一發靜悄悄 The Whole Place Falls Silent
少停有半個時辰，一發靜悄悄，雞犬無聲。自家思慮道：「我若沒本事化頓齋飯，也惹那徒弟笑我：敢道為師的化不出齋來，為徒的怎能去拜佛？」少停有半个时辰，一发静悄悄，鸡犬无声。自家思虑道：「我若没本事化顿斋饭，也惹那徒弟笑我：敢道为师的化不出斋来，为徒的怎能去拜佛？」
逐句解 Line by line
He waited the better part of an hour, and the place grew quieter still — not a chicken, not a dog.
時辰 is a DOUBLE hour, one of the twelve the old day was cut into, so 半個時辰 is a full hour by our clock. 悄 is qiǎo, and the line supplies its own proof by writing it beside 靜, quiet: 洪武正韻 has the character at 七小切 and glosses it 又靜也, also: quiet — the sense 康熙 lacks. 中原音韻 puts it in 蕭豪 上聲 and nowhere else. 一發 is yì, meaning all the more.
He thought to himself, "If I have not the skill to beg one meal, those disciples of mine will laugh at me. They will say: if the master cannot beg up a dinner, how are the disciples to go and worship Buddha?"
為 is wéi twice over — to be a master, to be a disciple — not wèi, for the sake of. And here is the real reason he is standing in a wood: not hunger, not piety, but the thought of being laughed at.
An hour passes and nothing happens. That is the whole of this passage, and it is the most useful hour in the chapter for understanding what goes wrong.
The silence is the tell. A house with four women sewing in the window should have some sound to it — a dog at least, a chicken. There is none, and Tripitaka notices the quiet without drawing the obvious conclusion. He has been standing in a wood for an hour watching strangers, which is itself odd behaviour, and the thing that finally moves him is not the silence but his own pride.
That last thought deserves reading twice. He talks himself into walking up to the door by imagining his disciples mocking him. He had told them the errand was easy. Now he cannot go back empty-handed without proving them right, and the argument he won an hour ago has become the thing pushing him forward.