Reflections on Spiritual Cultivation through the tale of Journey to the West (episode 1)

This is a series of episodes on the Radio Khai Tam program, given in Vietnamese by Reverend Hang Truong. The articles are translated from the articles rewritten from the Vietnamese transcript of the shows.

MC speaking:

The Khai Tâm Radio program aims to help bring the Dharma into daily life, while at the same time promoting a holistic way of living that integrates body, mind, spirit, and compassion, so that human life may reach a state of peace, harmony, and happiness.

Dear listeners, in the previous 120 broadcast episodes, Thầy Hằng Trường has given many talks with the purpose of bringing the Dharma into everyday life. Today, for a change, Khai Tâm Radio would like to invite Thầy to share an ancient story. In this story, the author intentionally uses the main characters—Master Xuanzang, Sun Wukong, Sha Wujing, and Zhu Bajie—as symbolic representations of Buddhist practice. This is the story known as Journey to the West.

As we all know, Journey to the West is one of the famous works in the history of Chinese literature. It was widely circulated among the people of China, and later spread to Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Readers who have encountered this work often find it captivating and entertaining, yet pay little attention to its underlying Buddhist philosophy.

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en can be divided into two parts: one part is based on true events—the journey of the monk Xuanzang to India to obtain the Buddhist scriptures; the other part is fictional, mythologizing the story with many fascinating and dramatic episodes.

We respectfully invite Thầy to begin the talk “Speaking About Buddhist Practice Through the Tale of Journey to the West.”

Reverend Hằng Trường:

Greetings to all the elders, brothers, sisters, and all listeners of Khai Tâm Radio.

About the author and the book

This topic is quite fascinating because almost every Vietnamese has either read Journey to the West or heard the story. In Vietnam in the old days, Journey to the West was even published as an illustrated book. Those illustrations were created by a team in Hong Kong who spent more than ten years drawing tens of thousands of images to portray the entire story. Nowadays in Japan and Korea, there are still people who continue to create illustrations, write new adaptations, and even produce movies based on it.

In our time, there is a very popular series called Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball is an animated movie that has influenced the thinking of an entire generation of young people. In the series, they mention Goku, who is essentially Sun Wukong, and they use many of the names, terms, and symbolic imagery from Journey to the West. Journey to the West does not influence only Chinese literature—it also influences Japanese and Korean literature, and perhaps the thinking of Vietnamese people as well. Sometimes we hear people say things like “eats like Zhu Bajie,” or “causes trouble like the Monkey King,” or “is foolish like Sha Wujing.”

The author Wu Cheng'en was highly skilled in literature and also deeply knowledgeable in spiritual cultivation and practice. Spiritual Practice (Tu luyện) refers to the process of transforming the physical body, the brain, the heart, and the internal energies. Many of Wu Cheng'en's friends were Taoist practitioners who cultivated internal alchemy, and he himself belonged to that school of cultivation. He thoroughly understood the methods of transforming one’s inner being. Therefore, when he wrote Journey to the West, the story was profoundly influenced by his own spiritual training.

After Buddhism entered China for more than a thousand years, there emerged a deep integration between Taoism and Buddhism. Many Taoist methods of cultivation were incorporated into Buddhist practice. Buddhism also adopted many Taoist terms. For example, in the phrase “cultivating the way”, the word “Way/Tao” comes entirely from Taoism. And when scriptures were translated from Indian languages into Chinese, translators used terminology already present in Taoist literature. As a result, many of the terms commonly used in Buddhism actually originated from Taoism.

Up until the Tang dynasty, the translations of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese were quite chaotic, unclear, and sometimes contradictory. Therefore, Venerable Xuanzang—a real historical figure—traveled to India to obtain the original texts. He himself spent many years translating the scriptures. His greatest contribution is likely the Mahā Prajñā Pāramitā Sūtra consisting of 600 volumes. Xuanzang is one of the masters worthy of being called the patriarch of the Yogācāra school, also known as the Consciousness-Only school, because he thoroughly understood and mastered all the terminology related to the inner mind. If Einstein was the most exceptional figure of modern scientific civilization, then Xuanzang was the most exceptional figure of Eastern or Buddhist culture.

