Adventures of the Mad Monk Ji Gong

by Guo Xiaoting

  The old temple master said, “The punishment you recommend is too severe. He could be sent to collect alms for the restoration of the Great Pagoda. Have Dao Ji called to see me.”

  Not long after, Dao Ji was seen to come in and stand in front of the temple master, greeting him and saying, “Reverend Temple Master above, I press my palms together in greeting.”

  The temple master said, “Dao Ji, you have not been keeping the Buddhist rules and as a result the Great Pagoda has burned. I am sending you to solicit funds to repair this building. Ten thousand ounces of silver are needed for the task. Ask your brother teacher to specify how many days you should be given.”

  Ji Gong asked, “Brother teacher, how many days would you give me?”

  The superintendent of the monks asked, “Can you raise ten thousand ounces of silver in three years?”

  Ji Gong replied, “It won’t do—it’s too long. You must say some time less.”

  The superintendent asked, “Can you raise ten thousand ounces of silver to repair the Great Pagoda in one year?”

  Ji Gong replied, “It won’t do. It’s still too long. You can come down a little more—try again.”

  The superintendent said, “Half a year.”

  Ji Gong shook his head and said to come down a little more.

  The superintendent said, “One month.”

  Ji Gong said it was still too long.

  The superintendent asked, “Can you raise ten thousand ounces of silver in one day?”

  Ji Gong retorted, “If ten thousand ounces of silver can be raised in one day, you go and raise it! I can’t!”

  All the monks discussed the matter together and said that there should be a limit of one hundred days. They asked Ji Gong to go out and solicit funds. If he were able to raise the ten thousand ounces of silver in that time, he would triumph. He would have paid his debt and that would be the end of his punishment.

  Ji Gong agreed, and every day went out to solicit funds. In the vicinity of Linan there were countless young monks taking pledges as they begged for the salvation of all souls. Either pretending to be stupid or acting terrified, not one of them would raise his eyes from his signature book to look at Ji Gong.

  One day near the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat, on the rear slope of the Flying Cliff Mountain, where there were hares, deer, foxes, and cranes, Ji Gong saw two hunters. He stopped them on the road saying, “What are your honorable names and where are you going?”

  One of the men replied, “I am Chen Li; my nickname is ‘The Man with the Beautiful Whiskers’. That man is my sworn brother, Yang Meng, who suffers from a mysterious illness. We are going to hunt hares on the mountain and then return. May we ask who is the teacher?”

  Ji Gong explained, laughing loudly, and then remarked, “Every day you are on the mountain hunting hares. In order to preserve your life, you terminate the life of other things.”

  Yang Meng and Chen Li realized that the monk was a superior recluse and knelt to offer greetings, asking Ji Gong to be their teacher and saying, “We two from now on will change our occupation and will henceforth seek our living by acting as armed escorts for travelers.”

  The monk said, “Good! Soon your business will be flourishing.”

  After the two had gone, the monk went into the monastery. He spent his days drinking and no longer solicited alms. The superintendent did not press him, thinking that when the time limit had passed, it would be a fine thing to have Ji Gong sent away out of the monastery.

  The days went by, first slowly and then swiftly, until over a month had passed. Ji Gong had not collected one ounce of silver. One day he noticed that none of the temple monks were nearby. Ji Gong went into the hall where the image of Wei Tuo, an ancient Hindu ruler, was located. He contemplated the ruler’s benign face.

  In its bright gold leaf, the image of Wei Tuo seemed like that fabulous dancing phoenix which was said to herald and protect a just and benevolent emperor. So, it was believed, had the spirit of this ancient Vedic king of the Hindus come to herald and protect the Lord Buddha and to assist him in his teaching that all reality was one and that the goal of each believer should be to transcend the limitations of the individual. The kind and reassuring face of the image was like that of the bodhisattva Guan Yin, she who was the essence of passionate enlightenment. The light glinted from the helmet and chain-link armor of the image. About its waist was an embroidered sash, the ends of which seemed to wave and ripple in the wind. On its feet were green and black military boots, and in its hand it held the diamond-headed scepter for subduing every repugnant and malevolent spirit.

