靜動二門 The Gates of Stillness and Action
祖師道：「教你靜字門中之道，如何？」悟空道：「靜字門中是甚正果？」祖師道：「此是休糧守谷、清靜無為、參禪打坐、戒語持齋，或睡功，或立功，並入定、坐關之類。」悟空道：「這般也能長生麼？」祖師道：「也似窯頭土坯。」悟空笑道：「師父果有些滴澾。一行說我不會打市語，怎麼謂之窯頭土坯？」祖師道：「就如那窯頭上造成磚瓦之坯，雖已成形，尚未經水火鍛鍊，一朝大雨滂沱，他必濫矣。」悟空道：「也不長遠。不學不學。」祖師道：「教你動字門中之道，如何？」悟空道：「動門之道卻又怎麼？」祖師道：「此是有為有作：採陰補陽、攀弓踏弩、摩臍過氣、用方炮製、燒茅打鼎、進紅鉛、煉秋石，並服婦乳之類。」悟空道：「似這等也得長生麼？」祖師道：「此欲長生，亦如水中撈月。」悟空道：「師父又來了。怎麼叫做水中撈月？」祖師道：「月在長空，水中有影，雖然看見，只是無撈摸處，到底只成空耳。」悟空道：「也不學不學。」祖师道：「教你静字门中之道，如何？」悟空道：「静字门中是甚正果？」祖师道：「此是休粮守谷、清静无为、参禅打坐、戒语持斋，或睡功，或立功，并入定、坐关之类。」悟空道：「这般也能长生么？」祖师道：「也似窑头土坯。」悟空笑道：「师父果有些滴㳠。一行说我不会打市语，怎么谓之窑头土坯？」祖师道：「就如那窑头上造成砖瓦之坯，虽已成形，尚未经水火锻炼，一朝大雨滂沱，他必滥矣。」悟空道：「也不长远。不学不学。」祖师道：「教你动字门中之道，如何？」悟空道：「动门之道却又怎么？」祖师道：「此是有为有作：采阴补阳、攀弓踏弩、摩脐过气、用方炮制、烧茅打鼎、进红铅、炼秋石，并服妇乳之类。」悟空道：「似这等也得长生么？」祖师道：「此欲长生，亦如水中捞月。」悟空道：「师父又来了。怎么叫做水中捞月？」祖师道：「月在长空，水中有影，虽然看见，只是无捞摸处，到底只成空耳。」悟空道：「也不学不学。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Patriarch said: “Suppose I teach you the Way within the gate of ‘Stillness’ — how would that be?”
靜字門: "the gate of 靜 (Stillness / Quiescence)" — the third branch, the quietist and meditative disciplines. 教 = jiāo "to teach."
Wukong said: “And what true fruit lies in the gate of Stillness?”
正果: "true fruit" (legitimate attainment), echoing 傍門皆有正果 in 其四.
The Patriarch said: “This is abstaining from grain and guarding the valley-spirit, purity and non-action, practicing Chan and sitting in meditation, holding the tongue and keeping the fast — or the sleeping exercise, or the standing exercise, and entering trance and sealing oneself in retreat, and the like.”
A list of quietist practices bridging Buddhist and Daoist self-cultivation. 休糧守谷: "abstaining from grain (辟穀) and guarding the valley-spirit" — 谷 here = the 谷神 of 《道德經》 ch. 6 (谷神不死), the nourishing void; 多音字 谷 = gǔ, not yù (吐谷渾). 無為 (wú wéi): "non-action," the Daoist ideal; 多音字 為 = wéi "to act," not wèi "for." 參禪 (cān chán): "to investigate Chan, sit in meditation"; 多音字 參 = cān, not shēn (ginseng) or cēn (參差). 入定坐關: entering meditative trance (samādhi) and sealing oneself in retreat.
Wukong said: “Can one gain long life by this too?”
The refrain. 長 = cháng (長生); 麼 = me, interrogative particle.
The Patriarch said: “It is also like an unfired brick on the kiln-top.”
窯頭土坯 (yáo tóu tǔ pī): "a raw clay brick on top of the kiln" — another piece of builder's cant (cf. 壁裡安柱 in 其四), unpacked below; 坯 = pī, an unfired clay form. 似 = sì "like."
Wukong said with a laugh: “Master, you really are a slippery one! All along you said I don't follow trade-cant — so what do you mean by ‘an unfired brick on the kiln-top’?”
滴澾 (dī tà): an uncommon colloquial binome — 澾 (tà) means "slippery," so the sense is "slick, sly, evasive": Wukong laughs that the master is a slippery one, full of figurative dodges. The 世德堂本 writes the traditional 澾 (U+6FBE); its analogical simplified form is 㳠. 一行 (yì xíng): here = 一向 "all along" — the monkey needling the master for using cant right after twitting him that he does not follow it. Sandhi: 一行 → yì (before 2nd-tone 行); 不會 → bú (before 4th-tone 會).
The Patriarch said: “It is just like the green brick-and-tile clay shaped up on the kiln-top: though it has taken its form, it has not yet been through water and fire; let one cloudburst pour down, and it is sure to dissolve away.”
