佛法無邊 Why It Cannot Help
諦聽道：「妖精神通，與孫大聖無二。幽冥之神，能有多少法力？故此不能擒拿。」地藏道：「似這般怎生祛除？」諦聽言：「佛法無邊。」谛听道：「妖精神通，与孙大圣无二。幽冥之神，能有多少法力？故此不能擒拿。」地藏道：「似这般怎生祛除？」谛听言：「佛法无边。」
逐句解 Line by line
Diting said: "The fiend's spirit-powers are not two things from the Great Sage Sun's.
與孫大聖無二, not two things from the Great Sage's. The phrase 無二 comes back in Kṣitigarbha's verdict shortly, and the chapter's title turns on 二心, two minds.
What magic power can the gods of the shades command? Therefore we cannot seize him."
多少 takes shǎo. The gods of the shades simply do not have the power, and Diting says so without embarrassment.
Kṣitigarbha said: "In a case like this, how is he to be driven out?"
似 is sì throughout the project. 怎生, how is it to be done, is the everyday interrogative of the vernacular novel rather than the bookish 何如.
Diting said: "The Buddha's Law is without bound."
Four characters, and the whole of the chapter's remaining plot. 佛 takes fó by a project-wide ruling.
Diting's account of its own limits is a piece of clear institutional reasoning. The fiend's powers equal Wukong's; the powers of the underworld do not; therefore the underworld cannot hold him. Nothing about identity comes into it. The beast solved the identification problem some time ago and is now explaining a logistics problem.
佛法無邊 — the Buddha's Law is without bound — is the answer, delivered in four characters with no elaboration. It is worth noticing what it is not. It is not a claim that the Buddha will see more clearly. Diting already sees clearly. It is a claim about power: only the Buddha can both name the thing and hold on to it. The chapter has quietly changed what it is asking for.
The exchange also completes a pattern. Five courts have been consulted and the sixth is named by the fifth, exactly as the Bodhisattva named Heaven and the underworld named the world of light. But this referral is different in kind. It is the first one made by somebody who knows the answer.