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A Monkey King is a copy of "Journey to the West".
He has a distinct personality and superior strength, and even the gods and goddesses have to give him face. But there is an unwritten rule in the world of cultivating immortals, that is, rank and seniority are linked, in short, the more calamities experienced, the higher the status.
is like the top level like the Jade Emperor, and it took "1,750 eons to sit in that position." 129,600 years per eon. ”
can talk about Brother Monkey's practice, it has only been more than 20 years. If you talk about seniority, you can only struggle at the bottom of the chain of contempt.
Therefore, Sun Wukong's strength and status are completely unequal to his immortal rank.
So in the complex Chinese immortal hierarchy system, which rank should Sun Wukong rank in?
First, the level of immortals
Folk belief has always been a hodgepodge, radish and cabbage, each with its own love.
Even the genealogy of immortals, as long as they can get a little immortal, whether it is a character in a serious religious book or a fictional image in a drama novel, they are all stuffed into the brain.
However, China's system of immortals is large and complex, and it is also an extremely serious and solemn matter within Taoism.
Therefore, the arrangement and rank of the immortal system have existed since ancient times. As early as the "Taiping Sutra" of the Eastern Han Dynasty, some people have begun to sort the immortals.
During the Southern Liang Dynasty, Tao Hongjing of the Shangqing Dynasty made the "True Spirit Position Industry Map", according to the secular "order of the court's class" and the principle of respect and inferiority, the chaotic many immortals were arranged in seven orders, and a more orderly divine genealogy was cleaned up, which became the authoritative standard of the immortal ranking.
In the Song Dynasty, the genealogy of the immortals developed to a very complete point.
In the fifty-eighth chapter of "Journey to the West", the Buddha said to the Bodhisattva, "There are five immortals in Zhou Tian: heaven, earth, gods, people, and ghosts." "Actually, it's talking about the five levels of immortals divided by Wang Chongyang and the other Inner Dan families.
Ghost fairy is the lowest level of immortals, and the father-in-law of the land is a ghost fairy, the kind that demons and monsters can go up and step on and bully;
Then there are the human immortals, that is, the kind of immortals floating everywhere in heaven and earth;
The immortals are one level higher than the human immortals. Including Fu Lushou and other heavenly blessed immortal officials;
The earth immortals are the immortals on the land like the Zhenyuan Great Immortals, as well as the sea immortals of the ten continents and three islands, and the immortals of the netherworld;
The highest level is the Heavenly Immortals. It is the highest position of the gods. Including the Emperors of the Heavens, the Sun, the Moon and the Stars, the Emperors of the Three Officials, the Scriptures of the Past Dynasties and the Famous Mages, as well as those gods who control the wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
However, no matter what level of immortal it is, the immortal level is to be cultivated one level at a time, and the calamity is also to be crossed one by one.
Therefore, the biggest obstacle to becoming an immortal is lifespan, and the longer you live, the higher the possibility of becoming an immortal.
Patriarch Su Bodhi asked Sun Wukong what he wanted to learn, and the first sentence Sun Wukong asked was, "Can you live forever like this?" ”
Second, Sun Wukong's road to immortality
In the concept of mortals, only the gods are carefree. But it's like you can't just stare at the wolf when you eat meat, forget that the wolf also has a time to be beaten. We can't just see the chic of being immortals, and ignore the bitter tears behind them.
First of all, the difficulty coefficient of becoming an immortal is comparable to ascending to the sky. Don't think that immortals are all born, the immortals in "Journey to the West" are all cultivated
It is the stone monkey Monkey King, who has absorbed the essence of heaven and earth, the aura of the sun and the moon, and is born in the wind, and the road to immortality is also extraordinary.
When he was still a stone monkey, he occupied the water curtain cave in Huaguo Mountain and established himself as the Monkey King. "In the blessed land of Xianshan, the ancient cave and the Divine Continent, there is no jurisdiction over the unicorn, no control of the phoenix, and no restraint on the throne of the world." This day is more immortal than a fairy.
In this way, he was at large for more than 300 years.
Suddenly, one day, he began to worry. Because he realized that he would also be old and decrepit in the future, and he would have to be secretly controlled by the king of Hades, and suddenly die one day, wouldn't it be in vain to come to this world for a while?
