Sun Wukong is the protagonist of Journey to the West, and his skills are impressive. Haunting the Dragon Palace, haunting the underworld, haunting the heavenly court, haunting the heavenly palace, fighting against Rulai, and fighting with the demons and monsters on the way to the west. In this way, it seems that Sun Wukong's ability is very high, and he is a character who gives the gods and Buddhas a headache. Many immortals are also very face-saving, and often call Sun Wukong a great sage, as if Sun Wukong's real strength is all over the sky. But does Monkey King really have such strength? What kind of skills did Sun Wukong master, so that all the gods and Buddhas were afraid of him?
When it comes to what Sun Wukong has to do, what we can generally think of is the seventy-two changes and somersault clouds, plus a golden hoop stick, and Sun Wukong doesn't seem to have any other skills. The golden hoop stick in Sun Wukong's hand was snatched from Ao Guang, the Dragon King of the East China Sea, and the golden hoop stick was not only able to be as big or small as he wanted, but there was only weight left. The golden hoop rod weighs 13,500 catties, and it is a ruler used to measure the depth of rivers and lakes when Dayu controls the water, and has made great contributions to Dayu's water control. After Dayu became famous, the golden hoop stick became a collection of the Dragon Palace in the East China Sea.
The golden hoop stick is produced by Taishang Laojun, and there is nothing particularly powerful compared to other treasures of Taishang Laojun. The somersault cloud was taught by Sun Wukong's mentor Bodhi Patriarch, and he tailored the somersault cloud for him according to Sun Wukong's personal characteristics. Except for the speed of traveling, somersault clouds don't seem to have anything else special. Except for running faster and hurrying faster, there is nothing else special about somersault clouds. Seventy-two changes are a common method used by Sun Wukong, but it is obviously not possible to rely on seventy-two changes to fight against others. The art of change is of little use to powerful opponents, and Sun Wukong has never relied on the art of change to defeat a strong opponent.
So what is Sun Wukong's most important ability? We see that whether Sun Wukong is making trouble in the Heavenly Palace and fighting with the heavenly generals, or learning from the West Heaven and fighting with demons and monsters, he is always picking up the golden hoop stick and fighting hard with the opponent. relied on strong strength and martial arts to defeat the opponent, and finally let the opponent flee in embarrassment. And Sun Wukong was able to smash the golden hoop stick like a windmill, and in the end it was his immortal body that he relied on. Others, such as Zhu Bajie, Sha Monk and others, were all afraid of Sun Wukong's golden hoop stick, not afraid of Sun Wukong's somersault clouds and seventy-two changes. And the reason why Sun Wukong has so much power is related to his cultivation.
Sun Wukong apprenticed to the Bodhi Patriarch and pursued the art of immortality. And the Bodhi Patriarch also met Sun Wukong's requirements and passed on the art of immortality to Sun Wukong, which is the great product of the Heavenly Immortal Formula. As the name suggests, the Dapin Heavenly Immortal Jue is able to directly cultivate into a Heavenly Immortal**, and the achievement of Heavenly Immortal should be able to "jump out of the Three Realms, not in the Five Elements" and achieve immortality. That's why Patriarch Bodhi said; "This is the extraordinary way: the creation of heaven and earth, the mystery of invading the sun and the moon; After Dancheng, the ghosts and gods are intolerable. Although you live in Yan Yishou, but after 500 years, a thunderstorm will hit you from the sky, and you must see your nature and mind and avoid it in advance. If you can dodge, you will live with Tianqi, but if you can't dodge, you will die. ”
If you can cultivate the great product of the Heavenly Immortal Recipe to perfection, you can indeed achieve longevity and Tianqi, and stay in the face and benefit longevity, but this also has a price. Because the Great Heavenly Immortal Recipe is too against the sky, if you want to cultivate, you must go through three calamities. The three disasters are the lightning disaster mentioned earlier, and the fire and wind disasters that follow. Patriarch Bodhi said:
Five hundred years later, a fire will burn you. This fire is not a heavenly fire, nor is it a mortal fire, it is called 'yin fire'. It burns under its own spring hole, penetrates the mud wall, turns its internal organs into ashes, and its limbs are decayed, making the thousands of years of asceticism illusory. In another five hundred years, another wind and calamity will blow you. This wind is not the southeast and northwest wind, not the wind of Xun Jinshuo, nor the wind of flowers, willows, pines and bamboos, it is called 'the wind'. Blowing into the six intestines from the fontanelle, passing through the dantian, wearing the nine orifices, the flesh and bones are sparse, and the body is self-dissolving. So you have to dodge. ”
The three immortal tribulations have to be avoided, and the past Shou and Tianqi can't be dodged, so the heavenly immortals are not so easy to achieve. It may be that many immortal cultivators have fallen into the three calamities, and these three calamities that occur once in five hundred years are indeed terrifying, and they are also the filters of immortal cultivators. If there were no three calamities, the heavenly court would be full of immortals.
