Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl
“This is myself and that is someone else” --
Free yourself from the constraints of such delusion
And your own self shall be awakened.
-- Saraha
from “The Treasury of Songs”
It is said that during the reign of Cheng Yuan (785-804 A.D.) of the T’ang Dynasty there lived in Chang-an a young man by the name of Yang. He was just fifteen and yet learned far beyond his years. He was graceful, his complexion clear, his eyes bright, his hair of fine luster. He had the beauty, the grace, and the elegance of a girl, and yet he conducted himself with the bearing of a warrior prince. He had about him all the qualities of the superior man, and yet he had a terrible flaw: he was proud, arrogant, and selfish. The official T’ang histories say that Yang met a tragic end at the hands of barbarian bandits and that his younger brother became a famous Royal Minister like their father.
But histories are always incomplete. This is the tale of how Yang came to learn that he inhabited a world of delusion and began to seek the virtues that would, in time, earn him the title “Master Anatman,” also known as “Master Madman.” It is taken from a manuscript once housed in the archives of the Collection of Antiquities at the National University Library of Shanghai .
1.
It was springtime in the year of the Fire Horse. Icicles dripped under the eaves of the tiled roofs, and where the water splashed upon the ground, small pits appeared, dirt spattering in dark rings. In the square of the inner courtyard white snow melted along the tops of black branches, shimmering under the morning sun.
And here young Master Yang, roused early from sleep, rubbed his eyes as he drank his morning tea. Today was the day he would meet his new tutor, an old monk widely renowned as a teacher of the ancient Buddhist scriptures, and a serving girl came to announce his arrival.
“Tell him to wait,” said Yang, making no attempt to cover his nakedness under his open robe. The serving girl blushed and cast her eyes downward as she left the room. Yang took his time with breakfast and he made his dresser change his clothes twice. More than an hour passed before he finally emerged to meet the monk, and then he did not even bother to greet him or ask his name. “Why are you here so early?” he said.
The old monk bowed. “I have the honor of being your tutor, young Master. Your father has no doubt told you that you are to study with me.”
“If it were up to my father, I would study with every tutor and charlatan sage from here to India ,” said Yang, and though he knew full well, he asked, “What are you supposed to teach me?”
“According to your father’s instructions, you are to accompany me to Ch’ing Feng Temple in the north. There I will instruct you in the sutras, the teachings of the Buddha.”
“The sutras? I have no intention of becoming a monk. I will not shave my head or wear rags or eat the leftovers of households beneath mine.”
“You need not become a monk, young Master. You are to study the sutras as part of your education.”
“And why must I go with you? Why can’t we do it right here?”
“To properly study the sutras, we must go where they are housed, to a temple. We must hear how properly to chant them, and that requires that we be in the company of the monks. That is why we will go to Ch’ing Feng Temple.”
“If I am to go to a drafty old temple, I want to know what provisions my father has made for my comfort.”
“He has made a large offering, young Master. Your needs will all be met. Now, after breakfast tomorrow, you will come with me.”
“I will go with you, but not without my personal servants.”
“As you know,” said the monk, “many of the teachings are secret and privileged. Were you not such a prodigious scholar already, and had your father not made a substantial donation to the temple, I would not have been sent here by the head of my order. But I have been instructed to teach you. Therefore I shall, but it must be according to the rules of my order. You may not bring your servants.”
“Do you know who I am?” said Yang. “Do you know who my father is? Surely, you are joking and an exception is to be made for me.”
“It was your father who has instructed that we abide by the rules of my order. We are to make no exceptions for you. Otherwise, how would you gain authentic knowledge? Can one learn to swim by stepping halfway into a lake?”
“I have studied the Rites, the Histories, and the Songs. I studied more than you could imagine, old man. I would be better served to have a tutor instruct me on the Book of Changes. My father is wasting my time with religion.”
“Even Emperors do not consider religion to be a waste of time, young Master. You are young. You must bow respectfully to the wisdom of your father. If not, you will bow involuntarily to his authority. Tomorrow, we will leave according to his wishes.”