In order to seek a way to live forever, Sun Wukong traveled across the ocean to visit Xiandao, he ran for eight or nine years, but he did not find a reliable master.
In the end, in Fangcun Mountain, Lingtai in Xiniu Hezhou, he finally had the fate to worship the ancestor of Su Bodhi as his teacher, and was later given the name Sun Wukong, which can be regarded as embarking on the right path of cultivating immortals.
In the three-star cave of the oblique moon, Sun Wukong spent 20 years before and after, and finally learned the great product of the heavenly immortal formula, seventy-two changes and a somersault of 108,000 miles of "somersault cloud". But because of his skills, he was expelled from the school by the Bodhi Patriarch.
After returning to Huaguo Mountain, he was majestic, destroyed the Demon King of the Mixed World, and also accepted the Bull Demon King and other younger brothers.
The team is growing day by day, but he doesn't have any decent equipment in his hand, which does affect his talent.
In order to find a good guy, he "made a closed water method, twisted the trick", "went to the bottom of the Oriental Ocean", not only forcibly took the Dinghai God Needle Ruyi Golden Hoop Stick left by Longgong Dayu when he controlled the water; He also won the phoenix wings purple gold crown, chain gold armor, and lotus silk steps as a drape.
At the age of three hundred and forty-two, he was at the end of his life.
But he didn't believe in this evil, and made a big fuss in the underworld, so he just ticked off the names of himself and a group of monkeys and monkeys in the book of life and death, and forced a right to "live with heaven and earth".
The Dragon King and the King of Hades held a grudge and reported to Heaven to demand the arrest of Sun Wukong.
As soon as the Jade Emperor heard this, this monkey was going to arrest him if he was so noisy!
But Tai Bai Xing came up with an idea and said that it was better to recruit him.
So, Sun Wukong was deceived into going to the Heavenly Palace and sealed a Bi Ma Wen.
3. The level of Sun Wukong
After Sun Wukong was recruited by Tai Bai Xing in "Journey to the West", he was taken to the Heavenly Palace. It seems that since then, it has been ranked as "a high-grade heavenly immortal, and it is ranked in the Yunban Baozhen", but in fact, it is not necessarily the case.
Because in Wuzhuang Guan, Sun Wukong knocked down the ginseng fruit tree of Yuanzi of Dixian Town, and if he wanted to save the fruit tree, he could only rise one level and go to the realm of immortals for help.
So on Penglai Island in Mishima, Sun Wukong asked for help from Fu Lu Shou Samsung.
Samsung said, "You monkey, you don't know anyone." That town Yuanzi is the ancestor of the earth immortals, and we are the ancestors of the gods; Although you have obtained the heavenly immortals, you are still Taiyi scattered, and you have not entered the true stream. How did you get out of his hands? ”
Speaking of which, although Sun Wukong has the highest level title in the Heavenly Immortal Realm, in fact, he is not officially included in the compilation, and can only be counted as a scattered number. That is, the erratic human immortals in the heavens and the earth are actually two immortal levels lower than Zhen Yuanzi.
What's more, not to mention that Sun Wukong before learning the scriptures was a living and scattered immortal who "jumped out of the Three Realms and was not in the Five Elements".
It was he who entered the Heavenly Court, took up his post for the first time, and the errand of Bi Ma Wen was a small role without establishment that "did not enter the stream", which was equivalent to a temporary worker in the Heavenly Court.
The second time, although he was named the Monkey King, he turned out to be a "official" security guard in Pantaoyuan.
To put it bluntly, at most, they are supernumerary personnel of Tianxian, but they are not even officially established immortals.
Sun Wukong has gone through hardships and finally "cultivated the Tao of immortals and lived with the sky", and it stands to reason that he has the conditions to become a god.
However, because he could not report his teacher's inheritance, in the eyes of the immortals, his background was not orthodox, but he was just a "monkey who became a sperm and was a human beast in the first life".
Therefore, he was discriminated against by the gods in the heavenly palace, and he was often called a "demon immortal", but in fact, his qualifications as a god were not recognized.
