Human Relations and Sophistication in Journey to the West

The 108,000-mile journey that Tang Monk and his disciples traveled to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures was also a training ground for traveling through the human relationships in the three realms. This book takes the Eighty-One Difficulties as its sutra and the network of relationships between immortals, Buddhas and demons as its latitude, revealing the aspects of the world that were obscured by the light of the Golden Cudgel in Journey to the West: the cassock dispute at Guanyin Yuan hides the factional strife within Buddhism, the ginseng and fruit banquet at Wuzhuang Temple is actually a game of interests between the earthly immortals and heaven, and behind the banana fans at the Flame Mountain is the change of power in the Bull Demon King family. Based on the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, the author compares the immortal class to the court and the monster cave to the rivers and lakes. Under the solemn treasures of gods and Buddhas and the ferocious appearance of monsters, he writes a general guide to life that runs through the three worlds of heaven, earth and man. From the mystery of the release of water in the Heavenly Palace when Sun Wukong caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace, to the adjustment of the positions of the Buddhas after Tang Monk returned from studying scriptures, every auspicious cloud and every demonic wind contains the code of human relationships that has not changed for thousands of years. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.