“Then let it be known between us and to your master that I accompany you against my will. My father will live to regret this stupidity.” Yang made a show of ordering that his horse and travel clothes be prepared, though he knew that his father had already made all arrangements.
They set out the following morning shortly after dawn. It was an auspicious day, and Yang did not mind traveling on horseback along the dusty roads that led northward into the mountains. An entourage of his father’s servants accompanied him that day, and they set up a lavish camp for the night. He dined on roast pig, exotic vegetables, and wild mushrooms taken from the high forest, and he was entertained by his father’s favorite courtesan, who played odes and melancholy ballads on the silk-stringed ch’in. And after a dozen glasses of wine, poured for him by his father’s favorite concubine, he fell into a stupor, having quite forgotten the old monk.
That night Yang dreamed he was a great general riding to battle in a gleaming war chariot armored in pure gold. He carried a bow that could lay waste to the enemy, for the arrows were magical—they could explode into flames, cause madness, shower down a rain of poisonous glass shards. Yang was confident. He was brave. The one-wheeled chariot—self-propelled, or perhaps drawn by invisible horses—sped into battle, and Yang was the hero, the first to engage the enemy. And in this dream the enemy was not human—they were a horde of cannibal demons wearing the armor of dead soldiers from the time of the First Emperor, carrying antiquated weapons, shouting war cries in their guttural tongues. They swarmed towards him like the foaming waves of the sea, and then, as he noched an arrow and drew back his magic bow, an odd thing happened. The dream split in two, each half playing over the other half, as if the two were superimposed one on top of the other. In one dream his magic arrows caused great confusion and panic, and then he drew his great sword and drove through the demons, mowing them down like a field of ripe wheat. But in the other dream the chariot suddenly stopped and would not move. The single wheel was stuck. There was something wrong with the eight spokes, something having to do with how they converged on a point of nothingness. The demons were upon him like a ravenous swarm of locusts. He was overwhelmed by their stench of spoilt milk and rotting meat, the sight of their goggling round eyes, their red and yellow fur, their sickly white flesh like the bellies of dead fish. They tore him to pieces. And then a third dream superimposed itself over the first two: it was himself, waking up in his tent, covered in furs and silken blankets, sitting bolt upright in a cold sweat, mute, wide-eyed; and he woke at that moment, as if he had entered the dream world from another, unknown world.
Yang found himself in his bed. From the firelight outside the tent, he could make out the sleeping forms of his father’s concubine and the servants. He heard a horse snort. He got up, drew on his robe, and walked out into the starlit night.
The old monk was awake—or appeared to be. He sat near the fire counting his wooden prayer beads, which were alternately red and black, made of cherry and ebony.
“Do you have a cure for indigestion?” Yang asked him. “I have just woken from a terrible dream.”
“Do not overeat, and do not eat what is not easily digested,” said the monk.
“Useless,” said Yang. “What you say prevents indigestion. It offers no remedy.” He let out a foul belch. “I ate too much because I know I will starve up there at your temple. Get some sleep, old man. You will need your strength tomorrow.”
Yang went back into his tent and slept fitfully, trying to figure out why the wheel of his chariot would not turn. Perhaps I should have asked the old man, he thought as he drifted off.
2.
In the morning they left the entourage behind, taking only one pack horse to carry Yang’s many necessities and a mule for the monk to ride. There was much moaning and crying among the servants, which Yang knew was all an act, but which he humored for his own pleasure. He and the monk continued alone.
They needed no protection, the monk had assured him, because like the fabled Hsuan Tsang, who had journeyed to India for the scriptures, they were under the divine protection of the Buddha. And the monk would draw on his own powers if the need arose.
The monk was taciturn, but Yang today was excited by the prospect of learning Buddhist magic, and when he learned that the monk had been to Tibet , he asked question after question. “Which is the easiest to learn?” he asked. “I have heard that in Tibet one of the first spells is the spell of psychic heat that allows a man to sleep in a cave with no blanket, even in the middle of a blizzard. Is it true that they can dry a dozen sheets soaked in icy water in winter just by the power of their thoughts?”
“It is true,” said the monk.
