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, entertaining 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.