原文 Original text
繁體 Traditional
Reader's edition
人心一念 A Single Thought
大聖道：「我已知悔了，但願大慈悲指條門路，情願修行。」這才是：大圣道：「我已知悔了，但愿大慈悲指条门路，情愿修行。」这才是：
人心生一念，人心生一念，
天地盡皆知。天地尽皆知。
善惡若無報，善恶若无报，
乾坤必有私。乾坤必有私。
逐句解 Line by line
大聖道：「我已知悔了，但願大慈悲指條門路，情願修行。」這才是：
大圣道：「我已知悔了，但愿大慈悲指条门路，情愿修行。」这才是：
The Great Sage said: “I already know repentance; I only beg the greatly merciful one to point me a path, and I will gladly cultivate myself.” This was indeed a case of:
這才是 introduces the closing couplet-verse.
人心生一念，
人心生一念，
Let the human heart give rise to a single thought,
一念 — “a single thought”; 一 takes yí before fourth-tone 念.
天地盡皆知。
天地尽皆知。
and Heaven and Earth will know it through and through.
善惡若無報，
善恶若无报，
If good and evil met with no requital,
乾坤必有私。
乾坤必有私。
then the cosmos itself must harbor partiality.
The monkey relents. His declaration — 我已知悔了, “I already know repentance” — is the hinge of his whole arc, the moment defiance yields to the wish for a path. The narration marks its weight with a four-line verse on the moral transparency of the cosmos.
The couplet is one of the novel's clearest statements of its moral metaphysics: a single thought of the heart is known at once to Heaven and Earth, and good and evil must meet their requital, or the universe would be unjust. Following Anthony C. Yu, the verse universalizes the monkey's private turn into a cosmic law — his repentance is registered instantly, and his redemption thereby assured.
Plaks reads the moment as the true climax of the chapter's spiritual argument. Everything since the opening lyric has bent toward this: the unruly xīnyuán, having exhausted rebellion, at last forms the one right intention, and the machinery of salvation — pilgrim, fillet, and journey — can now be set in motion to meet it.