“Is it true that they have a way of running that takes them a hundred li in a matter of minutes? And leaving no footprints even upon muddy ground? And that they may simply project a ghost double of themselves to send a message to a faraway town?”
“It is true.”
“Which will I learn first? What would you recommend?”
“I could not tell you, young Master. I am only to be your tutor for the sutras.”
“But surely, you can teach me a little magic. Isn’t that part of a monk’s training? Can you push your palm against solid stone and leave the print of your hand? I have heard that great monks can do that. Have you learned how?”
“No, I have not.”
“Have you seen it?”
“I have not. But I have heard of such feats.”
“And what about levitation? Have you seen levitation?”
“I have not.”
“Then you must be a lowly monk and your temple must be unremarkable,” said Yang. “Tell me, monk, are you an arhat? Are you enlightened?”
“I am not,” said the monk. “It is what I aspire to. And yet were I to reach the gates of Nirvana, I would come back to this world to help others reach it before me. That is the vow of our order.”
“How foolish!” said Yang. “What a foolish vow! That would be like a starving man finally reaching the banquet table and then allowing everyone else to eat first. Utter foolishness!”
“We strive to achieve enlightenment—to end the cycle of birth and rebirth in a world of suffering. Not merely for ourselves, but for all beings in the world.”
“I see that as a great waste of one’s life, monk. First, the world is not all suffering. My life is full of enjoyment. Do you enjoy yourself?”
“The cause of enjoyment is also the cause of suffering. And the self is an illusion.”
Yang laughed. “The self is an illusion?” He pinched himself and let out a mock cry of pain. “Enjoyment and suffering of the same cause? You Buddhists are an interesting lot.”
“In time you will understand.”
“I’m sure I will,” said Yang. He laughed again.
They had arrived at an ancient gravesite—a dolmen made of two giant stones supporting a cracked slab like a table above them. Around the dolmen was a ring of smaller stones partially buried in the earth. Yang could make out the ashes and stones of an old fire pit and the debris of many camps.
“What is this place?” he asked.
The monk touched his prayer beads and made a gesture whose meaning Yang did not know. “It is a bad place,” he said. “There are demons here who prey on passers by. Let us move on without disturbing them.”
“I’m tired,” said Yang. “And I see that many people have stopped here. It is clearly not dangerous. Don’t you Buddhists consider the old religions mere superstition?”
“Let us go a little father until we leave these woods,” said the monk. “Then we may rest where it is safe.”
Yang wheeled his horse impatiently. “Fine. And how much farther?”
Before the monk could answer, there came a loud shout from the hillside, then the thunder of hoofbeats. Yang turned and saw a dozen horses galloping toward them—small horses of the barbarian breed. “Bandits!” he cried.
“Do not run!” called the monk. “They want only your money, but if you try to escape they will hunt you down for sport!”
Yang considered the monk’s words. He looked at the old man in his coarse gray robe and then at his own embroidered silks, the old man’s wooden beads and his own gold and silver. He saw the bandits riding down the hillside on their fast ponies, their unruly clothes, their shaggy beards and pockmarked faces. Their leader wore a fur hat of the horse clans and sported a red scar that split his face diagonally from brow to chin. Yang could almost smell the stench of his filthy furs. He looked at the monk to catch his eye, and then, with a flick of his whip, Yang wheeled his mount and galloped off down the trail, knowing the barbarian ponies could never catch his racehorse. He rode mercilessly, better than he imagined he could, his fear giving him strength and speed. He whipped his horse until his arm hung limp from exhaustion and he rode on still, spurring and spurring until the horse collapsed beneath him and he tumbled to the ground.
He did not know where he was or how long he had been riding. There was an eerie silence around him—except for the wet, rasping gasps of the horse. Its mouth was spewing bloody spittle and it stared at him with its frightened, terribly wide eyes, trying vainly to raise itself from the ground.
