The Journey to the West, Revised Edition, Volume 2 (96 page)

22
. To face: that is,
wang
. The full moon on the fifteenth day of the lunar month is thought to be facing the sun perfectly.

23
. Two Eights:
er ba
. The fundamental source for this term may be found in a poem of the
Zhou Yi cantongqi
, DZ 999, 20: 76. The poem reads:

    
When Two Quarters fuse their essence,

    
The cosmic body is thus formed.

    
Two Eights will make up one catty:

    
The Way of Change is right and lasting.

    
,
,
,
.

The commentary by the Song Neo-Confucian philosopher, Zhu Xi
(1130–1200), in the
Zhou Yi cantongqi kaoyi
, 11a (SBBY) interprets the numbers as the two periods of eight days during the first and the last quarter of the month (see n.21), thus agreeing with one part of Sun Wukong’s exposition in the novel. Many Daoist commentators in the Daozang and elsewhere, however, tend to follow the literal meaning of line 3 and read
er ba
as referring to two eight-ounce units of medicine or chemicals. The two portions add up to one catty (or Chinese “pound”) of materials used in alchemy. For example, two lines of another heptasyllabic regulated poem (# 32) by Zhang Boduan, the Song Quanzhen patriarch, in the
Wuzhen pian
of DZ 263: 730, read:

    
Medicine, weighing one catty, requires Two Eights;

    
Regulating “fire times” depends on yin-yang.

    
,
.

“Fire times” (more recently translated as “fire phasing”) refers to the temporal regulation of heat in the process of both external and internal alchemy. According to SCC 2: 330, the familiar term may indicate either “the right moments for carrying out the chemical operations” or “the strength of the heating” in such esoteric processes. See also the entry under “
huohou
” in ET 1: 526–31. In the modern vernacular, the term is used in cookbooks and by chefs for food preparation.

24
. Nine Times Nine: the product is eighty-one, which in the narrative represents the number of perfection. See chapter 99 of XYJ (p. 1116), where Guanyin explicitly declares that “in the gate of Buddha, Nine Times Nine will lead one to return to the real (
guizhen
) or authenticity.” The statement resonates more with Quanzhen Daoism than Buddhism. However, eighty-one as a number may refer also to the eighty-one species of illusion or misleading thoughts arising from pride, folly, wrath, and desire. There are nine grades of such illusion, according to Buddhist teachings, in each of the nine realms of desire. Overcoming them, one is on the path to true enlightenment.