A Deep Dive into Journey to the West:
The Five Journeys-in-One Are You.
Most people treat Journey to the West as a myth, just as
most people treat life as a game of self-improvement.
Bookstores, short videos, and paid knowledge platforms are all
teaching you the same thing – to become a better version of yourself: more self-disciplined, more
efficient,
more effective in execution,
more in leadership, and
better at emotional management.
Your self is
like a machine; you
fix what's wrong,
constantly upgrade,
constantly patch,
until one day
you finally become that "ideal self."
Sounds reasonable, right?
But have you ever considered a more fundamental question? Who exactly is this
"self" desperately trying to "become better"? Is the
machine you're trying to upgrade
inherently reliable?
If the machine's operating system has fundamental vulnerabilities, no matter how many
patches you install,
how many plugins you add,
it will still crash. Over
four hundred years ago,
someone figured this out.
He wrote a book. On the
surface, it's a lighthearted story of four travelers fighting monsters and leveling up.
Children read it with great interest,
thinking it's a myth.
But peel back the demonic shell, and
inside lies an extremely sophisticated diagram of the mind.
It's not about teaching you to upgrade yourself;
it's about teaching you to see the machine that creates the "self."
The book is called *Journey to the West*, and the
person who figured it out
is Wu Cheng'en.
Hello
everyone,
I'm Wang Lijie.
Last time,
we started this series with *Flowers in the Mirror*,
discussing "Do your best and leave the rest
to fate"—the relationship between seeds and seasons.
Today, in the second installment,
we'll dissect a book that every Chinese person feels they've read
but may never truly understand: *Journey to the West*. Let's
start by breaking down the title.
"Journey to the West" can be
broken down into two parts: "West" represents direction, and "
Journey" represents a journey.
In Buddhist tradition, the
West is the direction of the Pure Land, the direction of
enlightenment.
But here's a key point: the destination of the journey is in the West, but
where is the starting point?
In the Tang Dynasty in the East, right where
you are right now.
From east to west,
from delusion to enlightenment, the
beginning and end of this path lie within
yourself.
Therefore, *Journey to the West* is not a geographical journey;
it's an inward journey.
You might think the four travelers are traversing mountains and valleys,
but they are actually overcoming layers of obstacles in their own consciousness. The
destination isn't Mount Ling.
It's the pure land that already exists within your own heart.
This isn't an overinterpretation on my part. The
title of the first chapter of the original work clearly states,
"The spiritual root nurtures and gives birth to the source; the mind and nature are cultivated and the
Great Dao is born." The
first word is "spirit," and the
second key word is "mind and nature."
Wu Cheng'en tells you from the very first page: this book is about the mind. Okay,
since it's about the mind,
let's see what this mind looks like. Sun
Wukong
has a special name in Buddhist and Taoist traditions - the Mind Monkey.
What is the nature of a monkey?
Restless,
jumping around,
never stopping. Have you ever
tried meditation?
Even if you only sit for five minutes,
you'll find that
your brain is like a monkey. As soon as
you try to calm down,
it starts jumping around: What should I eat for dinner tonight?
Why hasn't that project been replied to yet?
I shouldn't have said that yesterday... One thought after another, it
simply can't stop.
This monkey
is your mind.
And Wu Cheng'en uses the entire "Havoc in Heaven" chapter to
accurately depict the most dangerous state of this monkey:
when it thinks it is omnipotent.
Think carefully about Sun Wukong's resume:
he sprang from a stone, with
extremely high talent. After
learning his skills, what was the first thing he did? He
went to the underworld and crossed out his name from the Book of Life and Death.
He didn't accept death.
Then what? He
stole the Ruyi Jingu Bang (the magic staff) from the Dragon Palace of the East Sea – he wanted the best weapon.
Then what? He
proclaimed himself the Great Sage
Equal to Heaven, wanting to be on equal footing with the gods and Buddhas in heaven – he wanted the highest status. Finally, he wreaked havoc in the
Heavenly Palace,
smashing the entire order system – he didn't accept any external constraints. If
you translate this arc using the Yogacara philosophy we discussed in previous episodes,
everything this monkey did was the operation of the
Manas consciousness.