Yang dusted off his clothes. He was not injured. But the horse had broken one of its front legs and the bone protruded like a large sliver of birch wood. It sickened him. He knew that the proper thing to do was to kill the horse, but he could not bear it—not the gruesomeness, not the inconvenience. That was for a servant—or a butcher. And the wolves will be here to finish him off, he thought. They will smell the blood and come here. Let them be distracted by the horse. The thought of wolves frightened Yang. Quickly, he took the saddle blanket and his saddle pack, and he made his way into the darkening woods. Behind him he could hear the plaintive sounds of the horse—pathetic, disgusting. A little later, as clouds blackened the horizon, he heard the first wolf’s howl.
3.
The house was not yet a ruin, but it had been abandoned for a long time. The gate still hung on iron hinges black with rust. The wood, once colorful with paint, was now a dull gray and what remained of the nameplate was only the single character of the surname: Li. The courtyard was overgrown in mugwort and tall grasses; once-tended trees had grown wild in the garden orchard now thick with weeds. The place made Yang imagine what his father’s house might look like in a hundred years if his family fell out of favor with the Emperor. He felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Yang went to the gate and called out, several times, but got no answer. He waited until he knew no one would answer, and then he opened the bare wooden gate on its shrieking hinges and entered the courtyard. It was a wealthy house, paved in stone, but now tufts of dry grass and dead weeds poked through the cracks. Everything was bleak and colorless, the paper panels in tatters, the lattices skeletal, metal fixtures tarnished or rusted black. Once again, he called out and heard not even an echo in reply.
In most of the rooms the ceiling had collapsed altogether or there were gaping holes through which Yang could make out the stars and the moon. He went from room to room until he found one past the inner courtyard—a receiving room set up like the one in which his father conducted his official business. Here the beams were sound and the ceiling undamaged. It was warmer, too, though Yang could still feel the breeze blowing in through the broken shutters. This is where he would spend the night. He looked for the warmest corner, where he might move a piece of furniture and sleep on it to avoid the cold stone floor. And he wept out of frustration and from the sheer hardship of it all. Only that morning he had been surrounded by his father’s servants. He had woken in a warm and comfortable bed, enjoyed hot tea and a dainty breakfast while he still lounged in his sleep robe. These memories brought back images so vivid that he could smell them—the subtle fried odors, the light touch of spices, the warm steam of the tea upon his face—and he cried some more. His stomach rumbled with hunger, his limbs ached with exhaustion. He huddled as best he could and sobbed himself to sleep.
He awoke late that night. The moon he had seen through the broken ceilings now shone low through the western windows. It was clear, nearly white in the cloudless night. But it was not the light, with its bluish caste, that had woken him. It was a noise—someone grunting, footsteps, the sound of something heavy being dragged. And then he saw it—a demon, a tall and lanky black demon dragging the body of a dead man.
Though Yang, like all well-bred young men, had been taught the martial arts and the ways of swordsmanship, he was a coward and now feared for his own life. He clasped a hand over his mouth lest he should make a sound. He stood motionless until he was sure the demon had not seen him, and then he quietly crept backwards to hide behind a pile of broken furniture.
The demon, grunting and grumbling, pulled the body into the room. Drool leaked from his lower lip where his yellow fangs protruded like boars’ tusks. Yang could smell him—or was it the odor of decay from the corpse? And now as the demon passed across a patch of moonlight, Yang recognized the body. It was the fat bearded man, the leader of the bandits still wearing his fur hat. The demon dragged him so close Yang could see the scar on the bandit’s face, the gash on his neck, the black, clotted blood, the wide-open eyes, the bloated, protruding tongue.
The demon cursed and spat. He squatted on his haunches, facing the far door, and leaned over the bandit’s body, prodding at the belly. He was unhappy about something. He grunted again and squatted back down by the bandit’s head. He was naked—what Yang had taken to be the dangling end of a belt was actually the demon’s member. It was so long it flopped on the floor, oozing piss from its puckered foreskin. In a moment Yang could smell the acrid stench.
