by Royall Tyler
It dawned on him that for years Kokūzō had been appearing to him as a woman in order to save him, and he was profoundly embarrassed. At daylight he returned to Mount Hiei, weeping with remorse for his own wanton behavior, and dedicated himself more singlemindedly than ever to his studies. He really did become a famous scholar.
What Kokūzō plans will come to pass. Ah, the beautiful and noble deed!
178.
THE LITTLE GOD’S BIG CHANCE
The monk Dōmyō, a great lover, was having an affair with the famous lady poet Izumi Shikibu. Dōmyō also happened to chant the Lotus Sutra very impressively.
Once he was spending the night with Izumi Shikibu when he woke up and decided to chant the Sutra. He had gone through all eight scrolls and was just dozing off again when he glimpsed someone outside.
“Who is it?” he called.
“The old man who lives at the crossing of Fifth Avenue and Nishi-no-tōin street,” a voice replied.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ll never forget, through all the lives I’ll live, how you chanted the Sutra tonight!”
“But I chant the Sutra all the time. What was so special about tonight?”
The little road god — for that is who he was — answered, “Well, you see, when you chant the Sutra all clean and pure, the great gods crowd in to hear and an old man like me can’t get anywhere near you. But this time you didn’t even wash before you began, so there was no one else around. That’s how I got to hear you. I’ll never forget it!”
179.
PIOUS ANTICS
Though originally from a line of yin-yang masters, the imperial secretary Yoshishige no Yasutane had been adopted into a family of scholars. Both kindly and peerlessly talented as a youth, he matured into a scholar who served the court for many years until, as old age approached, he began to long for the religious life. In the end he shaved his head and became a monk, a disciple of the saintly Kūya. He took the religious name Jakushin.
Being a holy man now, and naturally wise as well, Jakushin wondered what might be the most virtuous thing to do next. He decided to make the Buddha accessible to all by building a temple. Since he knew he could not do this without help from his brethren in the faith, he started going around soliciting contributions, and when he had enough to think about buying lumber he picked Harima province as the place to look for a site. He felt sure that in Harima he could get the work done well by people sympathetic to his aim, and he did in fact get a very good response there.
He was roaming the province one day when he came to a dry, pebbly riverbed and saw a yin-yang diviner in a paper hat performing a purification rite. He dismounted in haste.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
“A purification!” the diviner called back.
“I can see that! But what’s your hat for?”
“Well, the gods who rule over purifications shun monks, so during the rite I wear this hat in order not to look like a monk.”
Jakushin let out a howl and jumped on the man, who could only drop what he was doing and splutter ineffectual protests. The fellow who had commissioned the rite sat looking on in dismay.
Jakushin snatched the paper hat from the diviner’s head and tore it to pieces. “How could you?” he cried, in tears. “How could you, a follower of the Buddha, break the Buddha’s commandments and wear that hat just because the gods of purification will be injured if you don’t? Don’t you think you’ll go to the lowest hell for this? Oh, how awful! Here, kill me, just kill me!” He tugged at the diviner’s sleeve all the while, weeping pathetically.
“You’re completely mad!” the diviner answered. “Stop crying! Yes, you’re right, of course. But I’ve got to make a living somehow and that’s why I learned this yin-yang business. How would I feed my family and keep myself alive without it? I’ve no real interest in religion and I’ll never be a holy man. I just look like a monk. Sometimes I think it’s too bad, yes, but what can I do?”
“If you’re that poor I’ll just have to give you the money I’ve collected! I suppose helping one man toward enlightenment is just as good as building a temple.” Jakushin sent his disciples straight off to fetch the funds. When they got back, he gave the yin-yang diviner everything and left for the Capital.
Later on Jakushin was living at Nyoi, in the hills east of the Capital, when he received an urgent summons from the Rokujō Palace. Borrowing a friend’s horse, he set out early the next morning. Now, most riders keep their mount moving purposefully ahead. Not so Jakushin, who let the horse go on or not as it pleased. Naturally the horse soon stopped to graze. Jakushin simply waited, and since the horse never did get a move on, he ended up stuck forever in the same spot. The groom who came with the horse was so irritated by this performance that he finally gave the beast a whack on the rump. In a flash Jakushin had dismounted and seized hold of him.
