靜功祈禱 Praying by Stillness
那長老才舉步登壇，到上面，端然坐下，定性歸神，默念那《密多心經》。正坐處，忽見一員官飛馬來問：「那和尚，怎麼不打令牌，不燒符檄？」行者高聲答道：「不用！不用！我們是靜功祈禱。」那官去回奏不題。那长老才举步登坛，到上面，端然坐下，定性归神，默念那《密多心经》。正坐处，忽见一员官飞马来问：「那和尚，怎么不打令牌，不烧符檄？」行者高声答道：「不用！不用！我们是静功祈祷。」那官去回奏不题。
逐句解 Line by line
The elder had just stepped up onto the altar; reaching the top, he sat down composed, settled his nature and drew in his spirit, and silently recited that Heart Sutra of Perfection.
那長老 and 那: 那 = nà. 長老: 長 = zhǎng, an elder -- not cháng, long. 定性歸神 "settle the nature, gather the spirit back in," the composing of oneself before meditation. 《密多心經》 is the Heart Sutra, named here by the tail end of its full title, 般若波羅蜜多心經 -- rather as English speakers say the Lord's Prayer without reciting its opening line. He recites it silently, which matters: there is nothing at all to see.
Just as he sat, an officer suddenly came galloping to ask, “That monk — how is it he strikes no command-tablet and burns no talisman-writ?”
正坐處: 處 = chù. 那和尚: 那 = nà. 一員官: the rising tone of 員 keeps 一 at yì. 符檄 "talisman writ." The officer's bewilderment is the reader's: where is the ceremony?
Pilgrim answered in a loud voice, “No need!
行者: 行 = xíng. 不用: the falling tone of 用 pulls 不 to bú.
No need!
The same again: 不用 repeated, 不 still bú before the falling tone of 用. Impatience rather than emphasis.
We pray by the practice of stillness.”
靜功祈禱 "praying by the discipline of stillness." Four characters that answer the entire Daoist performance: no sword, no tablet, no burning paper, no noise.
That officer went off to report, and of this we say no more.
那官: 那 = nà. 回奏不題 "went back to report; we say no more of it." 不題 is the storyteller's way of dropping a thread -- setting a character aside so the audience knows not to wait for him.
Here is the contrast the whole contest has been built toward, staged as a picture. The immortal had a sword, an incantation, yellow-paper talismans, a burning furnace and a wooden tablet. The Tang Monk sits down, settles himself, and says the Heart Sutra in his head.
靜功祈禱 -- we pray by stillness -- is the Buddhist reply to Daoist spectacle, and the officer who gallops up to ask where the ceremony has got to is asking on behalf of everyone watching. There is nothing to see, which in the story's logic is exactly the point.
The passage closes on 不題, the storyteller's "and we shall leave him there" -- a professional reciter's trick for holding an audience at the edge of something. What it is holding us at the edge of is the wind.