Now the demon sighed, turning his head to glance out of the window at the moon. He had three red eyes, and Yang, though he trembled with fear, could not help but be fascinated by how they blinked alternately so that two were always open. Without looking down, the demon casually jabbed one of its long thumbnails into the corpse’s left eye socket and gouged out an eyeball. It was surprisingly large—twice the size Yang imagined an eye must be. Perhaps it had swollen in death. The demon popped the eye into his mouth and bit down. Liquid squirted as the eyeball burst like a fat grape. There was a bright shimmer on the floor where the fluid reflected the moonlight.
Yang could not help himself—his gorge rose in his throat, and it was only by sheer force of will that he kept from vomiting. He felt a dry heave, like a hiccup, then another, and he was calm again. He closed his eyes and did not see the demon’s ears twitch and its nostrils flare.
After a little while the demon got up and stalked out of the room. Yang knew he had to escape, but he dared not move until he knew it was safe. What if the demon was still near enough to hear him? He must wait, but then what if he waited too long and the demon returned? If he could wait until daylight he was sure to be safe, but he had no sense of the time and did not know how long it would be until sunrise. His heart was pounding. He was covered in sweat. He grew more anxious with each passing minute until it was fear and not bravery that made him get up.
But it was too late. The demon had returned. No—it was another demon, a red-skinned monster with a narrow chest and distended belly, with one crooked tusk and the other broken. It crept in looking left and right, approaching cautiously until it stood over the bandit’s corpse. This one also poked the corpse’s belly so hard that Yang could hear a sound, like someone breaking wind, and then he saw a black fluid leaking from the leg of the bandit’s fur pants. And now he smelled the stench of rot and excrement. Yang wrinkled his nose and covered his face with his sleeve.
The red demon lifted the corpse and slung it over his shoulder, letting out a loud grunt of exertion. But before it could move, a gravelly voice barked, “Stop!” The red demon looked toward the far door. It was the black demon.
“He’s mine! Put him down or I’ll gut you where you stand!”
“I found him first,” said the red demon. “He’s mine.”
The black demon pointed at the corpse. “I brought him here. If you doubt me, look at his face and you’ll see I’ve already plucked out an eye.”
Turning his head so he could make out the corpse’s face, the red demon asked, “Which eye?”
The black demon hesitated. “The right eye. No! The left! No! To the Nine Hells with you—how should I remember which eye?”
“Then he is mine,” the red demon sneered.
“Wait! I ate it. Come kiss me and you will still taste its flavor on my lips!”
“I’d rather lick a pig’s ass,” said the red demon. “He’s a big one. Let’s share him, then.”
“I’ll have what’s mine!” said the black demon. “Put him down before I lose my patience.” He rose to his full height and spread his arms wide. The muscles of his chest rippled under his mangy fur.
The red demon dropped the corpse but he did not retreat. Instead, he reached into the shadows and produced a large club studded with metal spikes, and this he lifted high and slammed down onto the floor, showering the room with sparks and chips of stone. A stone splinter hit Yang on the cheek, drawing blood.
“Not so fast,” said the black demon. “Since we can’t agree, let us have an impartial observer judge our case.”
“What impartial observer?” said the red demon, eyeing the corpse. “This one’s got only one eye, and he’s dead.”
“Not him,” said the black demon. “Him!” And he pointed directly at Yang where he was cowering behind a bed.
“Who?” The red demon turned, and now both were looking at Yang with their round fiery eyes.
There was no point in trying to hide any longer. Yang stood on trembling legs feeling queasy and light-headed. He had heard of fear turning a man’s bowels to water and he had not understood. Now he felt as if his insides would come splashing down at his feet.
“Who are you?” said the red demon.
Yang’s mouth felt as if it were stuffed with raw cotton. Only a croaking sound came from his throat when he tried to answer.
“What does it matter who he is?” said the black demon. “Let us each present our case and let him decide who gets the meat. I could rip you limb from limb, but I’d rather not spill the blood of my own kind in a quarrel over food.”
“Limb from limb, you say? I could bat your head from here to Loyang , but I shall spare you because our little judge will see things my way.”
