Journey to the West: The Making of a Holy Monk

[Genres/Tags]: Journey to the West / Historical Xuanzang / Retracing the Journey West / Buddhist Cultivation / No Primordial World Setting / Great Tribulation Premise Only / No Conspiracy Plots.

Bodhisattva Guanyin has been having quite a headache lately.

With the Great Tribulation approaching, the Buddha has tasked him with finding a pilgrim to journey to the Western Heaven and retrieve the scriptures. Everything was supposed to be arranged already.

But something seems a little... off about this pilgrim.

Guanyin: "Wear this kasaya, and you will never fall into hell."

Xuanzang: "If simply putting on a robe can achieve that, does it not make a mockery of all spiritual practice in this world?"

Guanyin: "The teachings of Mahayana Buddhism await in the Western Heaven. They can dispel calamities, relieve suffering, and deliver all people to salvation. They await someone to retrieve them."

Xuanzang: "If these teachings are so wondrous, why not bring them here yourself? Is that compassion-or arrogance?"

Guanyin: "..."

When the soul of the real, historical Xuanzang transmigrates into the world of Journey to the West after his passing-

He laughs at the pilgrim depicted in his mind: spineless, cowardly, unable to tell right from wrong, and forever bursting into tears.

Expect him to bow and scrape? To depend on his disciples' charity for protection? To preach compassion while turning a blind eye to the suffering of all living beings? To become a Buddha like that?

"Sorry. These scriptures, I will not fetch. This Buddhahood, I will not accept. This journey west, I will walk my own way."

In this life, it is not a mortal seeking the Buddha, but a holy monk proving the Way through his own being-and going to Vulture Peak to ask the Tathagata what it truly means to be a Buddha.