土母調和 The Earth-Mother's Mediation
那長老聽說，一時解悟，明徹真言。滿心歡喜，稱謝了悟空。沙僧在傍笑道：「師兄此言雖當，只說的是弦前屬陽，弦後屬陰，陰中陽半，得水之金；更不道：那长老听说，一时解悟，明彻真言。满心欢喜，称谢了悟空。沙僧在傍笑道：「师兄此言虽当，只说的是弦前属阳，弦后属阴，阴中阳半，得水之金；更不道：
逐句解 Line by line
The elder, hearing this, in a moment grasped it and understood clearly the true words.
解悟 is to comprehend, to wake up to something; 明徹 is to understand right through. 那 is nà, 長 is zhǎng.
Filled with joy, he thanked Wukong.
稱謝 is to express thanks; 了 is the aspect particle le.
Sha Monk, at his side, said with a smile: "Brother, though your words are apt, they tell only of how before the quarter belongs to yang and after the quarter to yin — the yang half within the yin, the metal that has got its water;"
Sha Monk, the quietest of the three, turns out to have been following closely. His objection is that Wukong described the ingredients and left out the cook. 在傍 is at the side, 傍 read páng; 雖當 is "though apt," 當 read dàng; 陰中陽半 is half the yang inside the yin, 中 read zhōng; 得水之金 is the metal that has got its water, 得 read dé.
but he does not go on to say:
更不道 is "does not go on to say," 更 read gèng. He has a verse of his own ready.
Water and fire mingle, each by its own affinity, relying wholly on the Earth-Mother to match them so.
And here is what was missing. In the five-agent scheme, Water and Fire are opposites and cannot combine by themselves; Earth stands between them and makes the match. 土母, the Earth-Mother, is that mediating agent — in the body, the spleen, and by extension the settled intention that holds a practice together. Sha Monk, whose own emblem in the allegory is earth, is arguing for himself. 相攙 is to blend, 相 read xiāng and 攙 read chān.
When the three houses meet together without contention — water lies in the long river, the moon hangs in the sky.
And it resolves into a picture rather than a doctrine. 三家, the three houses, are the agents brought into concord; 長江 is the long river, 長 read cháng. Water below, moon above, nothing contending — the whole argument dissolved into a landscape.
Tripitaka takes the teaching at once, and then Sha Monk — normally the most reticent of the three — steps forward to finish it. His point is that Wukong has described only half the process. The mingling of yang and yin, the metal that has got its water, still needs something to bring the two together, and his verse supplies it: Water and Fire cannot unite by themselves but must be matched by the Earth-Mother, the agent Earth that harmonises the rest.
There is a nice touch of self-interest in it. In the novel's allegorical scheme Sha Monk himself is earth, the steady one who carries the baggage and settles the arguments, so in arguing for the indispensable mediator he is arguing for his own role in the party. His closing couplet then resolves the whole discourse into a serene image of things sitting where they belong — water in the long river, the moon in the sky. That each disciple adds a further turn of the doctrine matters too: the moon becomes an occasion for shared understanding rather than a lecture.