by Li Yu
Lone Peak also told me that since his words had failed to convince me, I would have to gain my enlightenment on the carnal prayer mat. I've spent enough time on that mat these past few years and tasted every drop of honey and gall it has to offer. If I am ever to see the light, now is the time! The humiliation I suffered today was more than just the beating and the cursing. Obviously it was Abbot Lone Peak working through others to administer a blow and a shout to force me to repent! [90] Even if I don't repent, I shall never have the face to return home. Far better to beat a retreat and write a candid letter to the Knave asking him to arrange a match for Fragrance and marry her off. The twins can go with her, if she wishes, or else stay with the Knave and be raised by him. I myself will go off on my own to Mount Guacang to look for Abbot Lone Peak and do penance for my sins with a hundred and twenty ringing kowtows. Then I'll beseech him to point out where I have gone astray and guide me back to the path of enlightenment. Capital!
Now that Vesperus had decided what to do, he sat down to write the letter to the Knave, but his hands had been so badly hurt in the beatings that he couldn't write. Only after a month of recuperation was he able to write again. By an odd coincidence, just when he was beginning his letter, a letter arrived from the Knave. On opening it, he learned of a crisis at home that required his immediate return, but he was not told its nature. "The only possibility is that my wife is ill or that something has happened to one of the children," he speculated. When questioned, the messenger at first said nothing; only when pressed did he reveal the truth-that Vesperus's second wife had taken a leaf out of his first wife's book and run off with a lover.
Vesperus asked who the man was. "I don't know," replied the messenger. "In fact, not even her maid knows. All she can say is that she heard the bed creaking every night before the mistress went off, but when she got up in the morning, there was never a trace of anyone there. After a dozen nights like that, she got up one morning to find the doors wide open and the mistress nowhere to be found. The head of the house set off to catch them and at the same time sent me here to urge you to return at once."
Vesperus sighed. This letter is just another blow and shout! Obviously, he thought, adulterous debts must never be incurred, for they need to be paid back a hundredfold. I realize now that my debts cannot be repaid and that, so long as there are any women left in my family, they will have to go on paying my debts off. In the light of this, I ought not to think too kindly even of those two mites of mine. How do I know that they're not potential redeemers themselves? But I can't worry about any of that. I'll wait until I have consulted Lone Peak about the future.
He ground up some ink and wrote a letter of farewell to the Knave:
The elopement of my wanton concubine should come as no surprise, for what is ill gotten will be ill lost. This is a constant principle in life, and the recent events at home are just another illustration of it. I am well aware that the cup of my sins has run full and that I deserve this retribution. However, the day evil influences are exorcised is the same day that the spirit of penitence emerges. Instead of returning East of the River, I shall go home to the Pure Land of the West. [91] My sole regret is that the womb of disaster has not been destroyed, but that I continue to clasp these twin nemeses to my breast. Let me trouble my old friend to extend their lives for the moment. When I have seen the buddha, I shall borrow the sword of wisdom and dispatch them. In haste.
He sent off the letter and packed his bags for departure. He had intended to take Satchel with him, to serve him as a novice. But on reflection, he feared that having a catamite with him might only stimulate his lust again. Better not risk distraction by setting eyes on any object of desire. In the end he sent him back with the messenger and started off alone, an action that is summed up in the proverb "A man bitten by a snake will be frightened of an old rope for years thereafter."
CRITIQUE
In this chapter the author's main purpose has at last become clear. Readers of The Carnal Prayer Mat will qualify as competent readers of fiction if they read the other chapters once but this chapter and the next one three times each.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Through Leather Bag's generosity, satyr and rogue are saved; On the broad Buddhist highway, enemy and creditor are able to meet.
Poem:
Though enemies fight to the bitter end,
With an eye for an eye, is the feud ever done?
