Synopsis of The New Journey to the West: A Mortal Stone's Path to Buddhahood
The pilgrimage to the West has long been enshrined as legend, but few know that beneath the hooves of the white horse carrying the four pilgrims once lay an unremarkable stone from the mortal world.
It had neither Wukong's boundless supernatural powers nor Tang Sanzang's destiny as a reincarnated golden cicada, and it possessed none of the immortal or Buddhist foundations of Bajie and Sha Wujing. It gained awareness by chance after being touched by a trace of Buddha-light from the pilgrimage party. From then on, it was no longer a lifeless thing left to the wind and rain, but an “observer” on the margins of the Three Realms. It watched Wukong's resentment take shape beneath Five Elements Mountain, heard the longing Bajie hid beyond Gao Village, accompanied Sha Wujing in counting the lonely years at the bottom of the Flowing Sands River, and witnessed the struggles and tenderness along the pilgrimage road that never made it into the Investiture of the Gods.
When the pilgrimage party completed their merit, the stone remained in the mortal world. With no shortcut granted by a bodhisattva and no good fortune of a protective treasure, it could only begin as a pebble at the foot of a mountain: listening to woodcutters sing of life's joys and sorrows, traveling with merchants through perilous windswept sands, learning “goodness” amid the shifting fortunes of the mortal world, and resisting “evil” in the cracks between the Three Realms. By the time the pilgrims of old had become legends, this mortal stone was using the clumsiest of methods to walk, step by step, its own “path to Buddhahood.”
This is not a retelling of the legendary Journey to the West, but a story for everyone who is “as ordinary as a stone.” Even without an extraordinary birth, you can hold fast to a single conviction and persevere along the way, becoming a unique “Buddha” in your own life.
