The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)
Page 29
"Master," Stubborn Stone asked him when the prayers were done, "I have a question for you. If, to give a hypothetical example, an adulterer were to have both a wife and a daughter, once the wife has redeemed his debts, can the baby daughter be spared, so that she doesn't have to redeem them, too?"
Lone Peak shook his head. "Quite impossible. The adulterer's only hope is to have no daughters at all. Any daughter he has will be a potential redeemer. How can she be forgiven?"
"To be frank with you, master," said Stubborn Stone, "your disciple has the misfortune to be the father of two potential redeemers, both of whom are at home. From what you say, they will definitely not be forgiven. Your disciple therefore wishes to return and eradicate these roots of evil with the sword of wisdom, as if they had been drowned at birth. That should not be too grave a sin."
"Amitabha Buddha!" exclaimed Lone Peak, placing his palms reverently together. "Such a wicked suggestion should never have left your lips or entered my ears! How can a priest who has accepted the commandment not to kill even think of such a thing? A layman is forbidden to kill, let alone a priest! They're still in swaddling clothes, they've done nothing wrong! What crime are you going to kill them for? And if you wait until they have done something wrong, it will be too late to reclaim the debts they'll have repaid. Your violence will all be in vain anyway. Far better to spare them!"
"But how can I settle this matter?"
"Those two are not your daughters," said Lone Peak. "They were sent by the Lord of Heaven to redeem your debts when he saw the intolerable evil you were doing. As the proverb says, 'One good deed cancels out a thousand evil deeds.' If you turn your mind steadfastly to goodness, the Lord of Heaven may change his decision and recall them. There's no need for any sword of wisdom!"
Stubborn Stone nodded. "You are perfectly right, master, and your disciple will do your bidding." From that day forward he ceased to worry about his family and turned his whole mind to the service of Buddha.
Another six months passed. One day, as Stubborn Stone was talking to Lone Peak in the hall, a great, strapping fellow whom he recognized as the Knave came rushing in. The new comer paid homage to the image of Buddha, then bowed before Lone Peak.
"Master," explained Stubborn Stone, "this is my sworn brother, A Match for the Knave of Kunlun, whom I have often mentioned. He is the foremost gallant of the age, one who manages to do righteous deeds in the midst of evil."
"Am I to understand that you are that hero of a burglar with his Five Abstentions?" asked Lone Peak.
"He is," said Stubborn Stone.
"In that case you're a bodhisattva of a thief!" said Lone Peak. "Who am I to receive bows from a bodhisattva?" He was about to kneel down and return the bows, when the Knave reached out and stopped him.
"If the master is unwilling to receive a thief's bows," said the Knave, "I can only assume it is because you want to exclude me from the faith. Your disciple may be a thief, but I have a kinder heart than many who are not thieves. The reason I came to this treasure mountain was both to visit a friend of mine and also to pay my respects to a living buddha. If you refuse to accept my bows, you will be cutting off my path to goodness and strengthening my will to evil. It would seem as if we ought to hide the nature of our profession and become the sort of thieves who are clad in official robes rather than the sort who break and enter, and that would never do."
"In that case," said Lone Peak, "I shall not dare return your bows."
After greeting Stubborn Stone, the Knave sat down and exchanged a few polite remarks with Lone Peak, then drew the Stone aside for a private conversation.
"I have told the master everything," said the Stone. "Whatever the family secret, you can talk about it in front of him. Anyway, this living buddha knows the past as well as the future and cannot be deceived."
The Knave sat down again and told Stubborn Stone the news of his family, apologizing for failing in his responsibilities and breaking his promises to a friend. Not only was he unfit to entrust a wife to, he was also unfit to take care of children, and he was ashamed to face his friend.
"From what you are saying," said Stubborn Stone, "I gather something must have happened to the fruits of my sin?"
"Just so. I don't know why, but your daughters suddenly died, both at the same time. They weren't suffering from smallpox or convulsions, and they were sleeping peacefully when it happened. The night of their death the wet nurses heard a voice calling out in their dreams: 'His debts have been settled and there is no need for you anymore. Come back with me.' When the nurses awoke, they had no sooner touched the children than they realized it was too late. There is something terribly strange about the whole affair."
Stubborn Stone said nothing in response, but went and bowed several times in front of Buddha and again before Lone Peak. Then he told the Knave how he had been worried lest his daughters redeem his debts and how Lone Peak had told him that if he turned his mind steadfastly to goodness, the Lord of Heaven might change his decision and recall them. "It's a stroke of good fortune," he went on to say, "that these agents of retribution have been removed. You ought to be congratulating me, brother, rather than talking about a breach of trust."
