A Core Ship From The Start

If seen from this perspective, then Jin Chanzi’s irreverence towards Tathagata makes perfect sense. As previously stated, before Tathagata, it was Burning Lamp Ancient Buddha who managed Buddhism, and it was his scriptures that were recited, the so-called "Hinayana Buddhism" that Monk Tang recited, which bluntly put, required monks to renounce wealth such as gold and silver, and to engage in arduous self-cultivation, and so on.

But when Tathagata took over, it was time to turn the page. Burning Lamp’s methods became obsolete; now Buddhism was ruled by my word, where money took precedence over everything else.

Therefore, those who remained on Spirit Mountain were all those who were in cahoots with Tathagata. Those who found it disagreeable had long since left.

Jin Chanzi practiced the Buddhism of Burning Lamp, naturally, he couldn’t stand Tathagata’s money-grubbing ways, and thinking about it, his dozing off during Tathagata’s sermon was utterly justified, simply the right thing to do. We cultivate Buddhism to better ourselves, yet you prattle on above about "capturing performance metrics, raising prices" —— are we marketing the scriptures like pork? Who cares about that?

Jin Chanzi disliked Tathagata, and naturally, Tathagata disliked Jin Chanzi too. So Tathagata found a pretext to demote him to the mortal world. It also served as killing the chicken to scare the monkey, alerting others that if they displeased me for a moment, I’d retaliate by souring their entire lives.

So those who stayed on Spirit Mountain were just Tathagata’s clique.

And at the end of the journey, the conflict between both parties was laid out in blatant clarity.

As everyone knows, during Monk Tang’s first journey to retrieve the scriptures, he failed to bribe Ah Nu and Garan, hence they gave him scripture-less texts. When Burning Lamp performed the ritual and discovered this, Monk Tang again set forth, requesting the True Scripture from Tathagata. Tathagata gave the order; however, Ah Nu and Garan, upon arrival at the scripture hall, still asked Monk Tang for a bribe — without it, no scriptures for you!

Why were they so bold? Because this was the ideological clash between Tathagata and Jin Chanzi.

In Jin Chanzi’s view, the Buddhist Law was for the salvation of all people, "Having travelled through hardships to this place, you see my sincerity, you should also grant it to me."

Alas, Tathagata states that’s old news, now I make the rules here, you need money to attain the True Scripture, without money, regardless of your sincerity, I won’t give you the scripture, let’s see if you’ll accept that!