The three calamities are so terrible, so they need to be avoided, and the way to avoid them is the seventy-two changes of the earth that Patriarch Bodhi taught to Sun Wukong. The purpose of the Bodhi Patriarch to teach Sun Wukong the seventy-two changes is not to let Sun Wukong fight with others, but to let him avoid the three calamities. The method of fighting with others is only an insignificant function of the seventy-two changes, and the main function is to avoid the three calamities. As for how to use the seventy-two changes to avoid the three disasters, it is not explained in the Journey to the West, but Sun Wukong must know it in his heart. Otherwise, Sun Wukong would not honestly leave the Sanxing Cave of the Oblique Moon and return to Huaguo Mountain. But did Sun Wukong really escape the three plagues?
The Three Calamities occur once every five hundred years, and Sun Wukong's cultivation time of the Great Heavenly Immortal Recipe is not so fast as five hundred years. Sun Wukong practiced for three years before he achieved a small achievement, according to Sun Wukong's words, it is called "the law is quite common, and the roots are gradually solid." It can be seen that Sun Wukong, who has cultivated the Heavenly Immortal Recipe for three years, has not already achieved the Heavenly Immortal, but has already started. That's why Patriarch Bodhi said, "Since you have the Dharma, you will get the root cause, and you have already injected into the divine body, but you are only guarding against the 'three calamities'. In other words, Sun Wukong can prepare the means to avoid the three disasters in the future, not that Sun Wukong will definitely face the three disasters.
The Three Calamities are the ones that will only be encountered when the cultivation of the Great Heavenly Immortal Jue reaches a certain level, but we can see from the whole book of Journey to the West, Sun Wukong has not avoided the Three Calamities. Sun Wukong was born about 585 BC (see "Journey to the West: Talking about the Spring and Autumn Era when Sun Wukong was born"), and he was also free in Huaguo Mountain for two or three hundred years before going to Xiniu Hezhou to learn art, so Sun Wukong cultivated the Great Immortal Jue for five hundred years, and the time point for the first time to avoid the three disasters should be after Sun Wukong was pressed under the Five Elements Mountain by Rulai. Sun Wukong had already been suppressed by Rulai at that time, and it was impossible to cast the art of change, so if a real thunderstorm came at that time, Sun Wukong would not be able to rely on seventy-two changes to dodge.
Maybe the three calamities can't cross the ban of Rulai and act directly on Sun Wukong, but after Sun Wukong was rescued by Tang Seng from the Five Elements Mountain, the three calamities should always come, right? But after Sun Wukong jumped out of the Five Elements Mountain, he did not encounter thunderstorms, fires and wind disasters, so it is very likely that Sun Wukong did not survive the three disasters at all. This also shows that Sun Wukong's great product Heavenly Immortal Recipe has not been cultivated to a high enough level, so the three calamities will not come. And the Great Immortal Jue can only be inspired by the Three Calamities when he has cultivated enough heat, so before Sun Wukong was pressed to the foot of the Five Elements Mountain by Rulai, Sun Wukong did not achieve Heavenly Immortal at all.
If the above guess is correct, it means that he is still far from the heavenly immortals, that is to say, he is still far from living with heaven and earth and immortality. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that Sun Wukong will promise Guanyin Bodhisattva to protect Tang monk Xitian to learn scriptures. Because Sun Wukong has not achieved immortals, he cannot live forever, so he needs to find another way to achieve positive results through cooperation with Buddhism, and achieve immortality in disguise. And there are not many people who can really live forever in Journey to the West, even the Antarctic Immortal Weng (birthday star) can't do it, so there should be very few people who can achieve immortality.