What
is the Manas consciousness? It's the machine that creates a sense of "self."
Its core function is to turn everything into "I" and "mine."
Sun Wukong crossed out the Book of Life and Death – "I" cannot die. He stole the Ruyi Jingu Bang – "I" want
to be the strongest.
He proclaimed himself the Great Sage Equal to Heaven – "I" am the greatest. He wreaked havoc in the Heavenly
Palace – "I" don't submit to anyone. Is
n't this a complete picture of an extremely inflated Manas consciousness?
Now I want to ask you a question: What is the essential difference between this monkey who wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace
and the things that success and self-improvement courses teach you to pursue today?
Think about it.
Those courses tell you: be confident,
dare to challenge authority,
believe you deserve everything,
break limiting beliefs, and
become "the infinitely possible self."
This logic sounds inspiring,
but if you translate it into the language of Yogacara—what is it doing? It's
energizing the Manas consciousness.
It's telling that monkey: you are right,
you deserve it,
you can be bigger, stronger, and more unstoppable.
But *Journey to the West* tells you what the end result of this path is:
Buddha
slaps him down under the Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years.
Note,
I'm not saying confidence is problematic;
confidence is a good thing. The
problem is—have you stopped to look at who's
actually standing beneath that "confidence"? Is it
your genuine awareness,
or a story fabricated by the Manas consciousness called "I'm amazing"?
You might think this is Buddha "suppressing" Sun Wukong,
but from another perspective,
this slap is actually the most compassionate action in the entire book.
Why?
Because if you don't stop this monkey,
it will forever spin in a cycle of "I want to be bigger, I want to be stronger,
I refuse to accept this,"
never looking back—what exactly is the "I" driving it? The
Five Elements Mountain is a mirror. No matter how
fast you run, how fiercely you cause trouble, or how great your abilities,
you will eventually be
forced to stop and
face yourself.
Five hundred years of imprisonment was
not punishment, but the
first opportunity for this monkey to calm down.
In our previous framework,
what the Five Elements Mountain did was "stop,"
forcibly reducing the precision and weight of consciousness,
pausing the narrative machine that was always weaving stories.
After five hundred years of cessation, Tang
Sanzang arrived.
Note that Tang
Sanzang did not come to "rescue" Sun Wukong; Tang
Sanzang came to give him a new direction - the journey to the West.
From this moment on,
Sun Wukong's energy no longer served "self-inflation,"
but rather "the path to enlightenment." The same abilities, the
same seventy-two transformations and somersault cloud, but the
direction was completely different.
But having a direction alone is not enough.
Wu Cheng'en arranged an extremely ingenious setting - the golden
headband. What is the golden headband? It is a
precept, an
external constraint mechanism. Are
n't you very capable?
Aren't you defiant of everyone?
Okay,
now you have a circle on your head. When
your master chants the incantation, you writhe in pain on the ground.
This setting, from a literary perspective, is the dramatic source of the master-disciple conflict.
However, in the logic of spiritual practice,
it is absolutely necessary.
Why?
Because an untrained mind cannot be controlled by the
word "enlightenment" alone. If
you tell a short-tempered person, "You need to see your anger and
not let it hold you hostage,"
they understand the principle,
but the next time they are provoked, they will still
explode. The
inertia of the seed is too strong.
What is needed at this time?
Precepts are needed—an external, hard constraint.
When your ability to "see" is not yet sufficient,
use rules to restrain your behavior. As
we mentioned in our previous episode on Yogacara, the point of
action of keeping precepts is the sixth and seventh consciousnesses.
Each precept restrains the behavioral output of the sixth consciousness and
indirectly weakens the inertia of the seventh consciousness, Manas.
Every time an impulse is rejected, the
weight of Manas loosens a little. The golden headband
is a fictionalized version of this principle.
