The Pilgrim said: 'My somersault, when all's said, is only cloud-riding too — it just covers more ground, or less.'

觔斗 ('somersault'; 斗 dǒu) and 好道也是駕雲 ('is, after all, cloud-riding as well') — the monkey concedes his cloud is of a kind with Bajie's, differing only in range, and so cannot be the reason the master could be flown.

'If you can't carry him, how am I to carry him either?'

馱不動…馱得動 ('cannot carry … can carry'; 得 de, the potential complement) — the monkey levels the two disciples, refusing the escape Bajie proposed.

'As the old saying has it: "To move Mount Tai is as light as a mustard seed; but to bear a mortal is to be unable to escape the red dust."'

The couplet 遣泰山輕如芥子，攜凡夫難脫紅塵 — 'shifting Mount Tai is lighter than a mustard-seed; carrying a common man, one cannot slip free of the world of dust' — states the doctrine: the adept can move mountains, but the weight of a mortal body is a weight of karma, not of matter. 芥子 (芥 zǐ, the mustard-seed of Buddhist parable).

'Now a vile fiend like this may use his snatching arts and conjure a gust of wind, but that is a matter of dragging and hauling — going along the ground; he cannot bear a man off through the air.'

攝法 ('the art of seizing, of magical abduction') and 扯扯拉拉，就地而行 ('tugging and hauling, moving along the ground'). Even a demon's carrying-off is earthbound; to bear a man 空中而去 ('off through the air'; 得 de) is another matter.

'Tricks of that sort old Sun can use and work too; and the arts of invisibility and of shrinking the ground — old Sun knows every one.'

隱身法 ('the art of concealment') and 縮地法 ('the art of contracting distance'; 那 nà twice, 還 hái). The monkey grants he has every such power — a concession that sharpens the point about why they are useless here.

'But the master is bound to pass through every strange land, and cannot yet transcend the sea of suffering — and so he cannot advance a single step by such means.'

窮歷異邦 ('to traverse to the end every foreign land') and 超脫苦海 ('to rise clear of the sea of bitterness'). Here is the doctrine plainly: the pilgrimage is a discipline the mortal must undergo, not a distance to be skipped; 寸步難行 ('cannot go an inch'; 難 nán, 行 xíng).

'You and I can only serve as his escort, keeping his body and life secure; we cannot undergo these torments in his stead, nor can we fetch the scriptures for him;

擁護 ('to guard, escort') and the parallel negatives 替不得…取不得 ('cannot substitute for … cannot fetch'; 得 de throughout) — the disciples' role is strictly limited: they may protect, but they cannot earn the master's salvation for him.

'and even if one of us had the power to go ahead and see the Buddha, that Buddha would not readily hand the scriptures over to you or me.'

那佛也不肯 ('that Buddha would not consent'; 那 nà, 佛 fó) — the scriptures must be earned by the one who is to receive them; they cannot be had by proxy, however capable the go-between.

'It is just as they say: "What is got too easily is held too lightly."'

The proverb 若將容易得，便作等閑看 ('if a thing is easily obtained, it will be regarded as of no account'; 將 jiāng, 得 de) states the moral economy of the whole quest: the difficulty of the pilgrimage is the guarantee of the scripture's worth.

The Idiot, hearing this, murmured his assent and took it in.

喏喏聽受 ('with a "yes, yes," he heard and accepted it'; 那 nà) — Bajie, unwontedly, is silenced; the doctrine settles the argument.

So they ate a little plain vegetarian food without relish, and master and disciples took their rest below the eastern cliff of the River of Flowing Sands.

無菜的素食 ('meatless food without side-dishes,' a meagre meal) and 歇在流沙河東崖 ('rested on the eastern cliff of the Flowing Sands') close the day, and with it the pilgrims' unaided efforts, on a note of poverty and pause.