#sangha

Sooo here ya go!

(Fyi there's even more gay stuff that I simply could not illustrate because the book did it itself.)

(These scenes below are my favorite.)

I was asked a very specific question on Discord: "In the book, do they refer to Wujing more as Sēng or Heshang?" These are both variants for "monk."

Here are the results:

Sha seng (沙僧; "Monk Sha") - 814 times

Wiktionary explains that seng (僧) is a "clipping" of sengqie (僧伽), a transliteration of Sangha, or the "community of monks, nuns, novices and laity."

Sha heshang (沙和尚; "Teacher/Priest Sha") - 94 times

As for heshang (和尚), it is "[b]orrowed from Prakrit 𑀉𑀯𑀚𑁆𑀛𑀸𑀅 (uvajjhāa), 𑀉𑀅𑀚𑁆𑀛𑀸𑀅 (uajjhāa), 𑀉𑀚𑁆𑀛𑀸𑀅 (ujjhāa), 𑀑𑀚𑁆𑀛𑀸𑀅 (ŏjjhāa, 'teacher; religious teacher'), all from Sanskrit उपाध्याय (upādhyāya, 'teacher; preceptor; spiritual adviser'."

I didn't know the etymology of these terms until now. Very interesting.

Compassion arises like an itch, spontaneously and without effort. It requires no special tending or intention beyond the practice of being with what is.

In the cultivation of awareness, one naturally takes note of (and accord with) the implications of one’s glimpsing of one’s true self. Namely, that its limits are boundless, and that every variety of experience is natal to one’s being.

From this experiential vantage, a universal sense and flow of compassion emerges as the very act of according with reality.

This compassion isn’t tropic, and it often doesn’t fit the performative mold of attempts at the cultivation of compassion for compassion’s sake.

Rather this compassion is more dispositional in nature- transmuting anger with sadness, and through the great gate of sadness reaching through to touch the heart of all beings, beneath the play of greed, anger, and ignorance, to what those things give rise to shield- namely, the self unknown.

~JRP