“Very well,” said the black demon. He grabbed Yang and placed him on a stool on top of the broken furniture. Then he presented his case, describing how he and his brothers had been disturbed that day by a group of bandits dividing their loot in front of their home among the dolmens. They had killed most of the bandits and then they had fought over the meat. He had lost the horses and the mule but had managed to get two men. “They had a hostage—an old monk. But he was too skinny—a vegetarian, no doubt,” the demon said. “But this one was meaty and plump, so I dragged him up here to eat in peace where my brothers would not disturb me. I left him to ripen a bit and went back for the monk—they say a monk’s brain is especially sweet from having pure thoughts. But the monk was gone! Stolen! Then I come back to find him making off with my meat!” The black demon gestured contemptuously at the red demon, who merely snorted.
“Quite a tale,” said the red demon. “And perhaps it is even true. But it is irrelevant.”
“What?” said the black demon. “How can the truth be irrelevant? You! Are you mute? Ask him!”
Yang cleared his throat. From where he sat above them he could see the black demon’s fur standing on end. He was furious. Indeed, Yang realized that however he judged the case, one of the demons was bound to be angry and would probably eat him. Or perhaps this was all a cruel charade they were performing for their own perverse demonic amusement, knowing all along that they would end up sharing the meat of the two humans. I am dead, thought Yang. Of that I am certain, and only the particular time and circumstances are not yet known to me. They will kill me and devour my flesh. My eyeballs will burst like ripe grapes between their teeth. They will rip me to pieces, break open my bones, suck out my marrow.
The black demon’s slap brought Yang out of his reverie. “I said ask him! How can the truth be irrelevant? You are the judge, so judge!”
Yang coughed, and he spoke without thinking. “I will judge fairly,” he said. “But first I must have your assurance that you will let me go free.”
Both demons laughed until their fangs were flecked with spittle. “My assurance!” said the black demon. “You want my assurance? You have it! I’ll rip your head from your neck and use your skull as a chamber pot if you don’t pass your judgment now!”
Yang realized that the black demon expected the judgment to be in his favor. The demon had probably noticed him when he had first come with the bandit’s corpse. Or had he? If he had known all along, why hadn’t the demon simply eaten him then instead of leaving the corpse behind and allowing him a chance to escape? Yang could not make sense of it. But now his understanding of his own death had become a cold certainty, and he began to wonder how he would meet that death. The demons would not let him live. He was a dead man. He thought of his father the Minister, his family name, the honor of his ancestors. At least he could die with honor.
And so Yang decided that if he were to die, it would be with dignity. He would tell the truth. He looked at the red demon. “Honorable demon,” he said, “it may seem to you that you discovered an abandoned corpse, but I witnessed your colleague enter this room earlier in the evening. He did, in fact, eat an eye from the corpse. And when he left, it was not with the attitude of one abandoning one’s property. I have been here since nightfall and I speak the truth.”
“See,” said the black demon. “Spoken like a magistrate!”
At first the red demon was quiet. He seemed resigned to the judgment. But he was oddly calm. “You speak the truth,” he said. “But your truth is irrelevant. Why? Why is the truth irrelevant?” He turned to the black demon. “Because, my friend, you are in my house and what is left in my house is mine by law. What is more, you are both here without invitation. You are intruders. And I may exact a penalty for your rude trespassing if I so desire.”
“What?” said the black demon. “What proof do you have that this house belongs to you?”
“And what proof do you have that the gravesite where you live is the property of you and your brothers.”
“We’ve lived there for centuries among the dolmens,” said the black demon.
“I have lived here for six turns of the zodiac,” said the red demon, reaching for the bandit’s corpse.
“Wait,” said Yang.
The red demon paused.
“What is your surname?”
“What? I am a demon. I have no surname, only the names by which I am feared and loathed. Would you like to hear some of them?”
“No,” said Yang. “But this house is owned by the family of Li according to the nameplate. And unless you have purchased this property from them through a proxy and such purchase is recorded in the archives of the Assessor, this house cannot be yours. By law, no demon or ghost may own property.”
“You’re just a damned squatter!” said the black demon. “Now get your hands off my meat!”
The red demon was quiet again. But in his silence, Yang saw that his fur bristled and ropy veins pulsed at his temples. “A corrupt judgment!” he cried. “Fraud!”
“Shut up and be on your way,” said the black demon.