The Monkey King found that his official position was actually a horseman who raised horses for the Jade Emperor.
He hated that he had been tricked by the Jade Emperor, and in a fit of anger, he went down to Heaven, and without saying a word, he set up the banner of Monkey King in Huaguo Mountain, and wanted to draw a line with the Heavenly Palace and fight against each other.
When the Jade Emperor saw that this monkey was turning against the sky, he immediately ordered Li Tianwang to take the heavenly soldiers and generals to arrest him. As a result, he was defeated by the Monkey King.
So, the Jade Emperor listened to Tai Bai Xing's suggestion and issued an edict to entitle Sun Wukong as the Monkey King.
Fourth, Monkey King
Sun Wukong is a demon monkey in the end, don't look at him making a lot of fun, in fact, he doesn't know anything about the twists and turns in the fairy world.
Official rank from? How high or low is it? He doesn't care at all, as long as he has a big name. Therefore, as soon as Li Changgeng flickered, he followed the Heavenly Palace again.
The Jade Emperor really made him the Monkey King, and on the right side of Pan Taoyuan, he set up a Monkey King Mansion, and also equipped his subordinates. Seeing that he was idle, let him "take charge of the peach orchard".
Nominally, his qualifications were recognized, and he was also very popular in the Heavenly Palace, "befriending all the stars and gods in the sky, no matter how high or low, they all call him brother and brother."
But this qualification is discounted. His efforts did not make his actual status comparable to that of other immortals.
Because, the Queen Mother's peach event did not invite him, the "extremely official" Monkey King.
Sun Wukong looked at it, isn't this a clear level discrimination?
So he was not polite, and directly broke into the peach banquet, swept away the delicacies in the Yao Pond, and also broke into the Tushi Palace, and ate all the immortal treasure gold pills refined by Taishang Laojun, "similar to eating fried beans".
The Jade Emperor was really angry this time, and he dispatched all kinds of heavenly soldiers and generals to suppress Sun Wukong.
Sun Wukong was tied to the demon slaying platform and subjected to slashing and axe, fire and thunder, and was also pushed into Lao Jun's gossip furnace for fire refining, but he was not only unscathed, but refined a body of diamond iron bones with fiery eyes.
As soon as it came out, it was "pulled out of the wishful stick, shook it in the wind, and the bowl was thick and thin, still in his hand," 100,000 heavenly soldiers and generals, the four heavenly kings, and the twenty-eight stars could not defeat it.
However, the havoc in the Heavenly Palace ended in the defeat of this hero, who was unable to escape from the clutches of the Buddha.
Sun Wukong, who jumped out of the Five Elements, was finally pressed under the Five Elements Mountain and repented and reformed.
It can be said that making trouble in the Heavenly Palace is the journey of Sun Wukong, an immortal who already has the ability to be an immortal, to fight for the name of an immortal, of course, his failure also shows that he cannot become a veritable immortal.
Then the only way to achieve equality with them is to find another way, and this other way is to become a Buddha.
Fifth, the person who learns the scriptures
Sun Wukong lost a bet with the Buddha and was crushed under the Five Elements Mountain, but this is not the end of his legendary story. On the contrary, it is only a starting point in his legendary life, because this is only the first page of his legendary chapter.
Five hundred years later, Guanyin Bodhisattva found Sun Wukong and brought him a chance to change his life against the sky - to follow Tang Seng to the west to learn scriptures.
At first, Sun Wukong was unimpressed with this task, thinking that it was just a boring errand.
However, Guanyin Bodhisattva told him that this was a time to "uphold the teachings, enter my Buddha's door, and then correct the fruit."
In other words, the algorithm is optimized, and this is the shortcut to Monkey King's Buddhahood. Therefore, Sun Wukong decided to accept this challenge and began his journey of learning scriptures.
Tang Sanzang devoted himself to the Buddha and insisted on going to the Western Lingshan in order to obtain the true scriptures.
Sun Wukong wants to see the Buddha in the west. However, this time it is not for fighting, but for the sake of becoming a Buddha, that is, "cultivating to achieve positive results", being equal to the gods and Buddhas, and living with the heavens, the earth, the mountains and rivers.
The path to Buddhahood is also difficult and full of thorns.