“What did you do that for, eh?” he roared. “Do you think an old man like me riding him makes this horse look silly? This horse, I’ll have you know, has been mother and father to me life after life for ages past. Perhaps you don’t think he’s been mother and father to you, perhaps that’s why you’re so mean. But this horse has been your mother and father as much as he’s been mine. Why, it’s just because he’s loved you with a parent’s love that he’s now an animal! Sometimes he’s even suffered down among the starving ghosts and in hell. Yes, that’s exactly why he’s a horse in the first place: because as a parent he always loved you, his child. And there the poor thing was, so hungry, trying to crop the lovely green grass that looked too good to miss, when you, you lout, had to go and hit him! Myself, I’m just so grateful for all he’s given me through all those lives … But yes, it’s true, my legs won’t carry me any more as I’d like, and if I have to go somewhere a little far off I can’t very well walk. And so here I am, presuming again on the poor beast’s kindness. Who am I to object if he wants to eat the grass along the way? You’re a brute, that’s what you are, a brute!” Jakushin burst into loud sobbing.
The groom thought all this rather funny, but he did not like to see the old man cry. “You’re quite right, sir, quite right,” he answered. “I must have been mad to hit the horse. But what can you expect from a poor groom like me? I had no idea why the horse was born a horse, you see! From now on I’ll give him the respect we owe our parents, and be properly grateful.”
Finally Jakushin got back on the horse, still sniffling and muttering, “Oh, the poor, dear creature!”
On they went until they came to a rotten, warped old grave-marker standing by the path. Jakushin got all excited and dismounted as quickly as he could. The groom, who could make nothing of this, rushed up to take the bridle. Jakushin had him lead the horse on a little further. Looking back, the groom saw Jakushin prostrated full length in a spot where the pampas grasses grew a little less thickly. When Jakushin got back to his feet, he let down his trouser-skirt (he had hitched it up for traveling) to present a correct appearance, then put on the priestly stole which a servant had been carrying for him. Next, he adjusted his collar, swept his palms ceremoniously together, and bowed till he was nearly doubled over — not straight toward the grave-marker, however, but a bit to one side, like a guard bowing to a great personage whom he dare not face directly; and he threw only sidelong glances toward the object of his deference. Finally he went up to the grave-marker, brought his hands piously together once more, and prostrated himself repeatedly till his forehead knocked against the ground. All in all, his behavior was quite odd.
Jakushin would not remount until the grave-marker was out of sight. And since he did exactly the same thing for every grave-marker he came across, he was getting on and off his horse the whole way along. As a result, a trip that should have taken an hour or so took instead from early morning to late afternoon. By the time they arrived at the Rokujō Palace, the groom was swearing to himself that he would never, never go anywhere with that old fellow again.
Another time, while J
akushin was living at Iwakura, he caught a chill and got a case of very loose bowels. While he was in the privy the monk in the neighboring hut heard a sound like water squirting from a nozzle and felt sorry for the old man. Then he heard Jakushin talking, and stole up to spy through a hole in the privy wall.
An old dog was sitting across from Jakushin, apparently waiting for him to get up. Jakushin was talking to the dog. “You got your animal body,” he was saying, “because in past lives you betrayed others or made them eat nasty things. Yes, and you coveted what you were never meant to have, and thought much too much of yourself. You belittled others, you treated your parents as no one ever should, and you did nothing but awful things. And that’s why you’re a dog, you see, and why you wait around to eat such filth. When I think how in past lives you’ve been my mother or father, time after time! And these days especially, when my insides aren’t right and it’s coming out just like water, you mustn’t eat it, no, you simply mustn’t! It hurts me too much! Tomorrow, you’ll see, I’ll give you something really nice and you’ll have as much as you want!” Great tears rolled down his cheeks as he talked.