At these words the Knave felt a chill run down his spine and paused a moment before continuing. "Apart from the bad news, I do have one piece of good news that should cheer you up."
"What is that?" asked Stubborn Stone.
"I felt terrible when that slut Fragrance ran away. I tried to catch her, but without success. It turned out she had been abducted by a priest, who kept her hidden in a cellar. Quite by chance I found her there and rid you of this root of evil. Doesn't that cheer you up?"
"A cellar would seem to be a safe enough place to hide," said Lone Peak. "How did you happen to find her?"
"The priest was living near a crossroads, where he used to rob and murder passersby. I heard that he had a vast sum stashed away in the cellar, so one night I went there to steal it. Imagine my surprise when I found him in bed talking with a woman who sounded exactly like Fragrance! I kept out of sight and listened, and gradually the situation became clear to me. I heard my name mentioned as well as yours. She said her first husband was Honest Quan, who, although a little coarse, was at least a one-woman husband, without any other wives or concubines. To her surprise a certain person helped another person to seduce her and force her into marriage, after which the latter abandoned her and gave himself up to debauchery, leaving her alone in an empty house. Eventually, physically worn out, he was unable to cope with his domestic duties and set off on a long journey to escape them, heedless as to whether his wife and children lived or died. 'Why should I stay with such a faithless wretch?' she said. At this point my anger could no longer be restrained. Luckily I had a sword on me, so I flung aside the curtain and cut them both in two with a single stroke, then lit a torch and hunted for their booty. I found over two thousand taels, which I brought back and donated as I saw fit to countless poor people, doing numerous good deeds. Let me ask you, master, was it right, in your opinion, to kill this couple and take their money?"
"They deserved to die," said Lone Peak, "but it was for Heaven to kill them, not you, worthy layman. And they deserved to lose their money, but it was for the authorities to take it, not you. Your action is deeply satisfying, to be sure, but it doesn't quite square either with the Principle of Heaven or with the law, and I'm afraid you will not be able to escape retribution for it in this world or the next."
"But if our nature is in accord with the Principle of Heaven," said the Knave, "so long as we feel an action to be deeply satisfying, why shouldn't it square with the manifest justice of the Principle? Your disciple has spent his entire life as a thief without ever getting into any trouble. Are you telling me that I'm now going to fall foul of the law?"
"That's not the way to look at it, layman," said Lone Peak. "Both the Principle of Heaven and the law are absolutely watertight. No one who harms the Principle or breaks the law ever gets away with i
t. His retribution may come early, or it may come late. If it comes early, it will be less severe, but if it is long delayed, it will suddenly burst upon him with intolerable force. That priest had broken the commandment against lust and the woman the law against adultery, and of course the Lord of Heaven would have destroyed them. But does he not have the Thunder God to do it for him? Does he need to turn to a mere mortal for help in killing them? Even if he does, well, every mortal in the world has a pair of hands. Why should he turn to you in particular? Are your hands the only ones that can kill? The sovereign authority must not be lent, nor the sword of authority allowed to slip away. The Lord of Heaven cannot handle such a serious matter himself, so he sees that sinners are killed by other sinners. No one, absolutely no one, is left out! Thus your otherworldly retribution certainly cannot be avoided.
"Perhaps your action is less serious and will be judged a little less severely than if you had killed honest folk. But since you've followed this profession all your life, surely by now every official in the country knows your reputation. As the proverb says, 'A man fears fame as a pig fears to grow fat.' You may have done good by giving your money to the poor, but no one will ever believe it; people will always suspect that you have a secret cellar under your house where you've hidden the money, and sooner or later they'll come after you. If you really had the stolen money at home, you could use it to buy them off and so save your skin. But I'm afraid you'll find the money you gave to the poor impossible to recall at short notice, and your life will be in jeopardy. Thus your thisworldly retribution is inescapable too. And a delayed retribution may well prove worse than the sin itself."
The Knave had always been a violent man with a fiery temper that everyone feared, so he had never received any moral advice. Now, confronted with the priest's compelling arguments, he felt moved by a spirit of repentance. There was no need to pressure him further; he was committed to reforming himself.
"Admittedly," he said to Lone Peak, "the things I have done are not the actions of a good or superior man. But since rich men are unwilling to distribute their money themselves, it has been my practice to take a little from them and do a few good deeds in their behalf: In doing so, I am thinking of others, not myself. From what you say, however, I have done many evil things for which retribution is inescapable, both in this world and in the next. If I repent now, will you still be able to intercede for forgiveness?"
Lone Peak pointed to Stubborn Stone. "His sins were far worse than yours, but because he turned his mind to goodness, he moved Heaven into taking back the daughters who would have redeemed his debts. That is something you saw with your own eyes, not something I made up, so you already know whether you can be forgiven."
