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CRITIQUE
How enticing this novel sounds! I am sure that when it is finished, the entire reading public will buy it and read it. The only people who may not are the puritans. The genuine puritans will; only that species of false puritan, those who try to deceive people with their righteousness, will not dare. On the other hand, it has been suggested that, although the false puritans will not dare buy it themselves, they just may get someone else to buy it for them, and although they won't dare read it openly, they just may do so on the sly.
CHAPTER TWO
Poem:
Our story tells how in the Peaceful Government era of the Yuan dynasty there lived on Mount Guacang a monk whose religious name was Correct And Single and whose monastic name was Lone Peak. Before becoming a monk, he had distinguished himself as a licentiate in the Chuzhou prefectural school. However, he had also shown early signs of a propensity for the religious life. While only one month old and still in swaddling clothes, he would babble on and on like a schoolboy reciting his lessons, to the bewilderment of his parents. An itinerant priest came begging to the door, caught sight of the infant half-crying and half-laughing in a maidservant's arms, and after listening intently, declared, "It's the Surangama Sutra the child is reciting! He must be the reincarnation of some famous priest." He pleaded with the parents to let him have the baby as his disciple, but the parents dismissed his talk as nonsense.
As the child grew, his parents made him study for the examinations, but although he could absorb several lines at a glance, his heart was not set on worldly success, and on several occasions he forsook Confucian for Buddhist studies and had to be severely disciplined by his parents before returning. Forced to take the examinations, he graduated as a licentiate while still a boy, and afterward used his stipend to help others. When his parents died, he completed the three years of mourning and then distributed the whole of the valuable family property among his relatives. For himself he made only a large bag to hold his wooden fish, a copy of the Sutrapitaka, and a few other things, then took the tonsure and lived the life of a recluse while practicing the Buddhist virtues. Enlightened people called him Abbot Lone Peak; others called him Priest Leather Bag.
He differed from other priests in abstaining not only from wine, meat, lust, and depravity but also from three staple activities of the priestly life. Which activities were they, do you suppose?
When people inquired as to why he didn't ask for alms, he would reply, "In general one must approach Buddhism through self-denial, striving to wear oneself out physically and stinting on one's food in order to make starvation and cold an ever-increasing threat. Once that is achieved, lustful thoughts will not arise, and if they do not arise, impurity will gradually give way to purity, and in the fullness of time one will naturally become a buddha. It is not necessary to recite scriptures or chant mantras. If, on the other hand, you choose neither to plow your own fields nor to weave your own cloth but rely instead on benefactors for your food and clothing, once you're well fed and warmly clad, you'll want to stroll about at your ease and sleep in a soft bed. As you stroll about, your eyes will light on objects of desire, and while you're sleeping in your soft bed, you'll have dreams and fantasies. Not only will you be unable to study Buddhism with any success, all kinds of damning temptation will come unbidden to your door. That is why I live off the fruits of my own labor and abstain from asking for alms."
When asked why he did not explicate the scriptures, he replied, "The language of the scriptures comes from the mouth of Buddha himself, and he is the only one who can explain it. All attempts at popular explication are like the ramblings of an idiot, with each layer of exegesis merely adding another layer of distortion. Long ago Tao Yuanming chose not to seek a detailed explanation in reading texts. [17] Now, if a Chinese does not dare seek a detailed explanation in reading a Chinese text, how can he be so reckless as to try interpreting a foreign one? I do not presume to be Buddha's right-hand man; all I hope is to escape his condemnation. That is why I keep my ignorance to myself and abstain from explicating the scriptures."
When they asked him why he chose not to live on some famous mountain, he replied, "A practicing Buddhist must not set eyes on any object of desire, lest it throw his thoughts into turmoil. Now, objects of desire are not confined to carnal pleasure and money. A cool and pleasant breeze, an enchanting moon, melodious birdsong, even succulent fernshoots-anything that charms or enraptures and makes us unwilling to give it up is an object of desire.
"Once you start living in some scenic place, the spirits of mountain and stream will be there to tempt you to poetry, so that you can never put your writing aside. And the nymphs of wind and moon will disturb your meditations and make you fidget endlessly on the midnight prayer mat. That is why those who go up famous mountains to pursue their examination studies never finish them, and also why those who go there to master the doctrine find it so hard to purge their senses. Moreover, on every famous mountain there are women who come to pray and gentlemen who come to celebrate. The affair between the priest Moonbright and the girl Liu Cui is a warning of what can happen. [18] That is why I have spurned famous mountains and come to live here in this desolate place, my sole purpose being to ensure that nothing I see or hear will block my progress."
His questioners were greatly impressed with his answers, which, they felt, contained insights never before expressed by an eminent priest.
By virtue of these three abstentions, he became famous despite himself. But although visitors flocked there from all quarters to join the order, he would not accept them easily. Before giving applicants the tonsure, he insisted on examining them to ensure that they had a good moral basis and had renounced all worldly desires, and if he felt the slightest doubt, he would reject them out of hand. For this reason, despite the many years he had been in the order, he had very few disciples. He lived alone beside a mountain stream in a small thatched hut that he had built with his own hands, eating the food he grew himself and drinking the water from his stream. He wrote out a pair of scrolls, which he stuck on the uprights in his hut. They read,
[15] A legendary body of water. Although shallow, it is uncrossable; even a feather will sink.
[16] There were eight or nine sacred mountains.
[17] The poet Tao Qian (A.D. 365-427). See his "Biography of Mr. Five Willows."
[18] See the story "The Priest Moonbright Saves Liu Cui" in Gujin xiaoshuo, Stories Old and New, published about 1621.