道：「你快回去，全你性命；若在此间，断然不可。」悟空领罪，上告尊师：「我也离家有二十年矣，虽是回顾旧日儿孙，但念师父厚恩未报，不敢去。」祖师道：「那里甚么恩义，你只不惹祸，不牵带我就罢了。」悟空见没奈何，只得拜辞，与众相别。祖师道：「你这去，定生不良。凭你怎么惹祸行凶，却不许说是我的徒弟。你说出半个字来，我就知之，把你这猢狲剥皮锉骨，将神魂贬在九幽之处，教你万劫不得翻身！」悟空道：「决不敢提起师父一字，只说是我自家会的便罢。」
逐句解 Line by line
Hearing this, Wukong, his eyes brimming with tears, said: "Master, where would you have me go?"
滿眼墮淚 — his eyes fill and spill over. This is the first time in two chapters that the monkey cries, and what he is crying about is being made to leave. 教我 takes 教 as jiào, "would have me"; 那裡 takes 那 as nǎ, where.
The Patriarch said: "Where you came from — just go back there, and that's all."
你從那裡來，便從那裡去 — go back where you came from. Flat, and unanswerable. In a chapter whose master's address is a riddle spelling out "the heart," a line like this has more than one floor to it.
Wukong suddenly understood: "I came from the Water-Curtain Cave on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, in the country of Aolai, in the Eastern Continent of Superior Spirit."
頓然醒悟, he understands all at once — and the address he recites is the one he gave this same master on the day he arrived: 東勝神洲 (Dōng shèng shén zhōu), Pūrvavideha in the Buddhist reckoning of the four continents; then the land of Aolai, the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, the Water-Curtain Cave. Twenty years, and he still has it by heart. One point of spelling: the canonical Buddhist name is 東勝身洲, "Superior Body," rendering the Sanskrit sense of bodies finer than our own — but the 世德堂本 writes 神, spirit, and this edition follows the page it is printed on.
The Patriarch said: "Go back quickly, and save your life — to stay here is absolutely not allowed."
全你性命, to keep your life whole. The master frames the expulsion as a rescue, which is either kindness or a very serviceable excuse. 斷然不可 is absolutely out of the question. (不可 keeps bù.)
Wukong accepted the reproof but addressed the master: "I too have been away from home twenty years; though I long to see my old children and grandchildren again, I think of the master's deep kindness, still unrepaid, and I dare not go."
領罪 is to accept a reproof without protest. Then the number: twenty years. The chapter has been disposing of time in single clauses — six or seven years, then seven, then three more — and this is the total. He does want to see his 舊日兒孫, the children and grandchildren of former days (兒 in full tone ér, offspring, not the retroflex suffix), but the debt outweighs the wish. (不敢 keeps bù.)
The Patriarch said: "What kindness or obligation is there? Just see that you cause no trouble and do not drag me into it — that will be enough."
And the gratitude is swatted away almost brutally: 那裡甚麼恩義, what kindness, what obligation? Just don't cause trouble and don't drag me into it. 那 here is nǎ in its rhetorical use. Note what the master is actually anxious about, and it is not his disciple's soul. (不惹 and 不牽 keep bù.)
Seeing there was no help for it, Wukong could only bow in farewell and part from the others.
沒奈何, nothing to be done — the same phrase the woodcutter used in the last chapter about the life he could not leave. Wukong has the opposite trouble: a life he is not allowed to stay in.
The Patriarch said: "This departure of yours will surely breed mischief. However you may cause trouble or do violence, you are not to say you are my disciple.
定生不良 — this departure will certainly breed mischief. He is not guessing. And then the condition, which is the strangest thing in the chapter: however much trouble you make, 卻不許說是我的徒弟, you are not to say whose disciple you are. 行凶 is to do violence, with 行 as xíng. (不良 and 不許 keep bù.)
"If you let slip even half a word, I shall know of it, and I will flay this monkey's skin and grind his bones, and banish your soul to the ninefold dark, never to recover through ten thousand kalpas!"
And the penalty for saying his name is the most violent thing anybody threatens in these two chapters. 剝皮 (bō pí) is to flay, 銼骨 (cuò gǔ) is to file the bones away, 九幽 is the ninefold dark at the bottom of hell, and 萬劫不得翻身 is never to turn over again through ten thousand kalpas. Not for violence. Not for murder. For attribution. (不得 keeps bù, with 得 as dé, to be able; 教 is the causative jiào.)
Wukong said: "I will not bring up a single word of the master; I will only say I learned it all myself, and that will be the end of it."
只說是我自家會的 — I'll just say I taught myself. And he keeps that promise for the whole rest of the novel. Across a hundred chapters and every catastrophe he causes, Subodhi's name never once leaves his mouth. (決不敢 keeps bù; 一字 is yí zì.)
Subodhi's parting injunction is one of the novel's lasting enigmas. The master who has just given Wukong everything — immortality, the elixir, the transformations, the cloud — now threatens the most extreme penalty imaginable, to 剝皮銼骨, flay his skin and file down his bones, and damn his soul to the ninefold dark forever, not for any crime but merely for naming his teacher. And the patriarch keeps his own side of it absolutely: from this moment he vanishes from the book, never to reappear across the remaining ninety-eight chapters. The teaching is given and the giver erases himself.
Why is best left open, since the novel never says, but the threads are suggestive. On the worldly level the master is simply protecting himself — 不牽帶我就罷了, "just don't drag me into it" — having foreseen (你這去，定生不良) the havoc Wukong will wreak on Heaven, and wanting no share of the karma. On a deeper level the demand enacts a Chan paradox: awakening cannot be owned, or traced back to an authority, or produced as a credential; the disciple has to carry it as his own (只說是我自家會的) and leave the teacher behind. The very name 菩提 is bodhi, awakening itself — and what the patriarch insists on is that it not harden into a lineage, a school, a thing possessed.
Around this strange severity the scene keeps a real tenderness. Wukong weeps; he does not want to go; he protests that the master's deep kindness is still unrepaid — and the master brushes the gratitude aside almost harshly (那裡甚麼恩義, "what kindness or obligation?"). The coldness may itself be a mercy, a clean cut of the tie so the disciple can stand on his own. And the practical fact surfaces too: Wukong has been gone twenty years, and the thought of his old children and grandchildren turns him, and the chapter, back toward the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit and home.