怎生得度 How Then Are We To Cross
行者道：「就是燒得，也怕人了。」三藏道：「這般怎生得度？」八戒笑道：「要得度，還依我。」行者道：「就是烧得，也怕人了。」三藏道：「这般怎生得度？」八戒笑道：「要得度，还依我。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "Even if it could be burned, it would be a fearful business."
怕人 does not mean "afraid of people". It means "such as to frighten anyone", which the English turns into a fearful business.
Tripitaka said, "Then how are we to attain a crossing?"
Here is the chapter's quiet joke. 得度 is read dé dù, patterning with 得道 and 得勝 where 得 heads a clause of its own. It is also the standard Buddhist term for attaining deliverance — and Tripitaka is applying it to a hillside. The verb 度 is the same one the monks of Fulong used when they complained that the pilgrims would not ferry them over.
Eight Rules said with a laugh, "If you would attain a crossing, you will have to rely on me after all."
The proof that 得度 is a phrase in its own right rather than a "can we manage it" construction is right here: Eight Rules lifts it whole out of Tripitaka's question and drops it after 要, with no frame around it at all. 還 is hái, "after all".
Tripitaka's question uses a term of art without appearing to. To attain a crossing is what a soul does when it reaches the far shore, and it is the word the weeping monks of Fulong used when they complained they would not be ferried over. Here it is asked about a hill covered in thorns, and the novel makes no comment on the slippage at all.
Eight Rules' answer is a piece of comedy that is also the chapter's argument in one line. The most worldly of the disciples is the one who can supply a crossing, and he says so with a laugh and a small piece of self-assertion. Tripitaka overruled him when he first offered the rake, and he has just overruled Sha Monk about the fire; now he claims the work.
It is worth noticing how little Pilgrim contributes to this exchange. He reports the distance, he objects that burning would be frightening, and then he falls silent. The chapter's title names Eight Rules, and the narrative has already begun handing the initiative across.