The first seven chapters of the Journey to the West tells the story of the Monkey King, which is my favorite character of the entire novel. The monkey is born on the Flower Fruit Mountain from a stone, and learns Taoist way from Patriarch Bodhi in the Three Stars and Slanting Moon Cave (“斜月三星” 洞). In Chinese, the character “heart” (“心”) could be seen as a combination of three stars and a slanting moon (斜月:一勾;三星:三点). The Surangama Sutra also believes that human’s heart has 72 phases while Sun Wukong knows 72 transformations; the character of Sun can therefore be viewed as a representation of the human heart, which can be unruly sometimes. At the beginning of the novel, Sun is a fighter who could be vicious and ill-tempered; he creates chaos with his restless irreverence and irrepressible curiosity. The first part of the novel ends with Buddha changed his five fingers into the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth), symbolizing the “greed, jealousy, ignorance, slowness, and doubt” in Buddhism, to trap the Monkey King.
Accompanying Xuanzang on a journey to the West truly redeems the Monkey King. Together with Pigsy and Sandy, the group encounter all manner of danger, including monsters, evil magicians, mountains of fire, and evil spirits. Sun’s wit helps Xuanzang escape many perilous situation. At the end of the journey, all of the travelers are spiritually rewarded; Sun achieves the status of “Buddha Victorious in Strife.”, the highest state of enlightenment in Buddhism.
Even today, so many songs and movies come out every year with the Monkey King as a theme; I believe that’s because we can all find a version of ourselves in this character, as he is the representation of the human hearts --- brave but need the spiritual journey to be completed.
