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This is a story found in a children’s storybook:
In a small mountain village in Japan, lived a young man with excellent hunting skills. However, this young man only knew how to hunt with his rifle and did not know what care and love are about. Although the villagers admired his hunting skills, they never regarded him as part of the village’s community.
One day, he entered the mountain to hunt, heading in the direction of some sounds. He came to a big tree where he saw a monkey basking in the sun up on a branch. Then he aimed his rifle at it and opened fire. The monkey almost fell off the tree after being shot; fortunately, it was agile enough to grab hold of a tree branch in time.
The hunter raised his rifle again and tried to make another shot at the monkey. Suddenly, he noticed something and retreated—he saw that the monkey was holding a little monkey with its other hand.
Then, the mother monkey appeared to be pushing the little monkey onto the tree, but the little one continued to cling tightly to its mother. At that moment, the mother monkey seemed to be asking the little monkey to escape as soon as possible as it could hardly hang on to the branch any longer. But the little monkey cried loudly as if it didn’t want to part with its mother. The mother monkey looked very anxious as she was worried that the little monkey would die with it after it fell off the tree. Thus, it started to wail bitterly…...
The little monkey clung even more tightly to its mother’s neck until the mother could not hold on any longer and released its grip. Both the monkeys thus fell off the tree.
The heart-wrenching scene impacted the young hunter very deeply, so much so that he never went hunting again since then. The maternal love of the mother monkey and the natural bond between the mother monkey and her little monkey had deeply touched his heart.
Extracted from Tzu Chi Taiwan website
Translated by the Tzu Chi Singapore translation team
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