So abandon the path where enemies meet,
And leave it to Wu and Yue to run. [92]
Let us tell how the priest Lone Peak had been continually reproaching himself ever since he let Vesperus slip through his fingers. In the last resort my Buddhist powers were not strong enough nor my compassion deep enough, he said to himself. This demon of love and satyr of lust passed right in front of my eyes, and I was not able to capture him. All the blame for letting him pollute mankind and work his evil will on the fair sex belongs to me, not to him. Since I've failed at catching demons and satyrs, what earthly good is this leather bag?
He hung the bag from the top of a pine tree outside his door, then planed a piece of wood, wrote a message on it in small characters, and nailed it to the tree.
The notice read,
For as long as Vesperus stays away, I shall leave this leather bag here, and for as long as it endures, I shall not give up hope. My only wish is that I may soon be able to take it down and that he will not have to occupy the carnal prayer mat forever.
There was something distinctly odd about the bag, for from the time of Vesperus's departure, when it was hung on the tree, a full three years had passed, a thousand and several hundred days in all, and not only had it not deteriorated in the slightest, it had steadily become more durable.
Vesperus could see from a distance that there was something hanging from the tree. At first he supposed it to be a cassock hung out to air, and only when he got closer did he see that it was a leather bag. Then, on reading the notice, he began to weep and wail. There was no need to save his kowtows for his meeting with the priest; instead he treated the notice as if it were the priest's image and kowtowed dozens of times before it. He then climbed the tree, took down the bag, and went into the Buddha Hall wearing it on his head. As on his first visit, Lone Peak was engaged in meditation. Vesperus promptly knelt down and kowtowed nonstop, like the disciple who bowed down before the Fifty-three Deities. [93] He kowtowed from the beginning of the meditation period right through to the end, some six hours in all, far exceeding the one hundred and twenty kowtows he had set for himself.
At last Lone Peak arose from the prayer mat and helped him up. "Worthy lay brother, your favoring me with another visit is generosity enough. Why this elaborate ceremony? Do come up!"
"Your pupil is a born fool!" said Vesperus. "I deeply regret that I did not accept your teaching when last I came here. Through wanton self-indulgence and folly I have done all manner of things sufficient to condemn me to Hell. My thisworldly retribution has already been received, but the otherworldly variety still awaits me. I beseech you, reverend master, take pity on me now and accept me as your pupil, teaching me to repent my sins and turn to religion. Are you willing to take me in?"
"You brought in my leather bag," said Lone Peak, "so you must have seen the notice. After you left, I almost wore out my eyes watching for your return, so how can I refuse you now that you turn to Buddha? My one fear is that your vocation may not be strong enough and that you will fall back into the mundane world. But it was for your sake that I left the bag at the mercy of the elements these past three years."
"I was in the depths of remorse," said Vesperus, "when suddenly I felt the need to repent. I think of myself as having escaped from Hell and would never dare go back. Of course I'll never change my mind! I beseech you, master, take me in."
"Very well, I shall accept you."
Vesperus got to his feet and began to bow in greeting all over again. This time Lone Peak stood there and received the bows, then chose an auspicious day for the tonsu
re. With Lone Peak 's permission, Vesperus selected his own name in religion: Stubborn Stone. It signified regret over his slowness to repent, which showed the stubbornness of a stone, and also gratitude for Lone Peak's skillful preaching, which had persuaded a stubborn stone that hadn't nodded its head in three years to start nodding it again. In general, too, he wanted a name that would serve him as a reminder, lest he forget what he had done and start thinking evil thoughts once more.
From that time forth he took pride in his Zen meditation and devoted himself wholeheartedly to understanding doctrine. Lest a life of luxury stimulate his lust again, he neither dressed nor ate well, but preferred to develop his religious vocation by exposing himself to hunger and cold.
