天氣晴明 The Weather Is Fine Today
三藏道：「徒弟啊，今日天氣晴明，與那風雨之時不同。那時節，汝等必定遠去。此個人家，等我去，有齋無齋，可以就回走路。」三藏道：「徒弟啊，今日天气晴明，与那风雨之时不同。那时节，汝等必定远去。此个人家，等我去，有斋无斋，可以就回走路。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka said, "Disciples, the weather today is clear and bright, quite unlike those times of wind and rain."
徒弟啊 — he addresses all three at once, and the little final 啊 is the sound of a man softening a refusal. He has just been told no by two of them and is about to overrule both.
"On days of that sort, you must of course go far afield."
汝等 is bookish where 你們 would be ordinary — Tripitaka slips into the register of a written text when he is being firm. 那 is nà, pointing back at the bad weather he has just described.
"This household is close at hand. Let me go. Food or no food, I can turn straight round and we take the road again."
有齋無齋 sets a thing against its own absence to mean "either way" — Chinese still builds phrases this way, and the shape carries no doubt in it at all. He is promising an outcome he cannot promise.
This is Tripitaka's whole case, and it rests on the weather. Fine day, short walk, quick return. Every step of it is true, and none of it is the point.
What he never addresses is the objection both disciples actually raised, which was about rank rather than distance. Eight Rules said the junior should do the errand; Pilgrim said the master should not beg while the disciple sits. Tripitaka answers a question about propriety with an answer about walking distance, and wins by changing the subject.
Read the last clause again after the chapter is over. He offers to come straight back either way, and that turn-and-return is exactly what does not happen.