一命之人 Fellow Creatures of One Life
今日大有天緣，得遇師父。萬望師父大發慈悲，救我一命。若得到觀中，就是典身賣命，一定重謝深恩。」三藏聞言，認為真實，道：「先生啊，你我都是一命之人，我是僧，你是道，衣冠雖別，修行之理則同。我不救你啊，就不是出家之輩。救便救你，你卻走不得路哩。」那怪道：「立也立不起來，怎生走路？」今日大有天缘，得遇师父。万望师父大发慈悲，救我一命。若得到观中，就是典身卖命，一定重谢深恩。」三藏闻言，认为真实，道：「先生啊，你我都是一命之人，我是僧，你是道，衣冠虽别，修行之理则同。我不救你啊，就不是出家之辈。救便救你，你却走不得路哩。」那怪道：「立也立不起来，怎生走路？」
逐句解 Line by line
“Today, by great Heaven-sent chance, I have had the fortune to meet you, Master.”
天緣 (tiān yuán), “a bond ordained by Heaven, providential luck.” 得遇 (dé yù), “to have the fortune to meet” — 得 here is dé, “to attain, to be so lucky as to.”
“I beg you ten-thousandfold, Master, show your great mercy and save my life.”
萬望 (wàn wàng), “I earnestly beg, most humbly hope.” 大發慈悲 (dà fā cí bēi), “to bring forth great compassion” — the very Buddhist virtue the fiend is counting on to ensnare the monk.
“If I might but reach the abbey, though I pawn my very self and sell my life, I would surely repay your deep kindness richly.”
得到 (dé dào), “to reach, to arrive at” — 得 as dé. 觀中, “in the abbey,” 觀 = guàn. 典身賣命 (diǎn shēn mài mìng), “to pawn oneself and sell one's life,” an extravagant vow of gratitude; 重謝, “to reward handsomely,” 重 = zhòng.
Tripitaka, hearing this, took it for the truth and said: “Sir, you and I are alike creatures of one life — I a monk, you a Daoist; our robes and caps may differ, but the principle of cultivation is one and the same.
認為真實 (rèn wéi zhēn shí), “took it to be true” — 為 here is wéi, the verb “to deem, to regard as,” distinct from the preposition wèi above. 一命之人, “a person of one (shared) life”; 修行之理, “the principle of religious cultivation,” common to monk and Daoist alike.
“Were I not to save you, I'd be no true member of the religious life.”
出家之輩 (chū jiā zhī bèi), “one of those who have left the household life,” i.e. a monk or religious. The master reasons himself into the rescue on principle — exactly as the demon foresaw.
“Save you I will — but you cannot walk the road.”
救便救你 (jiù biàn jiù nǐ), “as for saving, I'll save you” — the concessive 便. 走不得 (zǒu bù de), “cannot walk” — the potential negative, 得 as de; the final 哩 (li), a vernacular particle.
The fiend said: “I can't even stand up — how am I to walk?”
立不起來 (lì bù qǐ lái), “cannot rise to stand.” 怎生 (zěn shēng), “how, in what way.” The fiend presses his helplessness to draw from the master the next offer — his own horse.
The demon closes his appeal with the language of providence and abject gratitude — a Heaven-sent meeting, a vow to pawn himself in repayment — all pitched to the monk's compassion. Tripitaka, taking the tale for truth, answers with the episode's moral keynote: monk and Daoist are “creatures of one life,” differing in robe but one in the principle of cultivation, so that to withhold rescue would betray his own vocation. It is a genuinely noble sentiment, and precisely the lever by which the fiend means to move him.
The exchange ends on the practical difficulty the demon has engineered from the first: he cannot walk. Having secured the master's promise of rescue, he now presses his feigned helplessness — “I can't even stand” — to elicit the next concession. The passage thus sets up the following scene, in which Tripitaka's charity will extend to offering the injured “priest” his own horse, carrying the trap one fatal step further. Note the two readings of 為 — wéi “to deem” against wèi “for what reason” — a single graph turning on sense.