Reading Saiyuki makes me wish I knew more about Buddhism.
loligo has
a terrific post exploring some of the issues involving Sanzo and non-attachment-- and I'm not sure that she had at that point read volume nine, which adds a new wrinkle to the concept, so I'd be interested to hear if she has since.
I have also heard a lot of Zen parables, and I bet you have too.
Here's a small archive of them.
There are several I've heard which involve someone asking a master a dumb or over-intellectualized question, who responds by bonking them over the head, at which point they sometimes become enlightened. This seems very appropriate to Saiyuki, if you imagine Goku with Nyoi-bo instead of an old man with a shinai.
They frequently involve a sudden insight delivered by way of an action that is also a metaphor: an overflowing teacup representing a mind full of pre-conceived ideas, or a perfect tea ceremony as the reflection and representation of the tea master's state of perfect discipline and calm.
This is a good way of teaching in real life: an overflowing tea cup, or even the story and mental image of it, is more memorable and more likely to produce real insight than just telling someone, "If you are already convinced that you know everything, you won't be able to learn anything new."
In Saiyuki, Goku has several very significant moments when he delivers similar lessons via physicalized metaphors to the other characters, which gives them the insights that he already instinctively grasps.
Goku is literally a child of Earth. He loves physical, earthy things: food, fighting, physical activity in general, and a few other people. (If he was old enough, I'm sure he'd be into sex too.) In particular, he loves Sanzo, and is not at all afraid or ashamed of his feelings. Goku represents nature, natural feelings, natural desires, and instinct. He understands some very complicated and sophisticated concepts instinctively, on a gut level. Unlike Sanzo, who is more likely to use words, Goku communicates these, when he does, mostly through metaphoric action.
It's not accidental that the "kun" (Japanese reading) of the "go" in "Goku" is "satori--" enlightenment.
There's a
discussion here which touches upon Goku's attempt to explain the complex "fight for yourself" concept to Kougaiji by beating him up.
In volume nine, Goku uses a mahjong game to point out to the others how they have convinced themselves that they are hopelessly outmatched by Kami-sama, and how their own prediction of defeat has become a self-fulfilling prophesy; he also uses the game to show them that they can rise above that to win.
But the most interesting example of this is in volume four, when Goku draws a life-line across Hakkai's hand.
I don't think it would have been meaningful to Hakkai if it had happened at the beginning of the volume; but by the end, when he's gone through so much, he's ready for the insight.
I don't think Hakkai ever really believed that his short life-line had any real significance, but it was a metaphor for something that he did believe was true: that he was irreparably damaged and doomed to a short, unhappy, guilt-ridden life; that he had no real future.
To take a pen and draw a longer life-line does not change the life-line itself-- but, because it's a purely metaphoric gesture, it points out the metaphoric nature of the problem itself. Just as it's purely an act of will for Goku to change Hakkai's life-line, it's also purely Hakkai's will, and not some irrevocable destiny or fact, that makes him doomed and forever damaged. And, just as the line can be changed by action, so Hakkai can change himself and his fate by choosing to believe and live differently.
This is a very sophisticated solution to a complicated Gordian knot of a problem. (And also one of the most moving moments in the entire series, in my opinion.) And yet all it takes is a second for Goku to grab a pen.
And that's Goku in a nutshell. I've always thought it was a shame that he and Koumyou never met, as they both had not just a pure love for life and others, but that rare ability to understand that things that are very complicated, like living, are also very simple.