Wu Cheng’en was extremely intelligent. To make his book widely accessible, he chose characters, symbols, and a historical period that people could easily recognize and accept.

The main character in Journey to the West is initially named Chen Xuanzang, but later on he is called Tang Sanzang. The purpose was to prevent readers from focusing on the real historical figure Xuanzang; the author only wanted to draw inspiration from history. This is similar to how Jin Yong used historical settings to write his martial arts novels. But Wu Cheng’en wrote his story so that we might see the truth—see our true mind.

The setting of Journey to the West is the Tang dynasty during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang. In China, the era of Emperor Taizong is considered the benchmark for comparing how later dynasties governed the nation. During his 23-year reign, the economy expanded vigorously, and the empire’s territory grew. Production methods, culture, and the arts flourished with great openness. At the beginning of the Tang dynasty, there was a major transformation—an awakening and liberation of human potential. The phrase “liberation of energy” here means freeing and expanding the internal energies within a person.

Emperor Taizong was open-minded and encouraged people to develop their potential. One of his greatest reforms was reducing taxes and encouraging artisans to cultivate their talents. Because of this, that historical period is fondly remembered by the Chinese, and everyone knows who Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong of Tang) was. Using this era as the backdrop makes the story instantly attractive and engaging for readers.

Wu Cheng’en lived during the Ming dynasty, a period of considerable turmoil. At times, he used the story to criticize the government of his era by indirectly criticizing Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong of Tang) through the portrayal of his character.

Li Shimin’s father was Li Yuan. At that time, during the Sui dynasty, the Sui emperor was still very young. When Li Shimin was only 17 years old, he urged his father Li Yuan to seize the throne and establish the Tang dynasty. Later, Li Shimin killed his own older brother, and his bodyguards killed his younger brother. Li Shimin then forced Li Yuan to become the retired emperor and ascended the throne himself. We can see that Li Shimin did not possess the basic moral integrity expected of a human being.

What was the deeper intention behind choosing such a chaotic backdrop? Why is the book titled Journey to the West?

In the midst of chaos, what do we rely on as our guiding compass? What does it mean to travel westward?

According to the Five Elements:

• The East corresponds to Wood element. The East is where the sun rises, symbolizing the awakening of the mind—the arising of intention.

• From Wood comes Fire, associated with the South, symbolizing the development of wisdom, truth, and understanding of reality.

• External clarity must be balanced with inner silence, the ability to introspect and shine awareness inward. This is Earth, the central, stabilizing element.

• After that, we must undergo complete purification to become spiritual beings.

  
  

  The West corresponds to Metal—the element of purification and spirituality.

  
  

  The West is where the sun sets, symbolizing dusk. And dusk is the best time to illuminate the inner mind!

  
  

  When the sun sets and the external light fades, the inner moon arises in the West.

Therefore, “journeying westward” means opening and awakening one’s spiritual nature.

But after traveling west, where do we ultimately return?

• We return to the North, which corresponds to the Water element. Metal (the West) gives birth to Water.

Why return to the North? Because water symbolizes the flow of the Dharma reaching others—meaning that we must share, serve, and help others.

Thus, we can see that “Journey to the West” does not mean “traveling west, visiting for fun,” but rather that our direction must clearly be one of spiritual cultivation—moving westward.

In a chaotic era, we must turn toward the West, meaning we must open and walk the spiritual path.

Journey to the West

The story begins with a painting-like depiction of a primordial, chaotic universe, just beginning to form, when nothing yet has a clear beginning or end. On our Earth at that time, there was a stone that absorbed the spiritual energies of Heaven and Earth. One day, the stone cracked open, and from within it emerged a monkey.