But any young man joining the order has certain problems he must face. However strongly he tries to rein in his lusts, however firmly he tries to extinguish his desires, prayer and scripture reading will get him through the day well enough, but in the wee hours of the morning that erect member of his will start bothering him of its own accord, making a nuisance of itself under the bedclothes, uncontrollable, irrepressible. His only solution is to find some form of appeasement, either by using his fingers for emergency relief or by discovering some young novice with whom to mediate a solution. (Both methods are regular standbys for the clergy.) Had Vesperus done so, no one who caught him at it would have been disposed to criticize. Even Guanyin herself would have forgiven him, if she had come to hear of it; she would hardly have had him consumed in the fires of his own lust! [94]
Vesperus felt differently, however. He maintained that those who had joined the order ought to accept its commandment against sexual desire as a cardinal rule, whether or not their standbys took the form of actual adultery. Even if the standbys broke no rules and brought no dishonor to those practicing them, they represented a failure to suppress desire just as surely as adultery itself. Moreover, the handgun led to intercourse, and homosexual relations to heterosexual. Sight of the make-believe causes us to yearn for the reality, and one act leads to another by an inexorable process that we must not allow to get started.
One night he dreamed that some women came to worship at the temple. On approaching them, he was astonished to find that they were all old friends of his. Flora was there, as were Cloud and her sisters, and also his two eloping wives, Jade Scent and Fragrance.
The sight of his wives infuriated Vesperus, and he called on Flora and her nieces to help him catch them. But in the twinkling of an eye the wives vanished, leaving only the four friends, who drew him into a priest's cell and proceeded to do with him what they had done so often before. They undressed and were about to begin another contest, with Vesperus's penis fitted into someone's vagina and ready to thrust, when all of a sudden he was awakened by a dog barking in a nearby wood and realized that he had been dreaming. That erect member of his, however, still assumed there was a treat in store for it, and it butted and burrowed here and there among the bedclothes looking for its old haunts. Stubborn Stone took it in his hand and was thinking of some way to appease it, when suddenly he stopped.
This is the root cause of all my sins, my nemesis, he thought. I don't have to take revenge on it, but I must not let it loose.
Having come to that conclusion, he banished the foolish idea from his mind and tried to get some sleep before it was time to rise and chant sutras again.
But he tossed and turned in bed and could not get back to sleep, tormented beyond endurance by the root of evil under his bedclothes. So long as this accursed thing is attached to me, he thought, I'll always be bothered by it. The best solution is to cut it off and eliminate all the trouble it's going to cause me. Moreover, dog's flesh is anathema to the Buddhists and I oughtn't to have it attached to me. If I don't cut it off, I can never be anything more than an animal. Even if I cultivate my behavior to perfection, the best I can hope for is to be reborn as a human being. How can I ever become a buddha?
Having arrived at this conclusion, he could not wait for daybreak. He lit the lamp, picked up a thin vegetable knife, and honed it a few times on the ewer. Then, taking his penis in one hand, he brought the knife down on it with all the force he could muster, slicing the organ right off.
Evidently he was destined to shed his animal fate and to be transformed, for the amputation did not feel terribly painful. From that time on, his desires ceased and his moral purpose gained in strength, and the perceptiveness shown in his religious studies grew steadily. By this time Lone Peak had numerous disciples, all men of some knowledge. They would gather to listen to his sermons and, of them all, Stubborn Stone was the one most apt to nod his head in understanding.
His first six months were devoted to a general training in moral conduct in readiness for ordination. When the training period was over, Stubborn Stone gathered together a dozen or more priests and asked Lone Peak to take the platform and expound the doctrine. All the priests were men who had committed themselves to accepting the commandments and living a life of meditation, with no thought of ever returning to their old lives.
Now, when monks are about to receive the commandments, their first step is to confess every sin they have committed in the course of their lives and then, having set forth the case against themselves, to kneel down before Buddha and beg an eminent priest to pray for their forgiveness. Any suppression of the facts is known as "cheating Heaven and deceiving Buddha" and infringes upon one of the cardinal tenets of the faith. No transgressor can ever hope to attain true enlightenment, even if he slaves away at moral cultivation for the rest of his life.