  After a time Ji Gong said, “Venerable Wei Tuo, guardian spirit, go with me and help me.” Stretching out his hands, the monk picked up the image of Wei Tuo, left the temple, and started walking through the region of West Lake.

  People passing him on the road said, “I have seen monks soliciting funds. There were some carrying great chains, some beating wooden fish gongs, but none wandering about while carrying an image of the guardian spirit.”

  The monk laughed loudly and said, “You haven’t opened your eyes. Speak softly. This is our temple’s transportation officer.” When they heard what the monk had said, they all laughed.

  Suddenly, as Ji Gong looked ahead, he could see a trail of black smoke rising in the sky. He halted and clapped his hands three times saying, “Excellent! Excellent! How can I ignore this?” Going forward, he saw that on the north side of the street there was an inn that sold wine and food. It was a building of two stories named the Drunken Sage Tower. On the wooden tablet above the door was written:

  A hundred poems flowed

  From Li Taibo’s brush

  While he was drinking

  In his Changan inn.

  Great Tang Minghuang was bored

  And sent his barge for him.

  But Li Taibo insisted that he was

  Merely a spirit in a jug of wine

  And sent the emperor’s messenger

  Back to him alone.

  On either side of the door were lines of characters reading, “The drunkard’s universe expands,” and “In the wine pot, days and moons grow long.”

  Inside Ji Gong heard a ladle rattle. He pulled aside the door curtain and asked, “May I trouble you, innkeeper?”

  The innkeeper, taking Ji Gong to be an ordinary monk soliciting funds, said: “We in here will next give money on the fifteenth.”

  Ji Gong said, “Right, we will next do business on the fifteenth.”

  Standing outside the door, he saw three men coming from the east. They were the owner of a rice and provision shop and his guests. Ji Gong thrust out his arm and said, “If you three want to eat a meal, they will next be open in here on the fifteenth.” As soon as the three men heard this, they went to another place.

  After three or four other parties had come and had all been stopped and turned away by Ji Gong, the innkeeper came out and asked very angrily, “What do you mean by stopping all my customers?”

  Ji Gong replied, “I wanted to eat a meal, and when I started through the door, you told me to return on the fifteenth. I knew then that only on the fifteenth would you start serving food.”

  When the innkeeper heard this, he said, “I thought you came to solicit funds. Only because of this I said that on the fifteenth I would give money to the Buddhists and the Daoists. Do you understand?”

  Ji Gong said, “No, I came to eat a meal.”

  The innkeeper said, “Please come in.”

  Ji Gong carried the image of Wei Tuo into the back room, sat down at a long table, ordered several kinds of dishes, and drank four or five pots of wine. When he had finished, he called the waiter to calculate the bill. Altogether it amounted to a string of six hundred and eighty cash, a cash being a copper coin with a square hole in the center so that it could be strung on a string. A cash was worth a very small fraction of a cent.

  Ji Gong said, “Write it on my account, and another day when I eat, I will pay both bills toge
ther.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Liu Taizhen is deluded by the arts of Chan; Li Guoyuan goes to breakfast and loses a prince’s tally

  Thoughts of her he loves

  As moonlight strikes the wall,

  How gentle were her ways,

  How beautifully she read.

  Her angry passion now,

  Her strange and swift assaults,

  She does not hear his voice

  Nor recognize his face.

  He does not know the cause.

  Betrayed by one she loved.

  The doctors come and go;

  They cannot find the cure.

  AFTER the monk had left the wine shop and was walking along on his way, it occurred to him to visit the Shrine of the Three Virtues and see Liu Taizhen, the Daoist. At the same time he was conscious of the effects of wrongdoing upon someone elsewhere in the vi cinity. He directed his spiritual light toward it, clapped his hands, and nodded his head saying, “How can I ignore it? May I be like the Master of Power, Wen Shu Bodhisattva!”