This story describes how the stone monkey survives, and eventually becomes an enlightened being—a Buddha known as Fighting-Victorious Buddha.

This is the story of the transformation of an inert, lifeless stone. By absorbing the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth, it gains consciousness and awareness, eventually attaining enlightenment.

The two important verses in the introduction of the stone monkey says:

Hạo mông sơ bích nguyên vô tánh

Đã phá ngoan không, tu ngộ không.

“Hạo mông sơ bích nguyên vô tánh”

In the vast, boundless, hazy, and infinite universe, the stone monkey has just emerged from the cracked stone—having no nature, no name, no identity. In other words, as the Buddha taught: ignorance itself has no intrinsic nature; it has no essence because everything arises through dependent conditions.

And the explosive cracking of the stone is similar to the Big Bang, which burst forth to form our universe today. We cannot find a cause—there is no beginning, no end; we only know that it happened. The Buddha called this “no intrinsic nature”.

In this story, vô tánh means namelessness—the stone monkey has no name.

Also, it leads to an important reflection:

* When we are born, we are nameless, having no identity yet.

* After enlightenment, we also become nameless—beyond identity.

* But between these two states, the problem arises: we become attached to name, fame, identity, reputation.

“Đã phá ngoan không, tu ngộ không.”

Không (Void): like empty space, inert, lifeless.

'Ngoan Không' means stubborn emptiness—rigid grasping. For example, we cling to wealth, but wealth is just a concept. We cling to illusions and labels that people create.

Tu means "to practice" or "to apply effort."

Ngộ Không: to realize the true nature, to awaken to the Buddha-nature.

To break our attachments to the phenomenal world, we must awaken to the true nature—the Buddha-nature.

Journey to the west (continued)

From the stone emerges a monkey. As soon as it is born, its eyes shine with extraordinary brightness—so radiant that the Jade Emperor sees a beam of light rising from below and becomes startled.

He says:“Something unusual is happening in the Middle Realm. What is causing this light?”

The Jade Emperor sends two celestial officials to investigate:

One has ears that can hear thousand miles away.

One has eyes that can see ten thousand miles.

After investigating, they reported:

“Your Majesty, in a region called Dong Sheng Shen Zhou (Eastern Continent), a monkey was just born from a stone after absorbing the sacred energies of Heaven and Earth.”

Hearing this, the Jade Emperor is shaken. He wonders what kind of being could possess such extraordinary light in its eyes.

The stone gives birth to the monkey, but if asked who its parents are—no one knows. So what does the stone symbolize?

In this first part of the story, the stone represents one of our thoughts!

Our thoughts are as hard as stone—so hard that they feel impossible to break. Our thoughts can be so solid and rigid that even if we want to shatter them, we cannot. And who is the “father” or “mother” of our thoughts? A single idea simply explodes into existence, and we become deeply attached to it!

When we cling to our thoughts, this is called ‘ngoan không’—grasping stubbornly at something unreal.

Yet these thoughts possess extraordinary clarity. That clarity reaches all the way to the heavens and down through the earth. Clearly, we can think about everything—about the depths of the sea, the mountains, the sky, the earth. We can even use our thoughts to travel to the moon.

Such is the remarkable power of the mind.

The tale (continued)

The stone monkey runs freely and joyfully. It sees young monkeys that resemble it, so it plays with them, learns the monkey language, and lives among the group.

One day, the whole group goes out to play, swimming in the river, and they arrive at a waterfall. Behind the waterfall is a large cave. The waterfall is powerful. The monkeys challenge one another: “Whoever can swim across the waterfall and enter the cave first will be made king!”

They rush across, but the waterfall is too strong, and some monkeys drown. The stone monkey, however, dives in, swims upstream toward the waterfall, leaps through it, and lands inside the cave. Behind the waterfall is an enormous and magnificent cavern!

How the story continues… we shall leave for the next episode.