水中捞月，汉语成语，拼音是shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè，意思是到水中去捞月亮。比喻去做根本做不到的事情，只能白费力气。出自《沁园春》。
Fishing for the moon in the water is a Chinese idiom. The pinyin is shuǐ zhōng lāo yuè, which means to fish for the moon in the water. It is a waste of energy to do things that are simply impossible. From “Qinyuanchun”.
成语出处
宋·黄庭坚《沁园春》词：“镜里拈花，水中捉月，觑着无由得近伊。”
成语故事
源出佛教的一个寓言故事，据《僧祇律》载：佛以诸比丘说，过去世时，伽尸国波罗奈城有五百只猕猴，一日在林中玩耍，来到一井边，猕猴主见井水中有一月亮（影子），于是对同伴说：月今日死，落在井中，我们应把它捞出来，以免世间长夜暗冥。众猴不知如何下手，猕猴主见井水中有一树，乃说：我捉树枝，汝捉我尾，展转相连，乃可出之。于是众猴展转相捉，树弱枝折，群猴都掉进井水里了。佛陀以此故事喻那些自以为是，分不清是非虚实，害己害人的外道邪师。
Source of idioms
Song Huang Tingjian’s “Qinyuanchun” verse: “The flowers are held in the mirror, the moon is caught in the water, and I can’t help but get close to Iraq.”
Idiom story
A fable originating from Buddhism. According to the Law of the Sangha, the Buddhist monks said that in the past life, there were 500 macaques in the city of Paranai in the kingdom of Gashi. At the same time, the macaque saw a moon (shadow) in the well, so he said to his companion: Yue died today and fell in the well. We should fish it out to avoid a long night in the world. The monkeys did not know how to start. The macaques saw that there was a tree in the well and said: I will catch a branch, and you will catch my tail. So the monkeys turned to catch each other, the weak branches of the tree broke, and the monkeys all fell into the well. The Buddha used this story as a metaphor for those evil teachers who are self-righteous, can’t distinguish between the truth and the truth, and harm themselves and others.