The next day the neighbor spied on Jakushin again, curious to see what feast the dog would get. Ordering his disciples to prepare a meal for a guest, Jakushin had them pile a great quantity of rice into an earthenware dish and garnish it generously with vegetables. Then he had them spread a mat in the yard and set the dish out on it.
“Come!” called Jakushin, sitting down beside the dish. “Dinner’s ready!” The dog came and ate while Jakushin rubbed his hands together in glee, weeping for joy and muttering how it did his heart good to see the dog tuck in. Alas, the big young dog which soon arrived did not go first for the rice. It attacked the old dog instead, bowled it over, and sank its teeth into it. Jakushin jumped in horror. “Oh no!” he cried. “Don’t do that, please! I’ll bring you some, too! Please just eat together nicely!” And he tried to stop the fight. Naturally the dogs paid no attention. The rice was scattered and trampled into the mud, and all the gobbling, snarling, and snapping brought more dogs running in from everywhere until a furious mêlée ensued. Jakushin fled back to his hut, unable to bear the sight of naked ignorance, anger, and greed.
The neighbor monk chuckled. “He may be wise,” he thought to himself, “but he doesn’t know dogs. He respects them for what they may have been in past lives, but what does he think the dogs themselves can make of his respect?”
180.
THE REPRIEVE
On his way once to Kyoto, the Tōdaiji monk Zōman happened to meet a physiognomist. Since Zōman wanted to have his fortune told anyway, he was in luck. The physiognomist declared that Zōman would excel in his studies but that he would not live past forty. “If you want to live longer than that,” he said, “arouse a sincere thirst for enlightenment. Nothing else will work.”
The disturbed Zōman immediately left Tōdaiji and retired to a cave on Mount Kasagi, where he began a strict regime of ascetic practice. Early each morning he would be sure to call the name of the Bodhisattva Jizō.
In the fourth moon of his thirtieth year, Zōman fell ill and weakened slowly until the soul left his body and he died. Several angry officials, dressed in green, came to seize him. Zōman cried out that he was a blameless ascetic whose actions and senses were thoroughly pure. “In China there was a hopelessly evil man,” he protested, “and when he died the flames of hell suddenly changed into a cool breeze, just because he had called Jizō’s name! The Buddha even came to welcome him into paradise! I’ve called the name too, and I’ve entrusted myself to Jizō’s compassionate vow. Doesn’t that mean anything? If it doesn’t, then the compassionate vows of Jizō and of all the buddhas of past, present, and future are worthless!”
“So you say,” growled the officers from hell, “but we’ve no proof that you’ve any claim on the buddhas’ compassion.”
“The compassionate vows of the buddhas and bohisattvas mean something! But if you won’t grant I’m right, then all the sutras’ talk about the buddhas being real is just empty chatter!”
At this point a small monk, very distinguished-looking and giving off a beautiful light, suddenly appeared. Half a dozen equally diminutive monks were around him, and some three dozen more were ranged to either side. They pressed their palms together solemnly in greeting. “Well, that’s different!” cried the officers. “Jizō and his host of saints have come to fetch him! We’ll have to give him up!” They saluted the holy company and went away.
“Do you know me?” asked the little monk. “I’m the Jizō you’ve invoked each morning. I protect you with all my power. You were called down to hell because your karma required it, but now you can hurry back to the world of the living, put behind you all the cares that burden men, and fulfill your hope for rebirth in the Land of Bliss. You’ll never come back here again.”
Zōman returned to life after having been dead a day and a night. He went on to practice with ever greater faith until at last when he was ninety years old, light of step and in perfect health, he knew his time had come. He sat facing the west with palms pressed together in prayer, chanting the Buddha’s Name and called on Jizō until he passed into Nirvana.
181.
THE WATER SPIRIT
Retired Emperor Yōzei’s palace compound was very large, and after he died the street we now know as Reizei’in Lane was put through it. The northern part was rapidly built over with houses. Only the southern section kept a few reminders of the garden that had once been there, and one of these was a pond.
