The Tang Monk's Eastern Journey: Starting by Refusing Buddhahood

At the foot of Spirit Mountain, Xuanzang rubbed the lump on the back of his head and opened an upside-down copy of the Pass-Through Handbook. Every trial he cleared came with a corresponding reward! He saw the eighty-first trial: along the Tongtian River, famine stretched for a thousand miles. The people knew only how to kneel and worship, not how to farm. Then he flipped to the first trial: in the Eastern Land of Great Tang, goods were plentiful, people left lost items untouched, and calamities had been reduced to zero. Ananda and Kashyapa opened the golden gate. “Holy Monk, the Buddha has ordained you the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit.” Sun Wukong scratched his ears and cheeks in a panic. “Master, the scriptures are right behind you. Hurry up and go in!” Xuanzang merely straightened his kasaya, turned his back on the Great Thunderclap Monastery, and faced east. “These eighty-one trials in the Western Paradise are in desperate need of saving. But the prosperous Tang is the true Pure Land. I made this journey not to receive a title, but to return to the Eastern Land and retrieve the true scriptures that teach people how to eat their fill!” Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, and the Little White Dragon stared in bewilderment. Master’s gone mad. Quick, after him! And so the most absurd scene in the history of the Journey to the West unfolded: The Buddha fell silent behind them as the five pilgrims turned their backs on Spirit Mountain and fled east toward Chang’an.