修行一般 Different Robes Same Practice
三藏下馬。八戒道：「黃花觀乃道士之家，我們進去會他一會也好，他與我們衣冠雖別，修行一般。」沙僧道：「說得是。一則進去看看景致，二來也當撒貨頭口。看方便處，安排些齋飯，與師父吃。」三藏下马。八戒道：「黄花观乃道士之家，我们进去会他一会也好，他与我们衣冠虽别，修行一般。」沙僧道：「说得是。一则进去看看景致，二来也当撒货头口。看方便处，安排些斋饭，与师父吃。」
逐句解 Line by line
Tripitaka dismounted.
Four characters, one beat. He has already decided to go in.
"A Yellow Flower Abbey is a Daoist's house," said Eight Rules. "It would do no harm to step in and pay the man a call. His cap and gown are not ours, but the practice is the same."
衣冠雖別，修行一般 is Eight Rules being unexpectedly ecumenical: the uniform differs, the training is one trade. 衣冠 is literally robe and cap, and it is still the word for how a person is turned out — 衣冠楚楚, immaculately dressed, is alive today. Keep the line in mind. The Daoist in this house will shortly disagree with it in the most practical way available.
"Well said," agreed Sha Monk.
說得 here takes 得 as de, because what follows it — 是, right — is a judgement on the saying rather than a thing attained. The same character is dé when it is a verb of its own or a fixed suffix on one, and the chapter uses all its readings before it is done.
"For one thing, we go in and see the sights; for another, it will do to get the animals unloaded."
一則 … 二來 is the ordinary spoken way of counting reasons, exactly like "for one thing … for another". 頭口 is the plain vernacular word for livestock — the pack animals, not the horse's mouth — and 撒貨 is getting the loads off them and letting them rest. 也當 takes 當 as dàng, in the sense of counting as or doing duty for, the same dàng as in 安步當車, where walking does duty for a carriage.
"And if it is convenient, they can set out a little vegetarian food for our master."
齋飯 is monastic food, meatless by definition, and asking for it at a strange door is the pilgrims' standing arrangement with the world. 方便 is doing double duty: the everyday "convenient", and the Buddhist term for skilful means, an expedient adapted to circumstances. Sha Monk almost certainly intends only the first.
Three disciples, three motives, and not one of them is caution. Eight Rules wants the social call, Sha Monk wants the scenery, and then — the real reason, arriving second like an afterthought — somebody might feed them. The pilgrims have been poisoned, kidnapped and cooked more times than any of them can count, and they walk in discussing lunch.
Eight Rules's argument deserves its moment, because he is right and it does not save him. Buddhist and Daoist orders really did share a great deal: celibate houses, vegetarian meals, a rule, a hierarchy, hours of practice. The trade overlap is genuine. What Eight Rules leaves out is that the two establishments had spent centuries competing for the same patrons, and that this particular abbey has a guest list problem he knows nothing about.
Sha Monk gets the last word, and it is the practical one. He is the disciple who notices the animals need unloading. That is his function in the book — the one who thinks about the luggage — and the narrative rewards him for it about as often as it rewards anyone here, which is to say not at all.