A rumor spreads through the Three Realms: in the Water Curtain Cave on Flower-Fruit Mountain lives a mortal monkey who loves cultivating immortality, can teach, knows how to deliver babies, and even provides postpartum care for mother monkeys.
Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva: He hasn’t even entered the underworld, and the underworld is already at peace!
Jade Emperor: Invite him to Heaven at once. I’ll give him an official post.
Tathagata: Wukong, is this monkey one of your disciples or descendants?
Sun Wukong: Buddha, you wrong me! After completing the pilgrimage, Old Sun attained Buddhahood and stopped involving himself in worldly affairs long ago!
Many years later, this mortal monkey leads the monkeys in overthrowing the Hall of Yama, wreaking Havoc in Heaven, and driving Tathagata from Spirit Mountain.
Someone asks him, “What exactly are you trying to do?”
The mortal monkey grins. “What I want is simple.”
Equality for all beings, and unity across the Three Realms.
Or, to put it another way, fairness.
