Pilgrim said, 'Terrible, terrible! But how then is my master ever to get across to the other side?'

度 is dù, to ferry across — the same character that renders the Buddhist pāramitā, the crossing to the far shore, which gives the practical question a doctrinal echo. Pilgrim's dismay is entirely on his master's account: he himself has just been thrown fifty thousand lǐ and come back in a morning.

Lingji said, 'Set your mind at rest, Great Sage. This coming of yours is part of the Tang Monk's destined course, and it is fitting that the Great Sage should succeed by it.'

此一來 is "this one coming," a plain demonstrative phrase rather than a way of numbering points, so its 一 behaves like any other. 緣法 is the working-out of karmic conditions, and Lingji is saying that being blown off course was itself the arrangement.

Pilgrim said, 'How am I to succeed?'

Seven characters, and the speech closes, so the line stands by itself rather than running on into what follows.

Lingji said, 'In that year I received the Tathāgata's instruction, and he bestowed on me one Wind-Stilling Pill and one Flying-Dragon Staff.'

如來 is the Tathāgata, the Buddha under his title "thus-come." 當 is the dāng of time; 教旨 uses 教 as jiào, an instruction or commission.

'The Flying-Dragon Staff has already subdued the wind-demon.'

降 is jiàng here — the staff brought the demon down — and this is the chapter's only use of that reading, against three of 降 as xiáng, subduing by submission. The wind-demon is the Yellow Wind Fiend of chapter twenty-one.