著上涼水 Cool Water From The Kitchen
行者道:「有理,有理。我且送涼水與師父吃了再來。」掇起缽盂,著上涼水,轉出香積廚,就到方丈,叫聲:「師父,吃涼水哩。」行者道:「有理,有理。我且送凉水与师父吃了再来。」掇起钵盂,着上凉水,转出香积厨,就到方丈,叫声:「师父,吃凉水哩。」
逐句解 Line by line
Pilgrim said, "Right, right.
He gives way at once, which is unusual, and it is the abbot's argument about the master that does it.
Let me take the cool water to my master to drink, and then come back."
The errand he set out on twenty passages ago, finally remembered.
He caught up the alms bowl, poured cool water into it, turned out of the fragrant kitchen, went straight to the abbot's quarters and called, "Master, drink some cool water."
著 is zhuó here — the applying band, to put a thing on or into something — distinct from the sustained zhe that this character takes elsewhere in the chapter and from the dispatching zhuó of sending a monk on an errand.
Pilgrim yields to the abbot instantly, having refused to yield to anyone else all chapter. The argument that works on him is the one about his master's safety.
The bowl of water has now been in his hands through the discovery of six murders, a long recitation of monastic life, a boast about heaven and a proverb about battle. He carries it back and it is still cool.
There is a small structural pleasure in the return. The chapter sent him out for water at the end of one scene and brings him back with it at the start of another, and everything in between has changed what he knows.