“Am I a dimwit? You believe I will lose one meal and simply leave you with yet another? Ha!”
The black demon strode forward and stood over the bandit’s corpse.
“Go ahead and eat your pig,” said the red demon. “I shall have the lamb over there.”
The red demon moved so quickly that Yang saw not even a blur. But he felt a horrific blow, as if he had been hit by the side of a mountain, and then his entire body burned with a pain so fierce he could not even hear his own scream. His vision went white, then dimmed, then filled with sparks of light. But the most awful thing was the sound of it—like the gristly sound a drumstick makes when one rips it from a pheasant’s hip, but louder, and with a force that shuddered through his entire body. Yang screamed, he doubled over, and when his vision cleared he saw his right arm—the glowing white bone of the shoulder joint—in the moonlight, the black, gushing of blood. He stood stupefied, as if he would at any moment wake from this unpleasant dream. But he did not wake. He felt, instead, for the ragged mess of his shoulder socket. He felt his hot blood spurt against his good hand. And then, in another instant, something hit him against the torn shoulder—so hard he fell to the floor with the wind knocked from his lungs. While Yang lay groaning and waiting to die, he heard the black demon cursing. The red demon dropped Yang’s arm and cursed back. There was a strange tingling in Yang’s right shoulder—like a thousand bristles poking him, and when he looked, he saw an arm attached there—the bandit’s arm—bathed in a pale blue-white light. And now he though this was certainly a nightmare. He would endure it, surely, and he would awaken in his comfortable bed. Why else would his concern be so oddly out of place? Instead of fearing for his life, Yang was annoyed and angered at the thought of having to live with mismatched arms. The bandit’s hands were coarse—his flesh was unpleasantly hairy and sunburnt. What an embarrassment to have to reveal such a limb in front of his servants. Yang closed his eyes and waited for the nightmare to be over.
But the red demon was still angry. He ripped Yang’s other arm from its socket. And while Yang screamed again—shrill as a pig at slaughter—the black demon ripped the other arm from the bandit’s corpse and attached it to Yang, affixing it there with the glowing life energy of ch’i. And then it happened with a leg, and the other leg. The pain was so great that Yang could no longer feel it, and now he was even more certain it was all a nightmare. He was outside his body, looking down at himself as people are wont to do in times of great trauma. He saw the red demon jab his claw through his belly and rip out his intestines. He wondered how they could be so incredibly long. The red demon twirled his arm as length after slimy length slid out of Yang’s belly and his innards all lay in one big steaming pile on the stone floor. The black demon looked indignant—he said something to the red demon, who laughed. But Yang could hear no sound. He watched, numb and helpless, as the black demon ripped open the bandit’s belly and lifted out an armload of intestine, which he dropped onto the floor. And this continued, this perverse game, until his living body and the bandit’s corpse were both as hollow as gutted birds ready for stuffing. The demons exchanged the empty torsos and the black demon refilled Yang’s body with the pile of organs from the floor.
Yang was confused. Now all that remained of himself on his body was his head. Everything else was pieces taken from the bandit’s corpse. Yang’s original arms and legs, his organs, his empty torso—now all lay scattered on the floor. But surely, I am still me, he thought. While my head is intact, I am still myself. How, then, was he able to look at his body from outside, unless this was a dream? Or was it true what they said about how one’s spirit could live independent from the body, how it could travel the world at night while the body lay in bed. And which was his real self then, the body or the spirit?
Now the red demon grabbed Yang with one hand on each side of the face, a thumb jammed so far into each ear that Yang felt his eardrums burst. The demon pulled him close and opened his fanged jaw, and at that moment Yang was back inside his body, seeing out of his own eyes the hideous round eyes of the red demon; he smelled the demon’s fetid breath; he could hear the rasp of hot wind blowing from the demon’s bull-like nostrils.
“Let him go,” said the black demon.
“Who?” said the red demon, and he pressed his fat lips against Yang’s nose and sucked, clasping his palm over Yang’s mouth so he could not breathe.