As Tang Seng's eldest apprentice, he wants to protect his master, kill demons and demons along the way, and open up a way for Tang Seng to learn scriptures.
Therefore, just like his troubles in the Heavenly Palace, his goal has not changed, but the object of struggle has changed.
Because this time, it was not the heavenly generals of the God Realm who hindered him from realizing his wish, but demons from all sides. With his seventy-two changes, the ability to go to heaven and earth, and a wishful golden hoop stick that crosses rivers and stirs the sea, and carries mountains and moons, Sun Wukong helps the poor and sweeps away the evil along the way.
From the Two Realms Mountain to the West Tianling Mountain, it has gone through 14 spring and autumn seasons, traveled 108,000 miles, and experienced 9981 difficulties. This road of learning from the scriptures is called a magnificent wave.
In the end, Sun Wukong successfully completed the task of learning scriptures and achieved positive results.
His growth and transformation amazed all the immortals. He is no longer the sealed one who was crushed under the Five Elements Mountain, but a true hero, a Fighting Buddha worthy of everyone's respect.
6. Fighting the Holy Buddha
To learn the scriptures is to become a Buddha.
Immortals are a Taoist system, so if you want to become an immortal, you don't need to go so far to the west sky.
But whether it is the righteous path or the side door, one's own cultivation is eternal, not only has to go through the test of the triple heavenly tribulation, even if the soldier dissolves the body and becomes an immortal, it is difficult to maintain the identity of an immortal.
Because, there are not only levels in the immortal sequence, but also an elimination mechanism. If the immortals are in trouble, and they don't even have anything to do, then I'm sorry, the immortals can't do it. Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Monk are good examples.
However, this elimination system is not absolute, the key is to have a relationship in the fairy circle.
Second, one must not make a mistake in the heavenly realm. If you make a mistake on earth, as long as there is someone in heaven to cover it, it will be fine.
Taishang Laojun's green cow, the boy of alchemy, the Kui wood wolf who became a yellow-robed monster, and the goldfish raised in the Guanyin Pond, went down to the world to make trouble, and after blocking the Tang monks and apprentices, they could still go back to be immortals, which made Wukong, Bajie and Sha Seng really uneasy.
Although Buddhism also has such a person as "the scriptures cannot be passed on lightly, nor can they be taken empty", the grand wish of the Buddhists to cross people wholeheartedly is true. Moreover, as long as you put down the butcher knife, you can become a Buddha on the ground.
Therefore, they no longer bothered about being deprived of immortal status, and the scripture-learning team only focused on protecting Tang Seng's success in learning scriptures. It is also in order to allow himself to cultivate himself and become a Buddha.
After Sun Wukong was named "Fighting to Defeat Buddha", he also transferred from the Taoist immortal system to the Buddhist system, which is no longer directly related to the grade in the Taoist system.
From then on, he was no longer the demon monkey who was despised by the gods, nor was he the small character who struggled in the Heavenly Immortal Realm.
In the world of Buddhism, there is no position or order, the wisdom realm of the Buddha is perfect, not sealed, certified, but achieved by self-reliance, and this understanding, in the novel, Sun Wukong has already realized on the way to learn the scriptures,
This time the golden body is the right fruit, and the seal that comes is just an official announcement.
From a Buddhist point of view, the "Buddha" is the highest enlightened being. The second is "Bodhisattva", and then "Arhat", so in terms of the degree of enlightenment, Sun Wukong is more than 500 Arhats.
Epilogue:
One person goes fast, a group of people goes far.
Sun Wukong's journey is actually his own cultivation process of trial and error.
At first, I took the route of personal heroism, but I ran into walls everywhere and found that it didn't work. So he joined the learning team and became the core force of the team. In the end, not only did the team achieve positive results, but he himself also completed the earth-shattering transformation from a monkey to a fighting Buddha.
It's too difficult to take on the whole world alone, so let's form a group.
Those hurdles that you can't get over are all proof that your legs are short. The end of failure is not just frustration, there can be a team. Because the team can help you choose a U-turn and re-plan your route in the right place.
Resources:
CNKI "Journey to the West" Monkey King Image Research" - Zhao Leping