  Muttering the words, “Dao, Dao,” he went on to the Shrine of the Three Virtues outside the Qingbo gate. There he noticed that the wooden tablet advertising exorcisms had been taken down and that the place looked rather forlorn and quiet. The monk knocked twice.

  As for the Daoist, after returning to his shrine from the Zhou family house, he used some of the silver that he had been given as the result of Ji Gong’s kindness to redeem the various articles he had pawned. He told an apprentice Daoist boy to take down the sign announcing the availability of exorcisms. He also told him: “If anyone comes again to invite me to chase out a ghost, you are to say that I have gone into the hills to search for medicinal herbs.”

  The little attendant nodded his head and agreed. Then the old Daoist went into his room at the back of the shrine and began reading his books to relieve his boredom. The boy was playing in the courtyard when he heard someone knocking at the gate and went to open it. Looking out, he saw a poor, ragged monk standing there. The Daoist boy asked, “Who is wanted?”

  Ji Gong said, “I am looking for the venerable Daoist Liu of your household, to go to our place to chase ghosts. I am inviting him to exorcise and to cure sickness.”

  The Daoist boy said, “He can’t. Our teacher has gone into the hills to gather herbs. It is not certain how many days it will be before he comes back.”

  Ji Gong said, “You go in there to that old Daoist looking at his book and mention that the old man is here, and then he will see me.”

  When the little attendant heard this, he was speechless for a moment and thought to himself, “Huh! How did he know my teacher was at home reading?” Then he said quickly, “Just wait here, monk.”

  Then he hurried back to tell the old Daoist. “Teacher, there is a poor monk outside who said he was inviting you to chase a ghost and purify a house. I told him you had gone to pick herbs, and he said, ‘Go in to the old Daoist looking at a book and mention that I have come,’ and that you would see him.”

  The old Daoist was quite surprised and remarked, “Probably it’s the old man.”

  The boy said, “That’s right. The monk said to tell you that the old man had come.”

  The Daoist immediately went to look outside. Naturally it was Ji Gong. The Daoist quickly spoke. “Where did you come from, venerable sir? Your student kowtows to you.”

  “Good,” said Ji Gong. “You have led me hither. I came to your shrine to sit for a while and ask you about a certain matter. Since you are no longer exorcising evil spirits and purifying homes, I wondered what the teacher and his several followers were doing to feed themselves.”

  The old Daoist said, “Teacher, ordinarily I simply try to cure illness or do anything to get a bowl of rice to eat. Since coming back from the home of the Zhou family, I have been so frightened. How would I dare to perform exorcisms? My shrine really does not have any income. Perhaps, venerable sir, you may have some suggestion. While we are talking, please come in and sit down.”

  The monk said, “I could teach you some formulas for obtaining wealth, if you could learn. Then if you wanted gold or silver, you could simply recite them. If you wanted good clothing or good food, it would come as soon as you started to recite.”

  The old Daoist said, “If I could only study this, it would be excellent. I would not study anything else. Teacher, venerable sir, please help me to perform such alchemies.”

  The monk said, “You could not perform them now. To be able to perform such things, first you must bump your head against the ground in a kowtow one thousand times a day for forty-nine days. You must recognize me as your teacher. You must kneel on the ground and recite the Sutra of the Eternal in Time. Then kowtow and stand and repeat ‘O Mi To Fu.’ That is counted as one time.”

  The Daoist said, “I will do it. I will kowtow one thousand times a day, if only at the end of the forty-nine days I will be able to have whatever I ask for. Then I want to do it.”

  The monk said, “That is still not enough. When I want to drink wine, who will go for it?”

  The old Daoist replied, “I will have one of the boys get it for you.”

  The monk said, “I like to eat meat at each meal. Who will go and buy it for me?”

  The Daoist said, “I will go and buy it. Morning and evening pastries, three meals a day, I will take care of it all.”

  The monk said, “Then we will start early tomorrow morning. But first send out one of your boys to buy some crude spirits and several dishes of food. I will drink first.”

