見無人，方才下拜 When No One Was Left
老僧見問，即命眾僧先回去煎茶。見無人，方才對唐僧、行者下拜。三藏攙起道：「老院主，為何行此禮？」老僧道：「弟子年歲百餘，略通人事，每於禪靜之間，也曾見過幾番景象。若老爺師徒，弟子聊知一二，與他人不同。若言悲切之事，非這位師家明辨不得。」行者道：「你且說，是甚事？」老僧道：「舊年今日，弟子正明性月之時，忽聞一陣風響，就有悲怨之聲。老僧见问，即命众僧先回去煎茶。见无人，方才对唐僧、行者下拜。三藏搀起道：「老院主，为何行此礼？」老僧道：「弟子年岁百余，略通人事，每于禅静之间，也曾见过几番景象。若老爷师徒，弟子聊知一二，与他人不同。若言悲切之事，非这位师家明辨不得。」行者道：「你且说，是甚事？」老僧道：「旧年今日，弟子正明性月之时，忽闻一阵风响，就有悲怨之声。
逐句解 Line by line
The old monk, hearing the question, at once told the other monks to go back first and make tea. Seeing that no one was left, only then did he bow down before the Tang Monk and Pilgrim.
Two sentences, and the whole shape of the confession is set. He clears the courtyard on a pretext, waits until they are alone, and then kneels. Whatever is coming, none of his own monks may hear it.
煎茶 — make tea — is the oldest errand in the world for getting people out of a room.
方才 — only then. The narrator marks the sequence carefully: he does not bow until he has checked. This is a man who has thought about how to do this.
Tripitaka helped him up and said, "Reverend abbot, why do you make such a bow?" The old monk said, "Your disciple is over a hundred years old and understands human affairs a little, and in the stillness of meditation I have seen a thing or two."
弟子 — your disciple. A monk of a hundred and five calls himself the disciple of a man of forty-five, which in a monastery is not a slip: he is putting himself below Tripitaka before he asks for anything.
⚠ The base reading system splits this word against itself in this chapter, giving one of the five occurrences a light second syllable and four the full tone. Same word, same speaker, same page.
禪靜 — the stillness of meditation. He is claiming a mild sort of second sight and being careful not to claim much.
"As for your worship and his disciples, your disciple knows a little of the matter, and it is not as with other people. But if I speak of this grievous business, none but this master here can tell true from false."
He has recognised them — or says he has — and the flattery is doing work. He needs Pilgrim specifically, and he is establishing before he asks that he knows what Pilgrim is.
明辨不得 — cannot be told apart. Here the linking character joins the telling to the failing, so the whole phrase means the distinguishing cannot be brought off. It is not the same word as the one that means to obtain, though it is written the same way, and the chapter uses both senses within a few lines.
這位師家 — this master here. He means Pilgrim, and it is the first time in the chapter anyone has addressed the monkey as an authority.
Pilgrim said, "Say on — what is the matter?" The old monk said, "This day last year, when your disciple was in the clear-minded moon of meditation, I suddenly heard a gust of wind, and there was a sound of grief and complaint."
舊年今日 — this day last year. Exactly a year, to the day, and he has said nothing in all that time. The chapter has been at pains to establish that tonight is the first night anyone has come from far enough away to be told.
明性月 — the moon of clear nature — folds the moon he was watching into the mind that was watching it, which is standard meditation vocabulary and also simply true: he was sitting outside at night.
Pilgrim's four words are the bluntest thing said in the chapter so far. Everyone else has been circling for two pages.
This passage is almost entirely manners, and every piece of the manners is doing something. The old monk sends his own community away on an errand. He waits until they are gone. He bows to a man forty years his junior. He calls himself a disciple. He praises Pilgrim before asking anything of him. None of it is decoration — it is a man who has rehearsed this.
What he is about to say will make sense of it. He has kept a young woman locked in an outbuilding for a year, told his monks she is a demon, and fed her twice a day through a hole in a door. He believes he has been protecting her. He also knows exactly how it looks, which is why the courtyard had to be emptied first.
And there is a smaller thing worth noticing. He asks for Pilgrim, not for Tripitaka. The holy man is the one who wept at the sound of the crying; the monkey is the one who can tell what the crying is. The old monk has read the party correctly within about ten minutes of meeting them.