Returning on a snowy night.
These five words are the starting point and the end point.
When they set off from Chang'an, they were chess pieces and chips in the drinking game. Along the way to the west, I experienced ninety-nine and eighty-one hardships, as well as countless social deaths and laughter. They learned how to act, how to count cards, and how to survive in a drinking game.
Eventually, they became Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats.
But they did not stay in heaven, but returned to earth.
Open a small wine stall and sell five kinds of wine brought by five people from five places. Occasionally, he would brag, occasionally tell stories about the past, and occasionally be dragged to the Millennium Banquet by those big guys.
This is their destination.
Returning on a snowy night.
What I return to is not the spiritual mountain, not the heaven, or the underworld.
What I returned to was this small wine stall, and what I returned to was the reunion of these five people.
Just as Tang Yuan realized the truth under the bodhi tree:
Living is meaning.
Being together is everything.
