責僧問由 Rebuking the Monks
行者道：「你們知我笑甚麼？笑你這些和尚全不長俊。父母生下你來，皆因命犯華蓋，妨爺剋娘，或是不招姊妹，才把你捨斷了出家。你怎的不遵三寶，不敬佛法，不去看經拜懺，卻怎麼與道士傭工，作奴婢使喚？」眾僧道：「老爺，你來羞我們哩。你老人家想是個外邊來的，不知我這裡利害。」行者道：「果是外方來的，其實不知你這裡有甚利害。」行者道：「你们知我笑甚么？笑你这些和尚全不长俊。父母生下你来，皆因命犯华盖，妨爷克娘，或是不招姊妹，才把你舍断了出家。你怎的不遵三宝，不敬佛法，不去看经拜忏，却怎么与道士佣工，作奴婢使唤？」众僧道：「老爷，你来羞我们哩。你老人家想是个外边来的，不知我这里利害。」行者道：「果是外方来的，其实不知你这里有甚利害。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said: "Do you know what I'm laughing at?
甚麼: 甚 is shén, "what."
I'm laughing that you monks have no fine prospects at all.
長俊 is to have made something of oneself, to have come on well — 長 is zhǎng, to grow. Coming from a man in a false Daoist costume, "you have made nothing of yourselves" is a taunt with a sermon inside it. 不 is bù before it.
When your fathers and mothers bore you, it was because your fate fell under the Canopy Star — you would harm your father and cross your mother, or fail to keep your sisters — and so they cut you off and sent you to leave the household.
This is fortune-telling, not theology. 華蓋, the Canopy Star, is the star of the solitary: a child born under it is reckoned to stand apart from family, and to 妨 and 剋 — to blight and to overbear — the relatives nearest to him. Families with such a horoscope gave the child to a monastery, partly for his sake and partly for their own. Wukong is telling these men why they were monks in the first place. 剋 is kè; 姊 is zǐ, an elder sister, paired with 妹, a younger one; 不 is bù before 招.
Why then do you not honor the Three Jewels, not revere the Buddha's Law, not go read the scriptures and bow in penance — but instead hire yourselves out to Daoists and be worked like slaves and bondmaids?"
And now the sermon proper. The 三寶, Three Jewels, are the Buddha, his teaching and the community of monks — the three things a Buddhist takes refuge in, and the three these men have been made to abandon. 拜懺 is to bow through a penitential rite. 佛 is fó; 看 is kàn; 不 is bù before the level tone of 遵 and bú before the falling tones of 敬 and 去.
The monks said: "Your Honor, you've come here to shame us.
They hear the taunt exactly as it was meant and answer it with dignity. 羞, xiū, to shame; 哩 is li.
You must, old sir, be one come from outside, who does not know how perilous it is here."
利害 here is the word now normally written 厲害 — severity, danger, how bad a thing can get. 不 is bù before 知.
Pilgrim said: "I am indeed from a far country, and truly do not know what peril there is here in your place."
He gives them the opening they need, and the answer will run for the next four passages. 甚 is shén; 不 is bù before 知.
He drops the search entirely and turns preacher, and the rebuke is doctrine dressed as insult. Born under the Canopy Star and handed to the Sangha to spare their families, these men ought to be honoring the 三寶 and the Buddha's Law, reading scripture and bowing through penance — not hiring themselves out to Daoists to be worked like servants.
It is the chapter's own argument, spoken from inside the scene by someone with no standing to make it. And the monks' reply is the right one: you are an outsider and do not know our 利害, how bad it is here. That answer opens directly onto the four passages in which they tell him.