I am a monkey living on a mountain with no name. That day I was chasing a wild fruit, fell into a crevice between rocks, and picked up a pill. After swallowing it, a man named Bodhi appeared in front of me.
He said that in ten thousand years there will be a monkey named Sun Wukong who will bring about the catastrophe of annihilation. You have to practice for ten thousand years until you can replace him, stop him, and help him get the scriptures to save the world.
I asked him why he didn't find someone else. He said, only you can take that pill.
I didn't understand anything at that time. I just thought the words "ten thousand years" sounded very heavy. So I practiced. I swung the stick and practiced changes. Every time I was slower and slower, every time I was stupider, but I didn't stop.
I went down the mountain several times. I saw the dead buried together and the living eating each other's bark. I saw a monster who had been training hard for thousands of years just like me but was easily suppressed. His last words were "Why?" I also saw a mortal lying on a straw mat, handing me half a steamed bun and saying, "God, you must be very tired."
I walked for ten thousand years and finally came to him.
Under the moonlight, he and I have the same face. He held his stick horizontally and asked me:
"Who are you?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Ten thousand years of accumulated hatred, accumulated pain, and accumulated grievances are all stuck in my throat. I wanted to tell him who I was, but in his eyes, I was just another monkey that jumped out of the way.
I kept looking at him during the fight. His stick skills are innate, and my stick skills are acquired through practice. The two things collide together, like rocks hitting water. The sounds are different, but the shapes are the same. I suddenly felt that I had spent these ten thousand years just to get to know him - to get to know someone who didn't know that I existed.
Finally I gave up. It's not because I can't beat him, it's because I discovered something more important: the path he wants to take lacks a light, and I can be that light.
I've been asked if I have any regrets.
What can I say. Every flower on that road blooms ten thousand years ago. When you look at the flowers blooming, you don't ask who watered them.
I didn't become a Buddha. I became the faintest light in the Buddha's body.
Concept: There is a shadow in the light, and the shadow supports the light. The world sees light, but light knows shadow.