Every time Sun Wukong is enraged and loses control and wants to kill,
Tang Sanzang chants the mantra to
forcibly interrupt his behavioral chain—not to torture him, but to restrain the consequences of his actions before
he can see himself clearly. If
you notice, the frequency of chanting the golden headband
throughout the entire Journey to the West
decreases. At the
beginning, it was chanted every few days.
Later, fewer and fewer of them appeared.
Why?
Because Sun Wukong changed. It was
n't that his abilities changed, but that his
relationship with his own heart changed.
At first, he relied on external constraints to avoid losing control.
Later, he could perceive the arising of impulses and
choose not to follow them. The golden
headband gradually transformed from an external shackle
into internal awareness.
This is the true process of spiritual practice – discipline is the starting point;
from discipline comes concentration;
from concentration comes wisdom.
First, use rules to control behavior,
then cultivate the ability to abide under the protection of rules, and
finally, from abiding in concentration, true wisdom arises. The
entire journey to the West
is a complete demonstration of the three studies of discipline, concentration, and wisdom.
Now let's look at other characters.
Zhu Bajie, whose Dharma name is
"Wuneng,"
actually understands precisely what he "cannot" do.
What does Bajie represent?
Greed and laziness.
He is gluttonous, lustful, and lazy.
Whenever he encounters difficulties, he says, "Let's break up, brother,
let's go back to Gao Village."
Don't laugh at him;
think about yourself – every time you set a weight loss plan, you give up on the third day; every time you
say you'll get up early, you turn off the alarm and go back to sleep;
every time you impulsively buy a gym membership, you go twice and then it's forgotten. Are
n't you just like Zhu Bajie?
Sha Wujing, whose Buddhist
name is "Wujing," is
taciturn,
hardworking, and
always carrying the burden.
He represents a more hidden kind of persistence—a
persistence in stability and security.
He doesn't cause trouble,
but he doesn't grow either.
He's the kind of person who's content as long as he doesn't make mistakes.
Many people live their whole lives
essentially playing the role of Sha Wujing—not making big mistakes,
but never truly facing what's deep within their hearts. As for the
White Dragon Horse,
it was originally the son of the Dragon King.
Because of a mistake, it
was transformed into a horse,
carrying Tang Sanzang throughout the journey.
In traditional culture, horses are called "yima" (意马),
corresponding to "
xinyuan" (心猿). "Xinyuan" (心猿) and "yima" (意马)
describe a person's mind as restless as a monkey and as galloping as a wild horse. The
White Dragon Horse's transformation from dragon to horse
signifies the restraint of its wild thoughts,
transforming them into a stable force capable of supporting spiritual practice.
Now, look back at this team composition: Xinyuan, Yima, greed, laziness,
and Tang Sanzang, the one who needs protection.
These aren't five characters; they
are clearly five aspects of a person's inner self. And the
monsters fought on the journey to the West weren't just external demons.
It's the demons within your own heart that bring you the
eighty-one tribulations,
each corresponding to a test of a particular pattern of attachment.
Some demons are born of greed—like the Golden Horn and Silver Horn luring you with treasures. Some are born of
anger—like Red
Boy's Samadhi Fire that leaves you speechless.
Some are born of delusion—like the Little Thunder Temple, whose
name differs by only one "little."
You think you've reached the end, but you've
unknowingly worshipped a false Buddha. The
three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion
appear again and again on the journey to the West, wearing different masks,
testing whether you can recognize them.
This reminds me of a popular contemporary term—"healing."
Many people now say, "
I want to heal my inner child," "I want to heal
my family of origin trauma," "
I want to heal my emotional patterns."
Healing is certainly a good thing,
but there's a variant of "healing" that's
essentially avoidance.
It attributes all problems to external factors: "My
family of origin hurt me," "
Society disciplined me," "
That relationship poisoned me," and
then expects automatic repair through "being seen" and "being accepted."
The answer from *Journey to the West* is much more hardcore: the
demons within you
aren't waiting to be "healed."
It takes you to fight your way out, one blow at a time.
