Mori Lazuli

I've been wanting to write this since…since I came across some good ol' Tripitaka discourse in the LMK fandom ages ago. Couldn't remember the specifics, but as y'all probably know, it falls under the "Is him an abusive master" and people's strongly worded retort to that question.

On one hand, I dislike the "abusive" take because so often, it is an excuse to reduce a character to an 2D caricature for cheap angst purposes, and both JTTW and its historical context deserve more nuances than that.

On the other hand, I don't agree with some of the defenses either——that Tripitaka is Kind and Wise and The Virtuous Monk, Actually, and people who said otherwise just had their views colored by adaptations, or were ignorant westerners misreading the book.

Because trust me, Chinese readers absolutely have gripes with Tripitaka too, and sass him mercilessly.

We may have a better idea of the historical context, namely, the common usage and acceptance of corporal punishments, but quite a few of us don't think he's a good Buddhist either.

Instead, I'd like to focus on his allegorical role, and how it ultimately forms the basis for my interpretation of his character.

It is commonly acknowledged that each pilgrim represent an aspect of the enlightenment seeker: Monkey is the Mind, Dragon Horse the Will, Pigsy the Desire, Sandy the Determination/Ideation.

Tripitaka is either the enlightenment seeker as a human, or the Heart, the Compassion.

But how can someone represent Compassion when his behaviors don't look all that compassionate, when he seems to care more about what a good Buddhist looks like on paper than in spirit?

How can a compassionate man punish his disciple with a migraine spell and disown him twice, be okay with some violence but not others?

Well, to answer that question, I feel like you have to look at Tripitaka in conjunction with SWK, and what the monkey represents. He is literally the Mind Monkey, the boundless potential of human intellect, and that, by itself, is neutral.

In the word of one of the best poems in JTTW:

"He could be good; he could be bad; present good and evil he could do at will. He'd be an immortal, a Buddha, if he's good; wickedness would cloak him with hair and horn."

To put it simply, SWK is one's wits, one's problem-solving skills, the ability to discern good and evil on a cognitive level.

Whenever Tripitaka, the Compassion, is deceived, it falls to the Mind to see the opponents as they are, and take action to protect the human from harm.

But just as blind compassion without judgement can be exploited by evil, the reverse is true for a mind without compassion, driven solely by their own ambition and whims and practical knowledge.

The Mind knows that robbery is a crime, so these robbers deserve death, but has no idea how disturbing it is for a regular guy to witness six people being brutally murdered in front of him.

The Mind knows that abandoning your wife and family to become a bandit is shameful and unfilial, but cannot comprehend why the bandit's father may not want his son killed for these offenses.

The Mind knows right and wrong, but has trouble seeing the human behind those acts, and why one should care in the first place.

And to see what the Mind looks like without any of Compassion's restraint, one needs to look no further than SWK's "Second Mind", the Six-eared Macaque.

Just like how "Heart" sounds like a lame power for a character, Compassion isn't flashy, nor as useful in a strictly ultilitarian sense. In fact, having compassion makes you vulnerable. It hurts. And unscrupulous people will absolutely use it against you.

So why hold onto your weakness and wallow in it? The world doesn't need another sanctimonious wuss, it needs strong, clever people making hard sacrifices, ruthless, logical decisions! Tough up! Stop caring, and you'll never be hurt again!

Much like a certain crowd who think basic human decency is somehow political propaganda, perhaps, when SEM struck Tripitaka, he was trying to do the same thing.

Kill the embodiment of compassion, the sniveling, useless, fragile human that keeps holding SWK back. Replace him as the true Mind, the one strong enough to break all bonds and seize glory with his own two hands.

But without compassion, without humanity, one is no longer a whole person, and cannot reach enlightenment. In fact, just like how Buddha would only give the True Scripture to Tripitaka, if you are not brave enough to make yourself vulnerable, to suffer and feel other's suffering, you will never transcend it.

At best, you can have some pale imitations of the parts you have willingly shut out from yourself.

And that's what SEM does. He thought he could do it on his own, singlehandedly replace SWK and reap the benefits of enlightenment, but he is no Monkey Awakened to Emptiness.

