Far to the east, across the sea, stands the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. On its peak there was a stone, and people said it had been there since the day sky and earth split apart.
For ages the stone drank in the light of the sun and the moon. One day it cracked open, and an egg rolled out of it.
The wind brushed the egg once and it broke. A stone monkey stepped out, and two beams of golden light shot from his eyes to the sky.
The Egg the Stone Laid
That light reached the palaces of Heaven. The Jade Emperor asked what it was, and his officers looked down and reported back.
“A stone on the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit has given birth to a monkey.” The Jade Emperor thought little of it. “If sky and earth made it, leave it alone.”
The stone monkey had no parents. Nobody had taught him anything, and even so he walked and leapt and picked fruit to eat.
The House Behind the Falls
A troop of monkeys lived on the mountain. On hot days they all bathed in the stream together, and above the stream hung a great waterfall.
Somebody said it aloud. “Whoever goes through that water and comes back out will be our king.” Nobody moved.
The stone monkey shut his eyes and jumped. He expected water and found none, and behind the falls stood a wide stone house.
There were stone beds, stone benches, even stone bowls. Above the door three characters read Water Curtain Cave, so he went straight back out and brought the whole troop inside.
From that day he was king. The monkeys called him the Handsome Monkey King, and it was the first name he ever wore.
The King Who Wept at His Own Feast
Three hundred years went by that way. The king had no troubles, food was plentiful, and the troop followed him gladly.
There was a feast that day like any other. Everyone was singing and dancing, and then the king suddenly burst into tears.
The monkeys crowded round in alarm. “What is it that you lack?” The king answered.
“Today I am happy. But one day I will grow old. Old, I will die, and my name will go into Yama’s ledger. When I think of that, none of today is any good to me.”
The feast went quiet. Nobody had an answer, for they had all been afraid of the same thing.
A Raft and the Open Sea
An old monkey came forward. “They say three kinds of beings never die.” Buddhas, immortals, and sages, he said.
“Only they stay out of Yama’s ledger.” The king asked where they were. “Beyond the sea, on far mountains, so they say.”
The king stood up on the spot. “Tomorrow I leave.” Nobody tried to stop him.
The next day he felled pines and lashed a raft. He cut a length of bamboo for a pole, and a king who had everything went out alone onto the sea.
Today, the Question That Waits After Plenty
There is something odd about this beginning. Usually the hero leaves because something is missing, and this monkey leaves with everything in hand.
The mountain was his and the troop was his. Nothing had been taken from him, and in the middle of the feast he wept.
What frightened him was not an enemy. It was the one thing strength cannot beat, and that fear will carry him a very long way.
We meet something like it too. The day after we get what we wanted, the room can feel strangely empty. People answer that either by finding a new goal or by asking a real question.
The stone monkey chose the question. The raft is his answer, and the fourteen years of walking west have not even begun.