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 or Quiescence, is the third branch: the quietist and meditative disciplines. 教 is jiāo, to teach.
Wukong said: "And what true fruit lies in the gate of Stillness?"
正果, "true fruit," picks up the master's own 傍門皆有正果 from the previous exchange. The monkey is quoting the sales pitch back at him.
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 practice that steps freely across the Buddhist-Daoist line. 休糧守谷 is abstaining from grain — the Daoist 辟穀 — and guarding the valley-spirit; 谷 here is the 谷神 of 《道德經》 chapter 6, 谷神不死, "the valley spirit does not die," the nourishing void, and it reads gǔ, not yù as in 吐谷渾. 無為 (wú wéi) is non-action, the Daoist ideal, with 為 as wéi, to act, not wèi, "for." 參禪 (cān chán) is investigating Chan, sitting in meditation — 參 is cān, not shēn (ginseng) or cēn (參差). 入定坐關 is entering samādhi and sealing oneself into retreat.
Wukong said: "Can one gain long life by this too?"
The refrain, third time out. (長 is cháng; 麼 is me.)
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 sitting on top of the kiln — more builder's slang, unpacked below; 坯 is pī, an unfired clay form. 似 is 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) is an uncommon colloquial pair — 澾 means slippery — so the sense is slick, sly, forever wriggling off into another figure. The monkey is openly teasing his teacher now. And 一行 here means 一向, "all along": you keep telling me I can't follow trade-cant, so why do you keep talking in it? The 世德堂本 writes the traditional 澾; its analogical simplified form is 㳠. (一行 takes yì before the rising tone of 行; 不會 takes bú before the falling tone of 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 figure unpacked, and it is a good one. Clay shaped on top of the kiln has taken its form, but it has not been through 水火, water and fire — the firing — and the first cloudburst (滂沱) will wash it back into mud (濫, to overflow, to dissolve away). Quietist stillness, the master says, produces a shape without a substance. 那 is nà, "that," against the interrogative nǎ of 那一門 a few lines back. And 朝 here is zhāo, morning or a day, in 一朝 (yì zhāo) — not the cháo of 朝真 in the previous passage.
Wukong said: "Then it does not last either. I won't learn it, I won't learn it."
Third refusal. (不長遠 keeps bù before the rising tone of 長; 不學 the same.)
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 or Activity, is the fourth and last: 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) is an adversative, "yet, and yet."
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" technique, set squarely against the 無為 of the Stillness gate, and mixing three alchemies at once. Sexual and physiological: 採陰補陽, gathering yin to supplement yang, partnered sexual cultivation; 攀弓踏弩, "drawing the bow and treading the crossbow," a posture of the same art; 摩臍過氣, kneading the navel and passing the breath through, internal circulation. Laboratory: 用方炮製, compounding by prescription; 燒茅打鼎, burning reeds and working the cauldron, furnace alchemy; 進紅鉛, ingesting "red lead," a menstrual or mineral elixir ingredient; 煉秋石, refining "autumn mineral," a substance distilled from urine; 服婦乳, taking woman's milk. Ming readers would have recognised several of these as fashionable and expensive practices at court. 炮 is páo, the pharmacological "to process," not pào, cannon, or bāo, to roast; 為 is wéi.
Wukong said: "Can one gain long life by such things?"
Fourth and last time. (得 is dé; 長 is 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), scooping the moon out of the water — a proverbial and thoroughly Buddhist image for chasing an illusion, and still in everyday use. 撈 is lāo, to dredge or 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 he goes again." The exasperated familiarity is new. A few passages ago this creature was straightening his coat in the corridor, too awed to knock on a door.
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."
The moon is real and up there in the 長空, the vast sky (長 cháng); its reflection lies right in front of you and cannot be picked up (無撈摸處, with 摸 mō, to grope for). So the whole active path ends in 空 — emptiness, and a pointed word to use in front of a disciple called 悟空. 耳 is ěr, the classical "…and that is all," equivalent to 而已.
Wukong said: "Then I won't learn it, I won't learn it."
The fourth gate goes the way of the first three — and this is the refusal that finally breaks the master's patience. (不學 keeps bù before the rising tone of 學.)
These two gates finish the master's fourfold survey, and they are set as deliberate opposites. 靜 is the quietist path of 無為, non-action — grain-abstention, guarding the valley-spirit, Chan sitting, fasting, trance. 動 is the operative path of 有為, striving and doing — sexual cultivation, breath-circulation, and the laboratory alchemy of cauldron and elixir, including several recipes that were fashionable and expensive at the Ming court. Set beside the occult 術 and the doctrinal 流 of the previous passage, the four gates map nearly the whole terrain of Chinese self-cultivation. And every one of them fails the monkey's one-question examination.
The refusals come wrapped in a rising sequence of similes, each of which Wukong — the professed plain man who doesn't know cant — slyly forces the master to spell out. A post mortared into a wall rots unseen. A brick shaped on the kiln but never fired dissolves in the first rain. The moon in the water can be seen but never lifted. The inner-alchemy commentators read all three as one doctrine: each conventional path gives form without permanence, because none has been through the firing — the 水火既濟, the conjunction of water and fire that alone fixes the golden elixir. Quietism and technique both turn out something shapely and hollow. There is a small barb in the last image, too: the master tells a disciple named 悟空 that the active path 只成空耳, comes to nothing at all, using the very character in the monkey's name.
Setting 無為 against 有為 stages a real and ancient fault-line in the cultivation traditions — the quietists who do nothing against the operative alchemists who do a great deal — and the answer the novel gives, through Subodhi's serial rejections, is that neither pole will serve alone: the path he is about to transmit in secret goes clean past the opposition of stillness and motion. Meanwhile the comedy has warmed considerably. Wukong now laughs in his teacher's face (師父果有些滴澾) and groans aloud when another riddle arrives (師父又來了), sparring with an affection the awestruck disciple of the previous chapter never showed — and without his demand bending an inch from the one thing he crossed two oceans to find.