But the prerequisite for defeating monsters is
recognizing them.
You have to see through the disguise of the White Bone Demon, who is a mere skeleton; you have to see through the illusion of the
Yellow-Eyebrowed King, who looks like a true Buddha. The
skill to defeat monsters isn't about strength, but about having
discerning eyes – the
ability to see through all narrative facades and understand the true nature of the data stream.
And how did Sun
Wukong acquire his discerning eyes? He was forged in Laozi's Eight Trigrams Furnace for forty-nine days.
Interestingly, in the
original story, these eyes were actually "old, sickly eyes" caused by smoke,
not a superpower.
But in centuries of cultural transmission,
discerning eyes have become synonymous with seeing through disguises.
This folk symbolism is
more profound than the original text.
It suggests that true seeing ability
isn't talent
or inspiration,
but something repeatedly forged in the fire.
You have to experience pain, confusion, failure, misjudging, being deceived by monsters, being
misunderstood by your master, and being subjected to the Tightening-Headband Mantra.
These are all the fires from the Eight Trigrams Furnace. The
fire isn't there to harm you, but
to burn away the veil covering your eyes.
At the final moment of their journey, the
four travelers finally arrived at Lingyun Ferry at the foot of Mount Ling.
A bottomless boat was moored at the ferry, awaiting the arrival of the
Buddha. Tang Sanzang hesitated to board, but Sun Wukong
pushed him aboard. As
the boat glided across the water,
Tang Sanzang looked down—and saw his own corpse floating in the water. Wukong
laughed and said, "Master, don't be afraid, that
's you."
This scene is the most profound metaphor in the entire *Journey to the West*. The
old Tang Sanzang is dead. The Tang Sanzang
driven by fear, terrified by demons, and
constantly chanting the Tightening-Headband Mantra, is
dead.
He didn't awaken upon reaching Mount Ling;
he
left his old self in the water the moment he set foot on Mount Ling.
Who is the new Tang Sanzang? He is the one who has
walked this path, seen all the demons within himself,
and confronted them one by one.
He didn't become a "better version of himself";
he saw the illusory nature of the concept of "self" itself.
The corpse floating in the river is the evidence. The
"self" you cling to is
merely a shell.
The "self" you think you need to protect, elevate, and heal is
inherently empty. In
the language of Yogacara,
this is the moment of transformation from consciousness to wisdom.
The Manas consciousness no longer clings to the Alaya consciousness as "self."
The seventh consciousness transforms from "self-attachment" to "equality wisdom."
It's not that "self" disappears, but that
the boundary between "self" and "non-self" dissolves.
So you see,
from the first page to the last page of *Journey to the West*, it
tells the same story—your heart
is your battlefield
and your training ground.
That monkey is your thought, that horse
is your intention,
that pig is your greed,
that silent monk is your laziness,
and that seemingly weakest, slowest-moving,
but never-giving-up Tang Sanzang
is the faint but undying aspiration deep within you—your
desire to see the truth. The
journey to the West is not in India,
not in the West. In the
distance between this moment and your next thought,
every time you recognize the story you are creating...
Every time you choose to pause in the instant an impulse arises,
every time you see through a seemingly real obsession,
you overcome a hurdle.
Those self-help gurus tell you, "Believe in yourself,
you can do anything"—that's like the Monkey King causing havoc in Heaven. *Journey to
the West* tells you the exact opposite: you may indeed possess extraordinary abilities,
but if you don't know who the "you" wielding those abilities is, the
greater your abilities, the greater the trouble
you'll cause.
First, recognize the monkey within you,
then
give it a direction, a set of
rules, and a
long road with no shortcuts.
This is true growth—not becoming a better version of yourself,
but seeing through the illusion of "yourself." That's all for this
episode. Do
you think the monkey within you
is currently causing havoc in Heaven,
or is already on the journey to the West?
Or,
which of the eighty-one tribulations do you feel you are experiencing? Feel
free to tell me in the comments section.
I'm very curious about everyone's thoughts.
I'm Wang Lijie,
see you next time.