One summer night a man stretched out on the veranda of the former palace’s west wing, the building itself having survived only to pass into the hands of commoners. As he lay there, an old man three feet tall came and felt over his face. Too frightened to move, he pretended he was asleep until the old man softly got up and walked away. By the bright light of the moon and stars he watched the old man go to the edge of the pond and vanish. Not having been dredged or cleaned within living memory, the pond was choked with waterweeds and looked thoroughly evil. Once more the man shivered with fear.
Night after night now the old man came back and felt over the faces of those who were sleeping nearby. Everyone who even heard the story was terrified. Finally another man spoke up. “All right,” said he, “I’ll catch that fellow!” He lay down alone on the veranda with a length of stout rope beside him.
It was a long wait. Past midnight, when he had actually begun to doze off, he felt something cold touch his face. He leapt up, bound whatever it was with the rope, and tied it to the railing round the veranda.
Next, he called for light. There the creature was, a little old man three feet tall and dressed in pale yellow, blinking in the glare. He seemed about to expire. No questioning got any answer out of him, but after a while he smiled, glanced around, and said in a thin, sad little voice, “Would you please bring me a tub of water?”
When they put a big tub before him, he stretched out his neck to see his reflection. “I’m a water spirit, you see,” he said, and collapsed with a splash into the tub. There was nothing left of him, though the tub was suddenly full to overflowing. The rope floated, still knotted, in the water.
The astonished people carried off the tub, taking care not to spill a drop, and emptied it into the pond. The old man was never seen or felt again.
182.
THE MASTER OF STREAMS AND FALLS
The remarkable Chūsan, a monk of Kōfukuji in Nara, was said by some to be supernatural. People believed he had actually been born from a stream.
Once Chūsan and several companions set off in a time of terrible drought on a pilgrimage to the East. Even the springs which never failed had all gone dry, and many people were dying of thirst and starvation. People came from far off to get water from one spring in Ōmi province which still ran clear and sweet. When a woman on her way back from this spring, with a jar of water on her head, passed Chūsan on the trail, he asked her for a drink.
“You’re a pro
per holy man,” she answered. “Why don’t you make a spring right here and get your drink yourself? I’ve carried this water a long way and I’ve a lot farther to go. I don’t see why you should have to beg any off me!”
“You’re right,” said Chūsan, “I’ll do that.” He strode to a rock on the hillside, drew his sword, and struck off a chunk. Clear, cool water gushed out. The local people were amazed at their new spring.
Chūsan also went to the Nachi waterfall, where holy men have practiced since time immemorial. The mountain torrent there tumbles gleaming white, four hundred feet down a cliff to the valley floor. When Chūsan chanted the Heart Sutra amid the roaring and the spray, the waters reversed their flow, and the living Thousand-Armed Kannon appeared on the rocky lip of the falls.
Years later he went to the Minoo waterfall where En no Gyōja, the wizard of the mountains, once met the Indian sage Nāgārjuna. Then Chūsan himself turned into Thousand-Armed Kannon, went straight up through the falls, and vanished forever.
183.
THE DRAGON CAVE
The Dragon Cave at Murō in Yamato province is where the Dragon King Zentatsu lives. His first home was Sarusawa Pond in Nara, but a long time ago an imperial concubine drowned herself in the pond and the dragon had to escape to the pool at Kōzen in the Kasuga Hills. Then someone dumped a corpse in the Kōzen pool and the dragon had to flee again, this time to Murō.
Eventually the Venerable Nittai went into the cave at Murō to worship the dragon. After three or four hundred yards of pitch darkness, he came out into light as bright as day and saw a palace. Dazzlingly brilliant, jeweled blinds swayed gently in the breeze along its south side, and he glimpsed behind them a jade desk with a copy of the Lotus Sutra on it. A voice from behind the blinds asked him who he was and what he wanted. Nittai gave his name and said he had come to worship the Dragon King.