The priests invited Lone Peak to mount the platform, where he prayed and then set the order for their initiation. The priests sat in two rows on either side of him as he explained the commandments. After detailing what it meant to accept them, he ordered everyone to confess his sins, holding nothing back. Stubborn Stone, as the last to arrive, was sitting in last place and all he could do, until his turn came, was to listen to the others' confessions. Among them were murderers and arsonists, thieves and bandits, as well as some who, like Stubborn Stone himself, had undermined the moral law with their adulteries. All of them confessed, not daring to hold anything back. At length it was the turn of the priest sitting next to Stubborn Stone, a man who, despite a coarse appearance, seemed to have a certain spiritual air about him.
"In thirty-odd years," he confessed to Lone Peak, "your disciple has done only one evil thing: I indentured myself as a servant, seduced my master's daughter, and then abducted the daughter and her personal maid and sold them both into prostitution. It is a sin that cannot be expiated by death. I beg you, master, to intercede for my forgiveness."
"That is far too grievous a sin," replied Lone Peak. "I'm afraid it is beyond the reach of forgiveness. As the adage goes, 'Of all evils, adultery is worst.' Adultery on its own would be bad enough, how could you go and compound it with abduction? Both adultery and abduction are always extremely difficult to gain forgiveness for. Why did you sell her into prostitution and turn one man's wife into every man's mistress? She cannot be set free in this life, which means you cannot be set free either. Even if I pray for forgiveness, I'm afraid Buddha won't grant it. What can I do?"
"Master, I beg leave to explain. It was not by my own choice that I did this. I was forced into it. The woman's husband seduced my wife and then made me sell her, and I was powerless to resist. So I had to go outside the law and do these terrible things. But they were done under extenuating circumstances; I should not be compared to some lecher who is merely seeking to gratify his lust. I wonder, might you still be able to pray for my forgiveness?"
Stubborn Stone found himself strangely affected by the man's confession. "Let me ask you, worthy brother," he said to the priest, "what was the name of the woman you abducted? Whose wife and whose daughter was she? And where is she now?"
"She was the wife of Scholar Vesperus and the daughter of Master Iron Door. Her name is Jade Scent and her maid's name is Ruyi. She and the maid are in the capital now, enterta
ining clients. You don't happen to know her, by any chance?"
Stubborn Stone was thunderstruck. "Then you must be Honest Quan," he said. "How do you come to be here?"
"Let me ask, might you be Scholar Vesperus?"
"Yes, I am."
The two men left their prayer mats and begged each other's forgiveness. Then they revealed to Lone Peak all that had happened and each confessed his sins.
Lone Peak roared with laughter. "What a fine pair of enemies you are! You were bound to cross each other's paths sooner or later. Since you knew what the outcome would be, why didn't you pay heed at the outset? Luckily for you, Buddha's compassion has given you this broad highway on which enemies can pass without let or hindrance. If you'd met on any other path, you'd now be locked in endless struggle. In principle your sins are beyond forgiveness, but thanks to your virtuous wives' redeeming your debts for you, much of the burden has been lifted from your shoulders. Otherwise, even if you cultivated your conduct for ten lives, let alone one, you'd still be condemned to the cycle of birth and death, unable to escape your fate. I shall now pray for your forgiveness and beseech the Bodhisattva to extend her compassion and show you a measure of mercy for the sake of those wives of yours. Pity these poor women! Each of them was worthy of a memorial arch or tablet, but was forced by her husband's lechery to behave like a wanton and redeem his debts. And even after she has discharged his debts in this world, there will still be debts for her to discharge in the other. The men we needn't concern ourselves with, but oh, how they ill-use the women who redeem their debts, women unjustly condemned to lives of shame!" He told both men to kneel down in front of Buddha while he recited from the scriptures and prayed for their forgiveness.