  The old Daoist quickly called an apprentice to go and buy wine and some prepared dishes.

  The next morning the monk proposed an idea. They would use two old flat-bottomed baskets and buy one thousand yellow beans. The monk would sit on a rush mat. The Daoist would recite the Sutra of the Eternal in Time, knock his head against the ground once, then recite “O Mi To Fu.” Then he would take one yellow bean out of the yellow basket and put it into the red basket. In this way he would remember.

  After the old Daoist had knocked his head against the ground several tens of times, his back ached and his legs were very painful. When he had knocked two hundred, he noticed that the monk had shut his eyes and seemed to be taking a nap. The old Daoist thought, “I’ll take a double handful and knock a few times less.” When he saw that the monk really seemed to be sleeping soundly, he quickly took a double handful and put it into the red basket.

  The monk opened his eyes and said, “You are an odd one! Trying to practice the spiritual arts by stealing on the sly! Knock harder!” With that he snatched the beans out of the red basket, taking out more than three hundred.

  After the old Daoist had kowtowed for five or six days, the silver that he had saved up was all spent. The monk kept calling for someone to go and buy wine and prepared dishes. The Daoist told the apprentice, “Do not take my Daoist robe yet; pawn the gold hairpin. After I have mastered the formulas, I will get it back.” The boy pawned it, and they ate for another five or six days, and again there was no money.

  The old Daoist called the manager of the pawn shop and asked him to take the tables, chairs, and stools from the great hall of the shrine. After that there are really no words to describe what went on for what amounted to one month and six days. The last thing that the Daoist had managed to save was his one pair of pants. The apprentices also had lost most of their clothing. Finally the Daoist said to the monk, “Teacher, I really have no money. Teach me the magic formulas now so that I can get something for us to eat.”

  The monk said, “If I had been able to work that kind of magic, why do you think I would have had you bringing me wine?”

  “Ah, that is true,” said the Daoist when he heard this. “Teacher has hoodwinked me. What is to be done?”

  The monk said, “If you have no money, I will be gone.”

  The Daoist said, “After the saintly monk is gone, I and my apprentices will starve to death.”

  “I will teach you some hocus-pocus
that you can master,” said the monk.

  “What hocus-pocus?” asked the Daoist.

  The monk replied, “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum.”

  The Daoist did not understand what he had heard and said, “Oh, that is gibberish. You are just making noises.”

  “That’s right,” said the monk. He repeated it three more times until the Daoist was able to say it. The monk then told him to kneel in the courtyard and repeat it. Just as the Daoist was saying, “Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum,” Ji Gong, who was standing behind him, pointed at the ground with his finger, and a little piece of the brick paving flew up and hit the Daoist on the head, causing a small red lump to appear.

  “What happened?” The Daoist asked.

  Ji Gong answered, “As soon as you started reciting hocus-pocus, the brick looked at you and then hit you. That is because of your power in reciting.”

  “I am not going on,” The Daoist protested.

  “Do not worry,” said Ji Gong, “I will teach you a few safe phrases. When you see any bricks, just say, ‘Bricks, you are above me and I will respect you. I will not recite hocus-pocus, and you will not get up and hit me.’”

  “Teacher, what shall I do?” the Daoist asked.

  Ji Gong told him, “I will give you my monk’s robe to put on and the hat to wear and teach you several phrases. Go to the Su Embankment at the West Lake near the Qiantang gate. There you will find a place called the Cold Spring Pavilion. Go up there and stand, saying loudly three times, ‘Li Guoyuan, Li Guoyuan need not go to the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat at the West Lake to find Ji Gong. Give me your ten ounces of pure silver, and you will still have three hundred and sixty cash left.’”

  The old Daoist did not want to go, but there was not a cash at the shrine, so he went. Every time he had gone out before, his clothing had been very handsome and correct. Today the old Daoist had no choice. He put on the monk’s old, ragged robe and asked, “Teacher, if I do go there and say these words three times, will the silver just fall?”