He is just empty; cut off desires because it is base, cut off determined ideation because it is foolish, cut off compassion because it is weak, cut off the altruism and curiosity and creativity from the mind, and you are left with a grand total of NOTHING.

A shadow of a self, desperately clinging onto external validation and stolen stories, reading the pilgrim's travel paperwork out loud as if that would actually make the journey his.

Tripitaka needs to trust SWK and learn from him, because compassion, much like good intention, doesn't solve problems on its own, and mercy is not the same as enabling harm.

SWK needs his master's guidance, because even at his most selfish and impulsive, he cares, and only by extending that care to others and accepting the vulnerability that comes with it can he truly mature and become awakened to the ultimate truth.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

One last bit of ramble: I feel like there is something to be said about Tripitaka's tendency to trust Pigsy, and how the pursuit of enlightenment is often derailed by worldly desires.

Unlike the demons they encountered, however, Pigsy is not the personification of mental obstacles that must be destroyed, because you cannot destroy bodily needs, nor the very human tendencies to slack off and avoid trouble.

Lego Monkie Kid | The Red Bottomed (Horse Monkey) Mandrill

This is a commissioned piece from @chewwypepsicola. Please do not repost or reuse this work for anything and support the original artist.

“The second is the Red-Buttocked Horse-Monkey who has knowledge of yin and yang, understands human affairs, is adept in its daily life, and able to avoid death and lengthen its life.”

Journey to the West

Sorry if you don't understand, I don't speak English and I'm using a translator.

I've also speculated that the other two cestial primates are aspects of Sun Wukong's mind. An update to my Six Ears article reads:

I'm not really sure why the other two don't explicitly appear in the narrative. But I do know that, including Sun Wukong, the four celestial primates mirror the four kinds of monkeys and apes living on Flower-Fruit Mountain. As I write here, chapter one reads:

The Handsome Monkey King thus led a flock of gibbons [yuanhou, 猿猴], macaques [mihou, 獼猴], and horse-monkeys [mahou, 馬猴], some of whom were appointed by him as his officers and ministers (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 106). 美猴王領一群猿猴、獼猴、馬猴等，分派了君臣佐使。

The gibbons are also called "long-armed gibbons" (tongbei yuanhou, 通背猿猴; lit: "(arms)-through-the-back gibbons"). [1] (This refers to the belief that the long, agile arms of the gibbon were somehow connected (i.e. tongbi, 通臂), passing through the back (i.e. tongbei, 通背) (Gulik, 1967, p. 92-93).) The horse-monkeys are also called "red-buttocked horse-monkeys" (chikao mahou, 赤尻馬猴). [2] These terms are important to remember.

Here is the list of the four celestial primates:

Stone-Monkey of Numinous Wisdom (Lingming shihou, 靈明石猴) - i.e. Sun Wukong

Red-Buttocked Horse-Monkey (Chikao mahou, 赤尻馬猴) - The exact same kind as that mentioned above.

Long-Armed Gibbon (Tongbi yuanhou, 通臂猿猴; lit: "Connected Arms Gibbon") - As mentioned above, tongbi (通臂) and tongbei (通背) refer to the ape's long arms.

Six-Eared Macaque (Liu'er mihou, 六耳獼猴)

The apes and monkeys of Flower-Fruit Mountain and the Four Celestial Primates both include Sun Wukong (i.e. the Stone Monkey), Red-Buttocked Horse-Monkeys (Chikao mahou), Long-Armed Gibbons (Tongbei and Tongbi), and Macaques (mihou), one of which has Six Ears (Liu'er). Therefore, the two groups are practically the same.

Based on this, a person might suggest that if one celestial primate (Sun Wukong) is born on Flower-Fruit mountain, then others can be, too. This opens the door to all four of the celestial primates having been born (or at least manifesting) there. And since Six-Ears is an aspect of Monkey's mind, the missing two celestial apes could be as well.

I should note that Wukong's Four Might Commanders are two long-armed (tongbei) gibbons and two red-buttocked horse-monkeys. Someone could suggest that two of them make up the missing celestial primates. But they are never shown to have great powers, just knowledge about the world outside of Flower-Fruit Mountain.

In the end, though, the missing celestial primates may not appear simply because they are not important to the overall narrative.

Notes:

1) Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) incorrectly translates tongbei yuanhou (通背猿猴) as "bare back monkey" (vol. 1, p. 131).

2) Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) incorrectly translates this as "baboon" (vol. 1, p. 106). The horse-monkey was a nickname for the macaques placed in horse stables to keep away sickness (refer to here).

Sources:

Gulik, R. H. (1967). The Gibbon in China: An Essay in Chinese Animal Lore. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Anyway, MORE MYTHOLOGY!

So in Journey to the West, the Buddha explains that there are 4 'spiritual primates' that don't fit into any categories for immortals or types of creatures. Fans of Lego Monkie Kid are likely familiar with 2, the Stone Monkey Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque. The other 2, the Long-armed Gibbon and the Red-Buttocked Baboon are a lot more obscure. They only get a brief mention in JttW because the focus of the chapter they appear in is Macaque, but the idea of a set of super powerful Immortal monkeys is just too fun to pass up, you know? So I've been thunking my thinker.

What if each primate was associated with a different realm (mortal, heavenly, lunar, and underworld) and element? I know the 4 elements (earth, water, wind, fire) are a western idea rooted in alchemy and eastern mythology has 5 elements (earth, water, fire, metal, wood), but there aren't 5 monkeys and this is just a thought experiment and not me trying to force western ideas onto eastern culture.

Got it? Good.

Now, Sun Wukong is very solidly earth because he's, you know, a rock. No surprise there. He was also born in the mortal realm and spent most of his life there, so we'll call him the celestial primate of the mortal realm while we're at it.

The Six-Eared Macaque is another easy one. A lot of LMK fannon associates him with wind, inferring that his heightened hearing has something to do with wind magic. He's also very closely tied to the moon because of the line in "Shadow Play" where he directly compares the Warrior (himself) to the moon. So Macaque is the celestial primate of wind and the Lunar realm.

Now here's where we get a bit more speculative and start using information creatively. There are 2 monkeys, realms, and elements left I want to use, so let's start with the monkeys so everyone has a baseline understanding.

The Long Armed Gibbon (Gibs, from now on) is described as being able to "seize the sun and moon, shorten a thousand mountains, distinguish auspicious from inauspicious, and manipulate planets and stars."

The Red Buttocked Baboon (Babs for short) has "knowledge of yin and yang, understands human affairs, is adept I'd daily life and can avoid death and lengthen its life."

Starting with the realms because they seem easiest to assign, I would give Gibs the Heavenly realm because of its ability to move around celestial objects like the sun, moon, planets, and stars. This leaves the Underworld to Babs, which I think fits nicely because their "knowledge of yin and yang" and "understand[ing] of human affairs" would make them a good assistant to the 10 Kings of the Underworld.

Next comes the 2 remaining elements, water and fire, which are a bit tricky because it could go both ways.

Gibs could be fire because the sun and stars are giant balls of burning plasma, but also water because the sky/heavens are often associated with an ocean or other bodies of water in several different mythologies. For example, in Egyptian mythology, Ra sailed his boat through the sky every day, while in early Abrahamic belief the sky was a huge dome with water on the other side, and rain happened when floodgates were opened to let the water through. In Chinese myth specifically, the Milky Way is often depicted as a river that is sailed through by various deities.

Babs could fit with fire as well because underworlds and hell-adjacent places are often shown to have fires to torment and punish the sinful dead, no surprise there. But there is surprisingly a lot of water symbolism in the realm of the dead as well. For example, some people may be familiar with the Japanese idea of the Sanzu River, very similar in concept to the Greek River Styx, as well as the Chinese Huang Quan/Yellow springs.

Personally I would pair Babs with fire because he has red in his name, making him the celestial primate of fire and the Underworld.

That leaves Gibs to be the celestial primate of water and the Heavenly realm.

(A/N: This is mostly for me, because I can never remember the right diacritics or special symbols.)

Língmíng Shíhóu (靈明石猴): “Stone Monkey of Numinous Wisdom” (=Sūn Wùkōng)

Chìkāo Mǎhóu (赤尻馬猴): “Red Bottom Horse Monkey”

Tōngbèi Yuánhóu (通背猿猴) / Tōngbì Yuánhóu (通臂猿猴): “(Arms) Through the Back Gibbon” / “Connected Arms Gibbon”