Exploring "Journey to the West"* (15)

Chuan Jiang

PureInsight | October 18, 2007

White-Bone Demon

[PureInsight.org] It was
mentioned before that a person's main spirit is his true self. During
successive reincarnations, you may be a man, woman, old, or young, but
these qualities are not your true image. To return to your true self is
to return to what you truly are.



Here, battling with the White-Bone Demon three times is the way to make
sure cultivators will not be confused by sentimentality in this world.
Age, gender, body type, face, nationality, language, like, dislike, and
habits: all of these are attributes that people see in others. These
are not the same attributes seen by the eyes of the gods. In religions,
everything that manifests in this world is an illusion.



Besides the main spirit, human beings also have assistant spirits. Some
say that Tang Xuangzang represents a person's main spirit and the
disciples represent the assistant spirits. Sometimes assistant spirits
can do some good and the main spirit may not always be very
clearheaded. Just like Tang Xuanzang chased away Sun Wukong when he
used ordinary person's reasoning and could not tell right from wrong.



* "Journey to the West" is a
classic novel of Chinese mythology. The Buddhist monk Tang Xuanzang and
his three disciples went to India to obtain the Buddhist Scriptures. On
the surface, it is a novel about the adventures of a monkey with
unsurpassed supernormal capabilities battling demons of all sorts.
Underneath, it is a story about cultivation and tells the attachments
that cultivators have to overcome one by one.



Translated from:

http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/8/30/47945.html

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