吹渡苦海 Blown Across the Bitter Sea
菩薩喝道：「你且上去看。」行者不敢推辭，捨命往上跳。果然先見輕小，到上面比海船還大三分。行者歡喜道：「菩薩，載得我了。」菩薩道：「既載得，如何不過去？」行者道：「又沒了篙、槳、篷、桅，怎生得過？」菩薩道：「不用。」只把他一口氣吹開吸攏，又著實一口氣吹過南洋苦海，得登彼岸。行者卻腳屣實地，笑道：「這菩薩賣弄神通，把老孫這等呼來喝去，全不費力也。」菩萨喝道：「你且上去看。」行者不敢推辞，舍命往上跳。果然先见轻小，到上面比海船还大三分。行者欢喜道：「菩萨，载得我了。」菩萨道：「既载得，如何不过去？」行者道：「又没了篙、桨、篷、桅，怎生得过？」菩萨道：「不用。」只把他一口气吹开吸拢，又着实一口气吹过南洋苦海，得登彼岸。行者却脚屣实地，笑道：「这菩萨卖弄神通，把老孙这等呼来喝去，全不费力也。」
逐句解 Line by line
The Bodhisattva called sharply: "Just get up there and see."
Patience exhausted. 看 in 上去看 is kàn, get up there and see.
Pilgrim dared not refuse, and, risking his life, leapt up onto it.
捨命 — risking his life — to step onto a flower petal. The exaggeration is his own.
Sure enough, it had looked light and small at first, but once he was on it, it was bigger even than a seagoing ship by three measures.
And it swells beneath him into something bigger than a seagoing ship. 還 in 比海船還大 is hái, bigger even than; 分 in 大三分 is fēn, by three measures.
Pilgrim said, delighted: "Bodhisattva, it bears me now."
Delight, and no acknowledgement of the fuss he has just made. 載 is zài; 得 is the light de.
The Bodhisattva said: "Since it bears you, why don't you cross over?"
Well then? 載 is zài; 得 is the light de.
Pilgrim said: "But there's no pole, no oar, no sail, no mast — however am I to get across?"
A fresh objection, at once: no pole, no oar, no sail, no mast. 得 in 怎生得過 is dé, manage to cross.
The Bodhisattva said: "No need."
Two characters of reply.
She simply blew him out with one breath and drew him in again, then with one firm breath blew him across the Bitter Sea of the Southern Ocean, and he came to land on the far shore.
She simply blows him across. 苦海, the Bitter Sea, is the standard Buddhist name for the ocean of worldly suffering that beings must be ferried over — so "reaching the far shore" here is doing double duty, as geography and as the oldest metaphor for deliverance in the tradition. 著 in 著實 is zhuó, firmly; 得 in 得登彼岸 is dé, came to land.
Pilgrim, his feet planted on solid ground, laughed: "This Bodhisattva shows off her powers — she calls old Sun hither and yon like this, and it costs her no effort at all."
His verdict on being blown across an ocean: she is showing off, and it cost her nothing. 呼來喝去 is to order somebody about, hither and yon — the phrase for being treated like a servant, which is exactly how he has just been treated.
Wukong's doubts are answered by two marvels in quick succession. The frail petal, once he leaps on, swells beneath him bigger than a seagoing ship; and when he protests that it has neither pole nor sail, Guanyin dispenses with tackle altogether and blows him across the Bitter Sea with a breath. The episode is a small comic sermon on the gap between the Bodhisattva's power and its apparent means — a petal for a ship, a breath for a voyage — and Wukong's closing remark catches the note exactly: she orders him about, and it costs her no effort at all. It is the lesson of the unliftable vase told again as farce rather than rebuke. In Guanyin's hands the Great Sage is a thing to be blown about, and he knows it.
The sea he is blown across is named the Bitter Sea, which in Buddhist usage is the ocean of worldly suffering that beings must be ferried over; reaching the far shore is the tradition's oldest figure for deliverance. The book puts that image to work and then declines to solemnize it, since the passenger spends the crossing worrying about his kilt. The doctrine is present and entirely unstressed — a crossing that means everything, made by someone thinking about nothing.