不看僧面 For the Buddha’s Sake
行者道：「你凡事攛唆，是他個得意的好徒弟，你不救他，又尋老孫怎的？原與你說來，待降了妖精，報了罵我之仇，就回去的。」沙僧近前跪下道：「哥啊，古人云：『不看僧面看佛面。』兄長既是到此，萬望救他一救。若是我們能救，也不敢許遠的來奉請你也。」行者道：「你凡事撺唆，是他个得意的好徒弟，你不救他，又寻老孙怎的？原与你说来，待降了妖精，报了骂我之仇，就回去的。」沙僧近前跪下道：「哥啊，古人云：『不看僧面看佛面。』兄长既是到此，万望救他一救。若是我们能救，也不敢许远的来奉请你也。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "You, forever egging things on — you are his favourite, his prized disciple; if you will not save him, why come seeking old Sun?
攛唆, cuān suō, to instigate, to egg somebody on — and it is a fair charge, since it was Bajie who talked Tripitaka into the banishment in the first place. 得意, dé yì, favoured, prized: "his pet disciple," said with some acid.
I told you at the outset: once the fiend was subdued and the insult to me avenged, I would go back."
He is still holding to the terms he set on Flower-Fruit Mountain — subdue the fiend, avenge the insult, go home. (降 once more xiáng.) Everyone in the scene knows he will not go, including him.
Sha Seng came forward and knelt, saying, "Brother, the ancients said: 'If not for the monk's sake, then for the Buddha's.'
So Sha Seng kneels and produces the winning proverb. 不看僧面看佛面, bù kàn sēng miàn kàn fó miàn — "if not for the monk's sake, then for the Buddha's" — is an appeal past the person who offended you to the thing he stands for. It is still in daily use, and it is exactly the right instrument here, because the person who offended Wukong is the monk in question.
Since you, elder brother, are come to this place, I beg you a thousand times to save him.
兄長, xiōng zhǎng, "elder brother," respectfully — 長 read zhǎng, senior.
Had we the power to save him ourselves, we should never have dared come so far to entreat you."
奉請, fèng qǐng, respectfully to entreat; 許遠, xǔ yuǎn, such a distance — the same phrase Bajie used of his fruitless walk in the first chapter of this quarrel. The concession is total: we came all that way because we cannot do it ourselves.
The plea comes round a second time, and Sha Seng makes it differently. Where Bajie wheedled, Sha Seng kneels and argues — and the proverb he reaches for is precisely the right tool, because it offers a way of doing a favour for a man you are still angry with. Look past the monk to the Buddha behind him. His own admission that the disciples simply cannot manage it is offered in the same spirit: humility used as leverage, and none the less sincere for that.
Wukong's grumbling reply, needling Bajie as the master's pampered favourite even while he recalls his own vow to leave once the demon was down, keeps the resolution suspended one beat longer for the sake of the comedy. But the appeals are cumulative and their logic is irresistible, and the passage brings the Great Sage to the edge of the relenting that the next one completes.