The 81 Tribulations of Journey to the West Are Your 81 Daily Anxieties

A Thirty-Something Rereads Journey to the West

The other night I couldn't sleep, so I pulled a dusty copy of Journey to the West off the shelf.

As a kid, I watched the TV show. My favorite was Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. One somersault — a hundred and eight thousand li. Seventy-two transformations. One swing of his staff and the demons scattered. It felt thrilling. Who wouldn't want to be the Great Sage Equal to Heaven?

But reading the original at thirty-something, everything changed.

I no longer thought Sun Wukong was cool. I thought he was exhausted.

Fourteen years of walking. A hundred and eight thousand li. Ninety-nine — no, eighty-one tribulations, each one potentially fatal. Some demons wanted to eat the monk. Some tricked you with love. Some set traps you walked into yourself. Barely survive one, climb over a mountain, and another one appears.

When I closed the book, it hit me — isn't this just my daily life?

The Demons Aren't on the Mountain. They're in Your Head

As a kid, I thought demons were mountain spirits with fangs, waiting to eat people.

Now I realize: every demon Wu Cheng'en wrote about is something inside the human heart.

The Gold and Silver Horn Kings, running around with their magic treasures capturing people — isn't that just comparison culture? Whose house is bigger, whose car is more expensive, whose kid got into the better school. One flash of those "treasures" and you feel inadequate, sucked into the gourd.

The White Bone Demon is the scariest. She doesn't fight head-on. She changes shapes — a beautiful girl, a kind old woman, a gentle old man. One moment of sympathy and she strikes. Aren't those the words that sound like they're for your own good? "I'm only saying this for your sake." "Everyone else does it this way." "You'll regret it if you don't." How many traps are dug wearing the disguise of kindness?

The Kingdom of Women — that tribulation had no battle, no magic weapon. The hardest kind: the thing your own heart wants. The monk Tang Sanzang almost stayed. Who doesn't want a stable home? Who doesn't want to be treated gently? But a voice inside says: you still have road ahead.

I stopped reading there for a long time.

Because I've had my own "Kingdom of Women." Not a place — a moment. A person, a job, a comfortable life. Every voice saying stay. But knowing, deep down, it's time to go.

The Cruelest Part of the 81 Tribulations: You Start from Zero Every Time

The hardest thing about the eighty-one tribulations isn't any single tribulation itself.

It's that you barely survive one, let out a breath, and the next one comes. And — surviving the earlier ones doesn't make you stronger. The monk still can't fight. Sun Wukong's staff doesn't grow an inch longer. Every tribulation starts from scratch.

This is too real.

You solve a major crisis at work last month, think you've grown, and a completely new problem hits this month. You're just as lost. You survive a painful relationship last year, encounter a new difficulty this year, and you still cry, still panic.

Growth isn't "I'll never be afraid again."

Growth is "I know I'll be afraid, but I keep walking anyway."

When Sun Wukong burst from the stone, he feared nothing. But by the time he reached the Holy Mountain, he'd been afraid the entire journey. He still arrived.

The Most Useless Master Is Actually the Most Important

As a kid, I couldn't stand Tang Sanzang.

He couldn't do anything. He only knew how to chant the headache sutra to control Sun Wukong. He cried at everything. When captured, he'd just yell "Wukong, save me!" The weakest person on the team, and somehow the leader.

But then I understood something.

Without Tang Sanzang, Sun Wukong never reaches the Holy Mountain.

It's not that the monk was powerful. It's that he had one thing no one could shake: he knew where he was going.

Zhu Bajie constantly wanted to quit and go home. Sun Wukong sometimes thought about returning to his mountain kingdom. Sha Wujing was honest but had no ideas. The whole team — only Tang Sanzang never wavered in direction, no matter what happened.

He was captured a hundred times. No one ever asked "are you still going?" Because he would always go.

You probably know someone like this. Not the strongest, not the smartest, but with a kind of certainty. Not stubbornness — he said "I'm going to the West," and then he went.

That kind of person is a natural compass.

The Last Tribulation: The Scriptures Fell in the Water and Tore

There's a detail at the end of Journey to the West that I've always remembered.

After obtaining the true scriptures, on the way home, crossing the Tongtian River, the scriptures fell into the water. They fished them out and dried them, only to find some pages were torn, the characters smudged and unreadable.

The disciples were devastated.

But through this detail, the author says something: damaged scriptures are still scriptures. An imperfect arrival is still an arrival.

How many things in your life were "almost good enough"? A proposal you worked on for half a year, rewritten by the client beyond recognition. An exam you prepared for endlessly, missed by two points. Money saved for years to buy a home, fell just short and you settled for second best.

We always think "perfect" is the only acceptable ending. But Journey to the West tells you: even the Buddha on the Holy Mountain doesn't hand you an intact scripture. Those torn pages are homework left for you.

So What Are the 81 Tribulations, Really?

I think now that the eighty-one tribulations aren't a number.

They're a way of saying: in this life, you will have many, many moments you can't get past. One after another, endlessly. Being afraid won't help. Being anxious won't help. Crying won't help.

But one thing helps: you're still walking.

Tang Sanzang never once "defeated" a demon. He was always captured, then waited to be rescued, or waited for things to pass. His only skill was not giving up.

Not giving up isn't the gritted-teeth kind. It's: can't walk today? Set up camp and rest. Walk again tomorrow. Captured by a demon? Fine, wait a bit. Misunderstood? Fine, no need to explain.

This is probably what "walking the path" means. Not "I must win," but "I'm still here."

One Last Thing

That night, finishing Journey to the West, the sky outside was already getting light.

I kept thinking: if my life also has eighty-one tribulations, which one am I on right now?

I couldn't figure it out.

But I remembered watching the TV show as a kid. When the pilgrims reached the Holy Mountain, the Buddha said, "Eighty-one tribulations — you're still one short." So they were thrown back into the river, soaked to the bone, scriptures torn.

They didn't complain.

They picked them up, dried them off, and kept walking.

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Three questions for you:

1. The tribulation you're going through right now — what kind of demon do you think it is?
2. Is there a "Kingdom of Women" in your heart — a place you know you should leave, but always want to stay?
3. If life really requires completing eighty-one tribulations, which one do you think would be the hardest?