The simile: clay shaped on the kiln-top (窯頭) that has taken form but not yet passed through 水火 (the firing) will dissolve (濫, "to overflow, wash away") in the first downpour (滂沱). Quietist stillness, the figure says, has no fixed body without the alchemical firing. 那 = nà "that" (demonstrative — contrast the interrogative nǎ in 其四 那一門). Sandhi: 一朝 = yì zhāo (一 before 1st-tone 朝); note 朝 = zhāo "morning, a day" here, not cháo "to attend" as in 其四 朝真.
Wukong said: “Then it does not last either. I won't learn it, I won't learn it.”
Sandhi: 不長遠 → bù (before 2nd-tone 長); 不學 → bù.
The Patriarch said: “Suppose I teach you the Way within the gate of ‘Action’ — how would that be?”
動字門: "the gate of 動 (Action / Activity)" — the fourth branch, the "doing" disciplines: physiological, sexual, and laboratory alchemy.
Wukong said: “And what, then, is the Way of the Action-gate?”
卻又怎麼: "and what, then?" 卻 què, an adversative "yet, then."
The Patriarch said: “This is the path of striving and doing: gathering the yin to replenish the yang, drawing the bow and treading the crossbow, kneading the navel and circulating the breath, compounding by formula, burning reeds and working the cauldron, taking in the red lead and refining the autumn mineral, and ingesting woman's milk, and the like.”
A catalogue of 有為 ("active") techniques, pointedly opposed to the 無為 of the Stillness gate, mixing three alchemies. Sexual/physiological: 採陰補陽 ("gathering yin to supplement yang," partnered sexual cultivation), 攀弓踏弩 (a posture of the same art), 摩臍過氣 ("kneading the navel, passing the breath through," internal circulation). Operative/laboratory: 用方炮製 ("compounding by prescription," processing drugs), 燒茅打鼎 ("burning reeds and working the cauldron," furnace alchemy), 進紅鉛 ("ingesting red lead," a menstrual/mineral elixir ingredient), 煉秋石 ("refining autumn mineral," a substance distilled from urine), 服婦乳 ("ingesting woman's milk"). 多音字: 炮 = páo, the pharmacological "to process (medicine)" (炮製), not pào "cannon" or bāo "to roast"; 為 = wéi.
Wukong said: “Can one gain long life by such things?”
The refrain. 得 = dé "to obtain"; 長 = cháng.
The Patriarch said: “To want long life from these is also like fishing the moon out of water.”
水中撈月 (shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè): "to scoop the moon from the water" — a classic proverbial/Buddhist image for chasing an illusion; 撈 = lāo "to dredge, fish out."
Wukong said: “There the master goes again! What do you mean, ‘fishing the moon out of water’?”
師父又來了: "there the master goes again" — Wukong's exasperated familiarity. 叫做: "to be called."
The Patriarch said: “The moon is up in the vast sky; its reflection is in the water — you may see it plainly, but there is nowhere to grasp it, and in the end it comes to nothing at all.”
月在長空 (cháng kōng, "the vast sky"; 長 = cháng): the moon is real and visible aloft, but its water-reflection cannot be grasped (無撈摸處) — so the whole "active" path ends in 空 (emptiness). 空耳 — 耳 = ěr, the classical final particle "…and that is all" (= 而已). 摸 = mō "to grope for."
Wukong said: “Then I won't learn it, I won't learn it.”
Sandhi: 不學 → bù (before 2nd-tone 學). The fourth and last gate is refused, which triggers the Patriarch's outburst in the next passage.
These two gates complete the Patriarch's fourfold survey, and they are set as deliberate opposites: 靜, the quietist disciplines of 無為 (non-action) — grain-abstention, guarding the valley-spirit, Chan meditation, fasting, trance — and 動, the operative disciplines of 有為 (striving and doing) — sexual cultivation, breath-circulation, and the laboratory alchemy of cauldron and elixir. Set beside the occult 術 and the doctrinal 流 of the previous passage, the four gates between them map nearly the whole terrain of Chinese self-cultivation. And every one of them fails the monkey's single test.
The refusals come wrapped in a rising sequence of builder's and proverbial similes, each of which Wukong, the professed "plain man who doesn't know cant," slyly forces the master to spell out. A pillar mortared in a wall (其四's 壁裡安柱) rots unseen; a clay brick shaped on the kiln but never fired (窯頭土坯) dissolves in the first rain; the moon in water (水中撈月) can be seen but never grasped. The internal-alchemy commentators read the figures as one doctrine: each conventional path gives form without permanence, because none has passed through the crucial firing — the 水火既濟, the conjunction of water and fire that alone fixes the golden elixir. Quietism and technique both produce something shapely and hollow; only the true method makes a body that lasts.
The pairing of 無為 against 有為 stages a genuine and ancient fault-line in the cultivation traditions — the quietists who "do nothing" against the operative alchemists who "do" — and the answer the novel delivers, through Subodhi's serial rejections, is that neither pole suffices alone; the authentic path he is about to transmit in secret transcends the very dichotomy of stillness and motion. Meanwhile the scene's comedy has warmed: Wukong now laughs in the master's face (師父果有些滴澾) and groans when another riddle arrives (師父又來了), sparring with an affection the earlier, more awestruck disciple did not show — even as his demand never once bends from the single thing he crossed two oceans to find.