Stubborn Stone was delighted when he heard of the Knave's intention to turn his mind to goodness. He told how he himself had rejected the master's advice three years before and thrown himself into all kinds of debauchery, and how the retribution he suffered as a consequence had borne out the master's warnings to the letter. He urged the Knave to heed his example.
The Knave took his decision and made his bows to Lone Peak that very day, acknowledging him as his teacher. Receiving the tonsure, he embarked on a strict course of self-denial and in less than twenty years attained the fruits of enlightenment. He died sitting in the buddha position, like Lone Peak and Stubborn Stone.
Obviously there is no man who is unfit to become a buddha. It is only because we are so controlled by money and sex that we cannot avoid the path of error and reach salvation's shore. That is the reason why Heaven is so sparsely populated and Hell so densely crowded, why the Jade Emperor has nothing to occupy his time and King Yama is too busy to cope. In a more general sense it is all due to the meddling of the Sage who separated Heaven and Earth. He should never have created woman or instituted money, reducing man to his present sorry state. Let me now sum up the case against the Sage with a quotation from the Four Books: "Was it not the Sage himself who invented burial images?" [95]
CRITIQUE
Whereas at the beginning of the book he was grateful to the Sage, now, at its close, he berates him. That worthy cannot be feeling either too pleased or too vexed about it. This truly is a book that mocks everything! Let me come to the Sage's defense with yet another quotation from the Four Books: "Those who understand me will do so through The Carnal Prayer Mat; those who condemn me will also do so because of The Carnal Prayer Mat." [96]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Li Yu was a renowned essayist, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and critic. The Carnal Prayer Mat was first published in 1657.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Educated in New Zealand and England, Patrick Hanan is a professor of Chinese literature at Harvard University. Among his books is a study of the author of The Carnal Prayer Mat entitled The Invention of Li Yu (Harvard University Press, 1988). Mr. Hanan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received numerous awards for his research and translation projects.
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[1] Li Yu thought he had been born in 1611, but the clan genealogy says 1610. He died early in 1680.
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[2]Gonggong was a term of address for a eunuch and also for a grandfather.
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[3] The Bencao gangmu of Li Shizhen, first published in 1593.
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[4] The kidneys (and the sex functions) are related to the water element, the heart to fire.
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[5] The ideal political system advocated by the philosopher Mencius.
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[6] Li Yu is apparently speaking of ginseng rather than aconite. The best ginseng grew in Manchuria and the next best in Korea. The better varieties were known as daodi, that is, genuine.
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[7] I have used italics to mark passages of simulated address by the audience to the storyteller/narrator. Simple questions from the audience are not italicized.
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[8] The victims of amorous excess.
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[9] The allusion is to the Zhuang Zi. See Burton Watson, trans., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 313: "Now suppose there were a man here who took the priceless pearl of the Marquis of Sui and used it as a pellet to shoot at a sparrow a thousand yards up in the air-the world would certainly laugh at him."
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[10] These are the titles of the first two sections of the "Songs of the States" in the Poetry Classic (Book of Songs). They stand for the "Songs" as a whole, many of which are about love.
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[11] For this passage, see D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius (London: Penguin Books, 1970), pp. 65-66. King Tai's flight was a migration to a new settlement. Note that the words Li Yu puts into the puritan's mouth parody Mencius's lecturing style.
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[12] The last rulers of the Xia and Shang dynasties, respectively, who were famous for their gargantuan debaucheries.
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[13] A reference to the Buddhist parable of the burning house (Lotus Sutra).
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[14] The olive, with its bitter taste, stands for a salutary lesson.
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[15] A legendary body of water. Although shallow, it is uncrossable; even a feather will sink.
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[16] There were eight or nine sacred mountains.
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[17] The poet Tao Qian (A.D. 365-427). See his "Biography of Mr. Five Willows."
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[18] See the story "The Priest Moonbright Saves Liu Cui" in Gujin xiaoshuo, Stories Old and New, published about 1621.
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[19] The poet, who lived from A.D. 210 to 263. White (contracted) pupils signify disdain, black (dilated) pupils signify approval and pleasure. We are told in his biography (Jin History 49) that Ruan revealed his mood by purposely maki
ng his eyes white or black.
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[20] See the poem "Ting liao" in the Poetry Classic. It is translated by Arthur Waley in The Book of Songs (New York: Grove Press, 1987), p. 191.
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[21] Liu Fen, a Tang candidate, was failed by the examiners for criticizing current policies. Li Bai is the famous poet (whose name is usually written Li Po).
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[22] Yue Fei and Guan Yu personified patriotism and personal honor, respectively.
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