禪心動念念生愁 The Chan Mind Stirs a Thought
這句話只有唐僧聽見，那夥凡人莫想知覺。唐僧聽見，始覺心寬。不一時，宮官來請道：「萬歲，合巹嘉筵已排設在鳷鵲宮中，娘娘與公主俱在宮伺候，專請萬歲同貴人會親也。」國王喜之不盡，即同駙馬進宮而去。正是那：这句话只有唐僧听见，那伙凡人莫想知觉。唐僧听见，始觉心宽。不一时，宫官来请道：「万岁，合卺嘉筵已排设在鳷鹊宫中，娘娘与公主俱在宫伺候，专请万岁同贵人会亲也。」国王喜之不尽，即同驸马进宫而去。正是那：
畢竟不知唐僧在內宮怎生解脫，且聽下回分解。毕竟不知唐僧在内宫怎生解脱，且听下回分解。
逐句解 Line by line
Only the Tang Monk heard those words; that crowd of ordinary mortals could not begin to be aware of them. The Tang Monk heard, and at last felt his heart loosen.
The relief arrives, and it arrives for one man in a room of hundreds. 莫想知覺 — they could not begin to be aware — puts the whole court outside the only thing that matters in it. 始覺心寬, at last felt his heart widen, is the first easy breath Tripitaka has drawn since the eighth.
In no time at all a palace officer came to invite him: "Your Majesty, the wedding banquet is already laid out in the Zhique Palace, and the queen and the princess are both waiting there. They request Your Majesty and the honoured gentleman to go in to the family meeting." The king was beyond himself with delight and went into the palace with the Prince Consort.
Two small words in these lines both come out of the same defect in the machinery, and they sit forty-three characters apart. In 不一時, in no time at all, the middle character shifts its own tone because of what follows it, and the first character ought then to react to the shifted tone — but the tone rules are applied before the shift happens, so it never sees it. The same thing occurs in 喜之不盡 at the end of the passage, where the last character is set by a table that resolves after the tone rules have already run. Both are repaired here, and the second repair follows a ruling this project already made. 鳷鵲宮 is another borrowed Han dynasty palace name, like the Zhaoyang Palace earlier. The kingdom's buildings all have Chinese names in this chapter, which is worth noticing in a country the text calls India.
It was just as: The false one loves the flower, and the flower works the ruin; the Chan mind stirs a thought, and the thought breeds sorrow.
The chapter's closing couplet, and it is built out of two doubled words that turn the sentence back on itself: 花花 and 念念. The flower that is loved becomes the flower that ruins; the thought that stirs becomes the thought that grieves. 邪主 is the false one, and the reader now knows more than anybody in the palace. And 禪心動念 is the charge against Tripitaka: a mind settled in Chan is a mind that does not stir, and his has been stirring since he picked up a brush and matched four poems.
In the end we do not know how the Tang Monk got himself free inside the inner palace. Let us listen to the next chapter and it will be explained.
The storyteller's sign-off, unchanged for a hundred chapters. 且聽下回分解 — listen to the next chapter and it will be explained — is the seam where a night's performance ended and the audience was sent home.
The chapter ends where it began, on a man being taken somewhere he does not want to go, except that this time there is a bee on his hat. Nothing has been resolved. The wedding is about to happen, the bride is still unexamined, and the last thing the reader is told is that we do not yet know how he gets out.
The closing couplet is the only place in the chapter where the narrator says plainly what he thinks. Two clauses, each folding a word back on itself: the flower loved becomes the flower that ruins, the thought stirred becomes the thought that grieves. The first clause is about the false princess. The second is about Tripitaka, and it is not kind.
Because the charge is fair. He has spent four days in a walled garden called the place where spring is kept, being flattered, fed and entertained, and he answered four poems, in the strictest form, without meaning to. A Chan mind is one that does not stir. His stirred, and the last image the chapter leaves us with is a man in a ceremonial hat being led into an inner palace by a delighted king.