Yang could make no sound against this strange kiss. He flailed at the demon with his arms, now muscular, which had once belonged to the bandit. He struggled, kicked his legs, but the demon did not let go, and in another moment Yang felt a horrific pressure as the red demon sucked his brain out through his nose and spat mouthfuls of it onto the floor, where it quivered like piles of thick mucus. At that, the black demon split open the dead bandit’s skull and removed the coagulated brain, wrinkled like two huge, veined walnut halves. Yang closed his eyes as his head was ripped off by the red demon. When he opened them again a moment later, Yang was looking at his own head on the floor. He was looking out of the dead bandit’s eyes, which were somehow his. But Yang’s own body—all of it—now lay strewn across the floor in bloody pieces. Arms, legs, torso, entrails, brains, head. He had looked behind his father’s kitchens once when he was a boy. It was the fall moon festival and the cooks had butchered dozens of pigs and cows. This is how the kitchen floor had looked—like a charnel house.
I am dead, thought Yang. There lies my body. But then how could he be seeing himself? My spirit is still alive, he thought. And he could feel his body—his new body, the corpse of the bandit. But how could he be alive if he were the dead body of another man? Was Yang dead, and he was the dead bandit come to life again? How could he not know whether he was alive or dead?
Now the demons were laughing. The red demon pointed at the gruesome mess on the floor and the black demon was nodding in agreement. They each picked up a severed leg—Yang’s legs—and began to eat, their eyes rolling with pleasure. They were so preoccupied, eating so greedily, that they paid no heed when Yang—or the reanimated corpse of the bandit—finally made his escape.
4.
Several days later, the remaining bandits found their leader wandering in the woods. They were overjoyed to see him alive, for they had assumed him to be dead, but then they were terribly saddened to discover that he had lost his mind. He no longer recognized them or even knew his own name. He was covered in dried blood and his own filth. And he remembered nothing. When he could speak, they knew he was surely mad because he asked to be taken back to Chang-an to his father the Royal Minister. His tone of voice, his manner, his expression had all softened. He was almost effeminate.
Out of respect for their former leader, they took him to the Ch’ing Feng Temple and left him under the care of the monks. The bandits donated a large sum of gold, some of which they had taken from Yang’s packhorse, and requested that the monks nurse their leader back to health. If his memory and sanity did not return, the monks were to humor him and tend to him as best they could until the time of his natural death. Though the bandits of the horse clans are said to be uncivilized, there is honor even among outlaws, and they had great sympathy for the horrors their leader must have suffered at the hands of the demons he had described.
On the evening of the bandits’ departure, Master Lao Shan, the Abbot of Ch’ing Feng Temple, returned and the monks brought the madman to him to tell his improbable tale. To their great surprise, the two immediately recognized each other, and the Abbot asked the monks to leave them.
When they were alone, the madman kowtowed to the Master, sobbing and making abject apology. He told his story, and at the end he said, “Please, who am I? I have all the memories of my life as Yang, but how can that be me if I am in the body of this bandit, whom the other bandits say is their leader, Han Lung? They tell me I have lost my mind from the tortures the demons put me through. They say I must have fabricated all my memories of being Yang. Am I Han Lung, with no memory of my own past, with the absurd belief that I am the son of a Royal Minister? Please, Master, do you know who I am?”
“I recall that is what Yang said when we first met,” said Lao Shan. “Tell me, who do you see when you look in the mirror?”
“I have looked in the mirror many times. So much that the bandits took it away from me. Each time, I see Han Lung. There is no mistake.”
“And who is the I who sees Han Lung?”
There was a long pause. “Yang,” said the madman. “Inside, I am Yang. Of that I am certain. Han Lung’s body is what I occupy, but I know I am Yang.”
“And yet a true madman would be entirely convinced of the truth of his own delusions. What you say to me is precisely what the mad Han Lung would say.”
“But Master, Han Lung was dead. How can I be a corpse brought back to life?”
“How can you be the consciousness of one man trapped in the corpse of another which was brought back to life? Each tale is equally fantastic. Which is more plausible? I will send you to Yang’s father. Will he believe your story? Will he recognize your true identity?”
The madman wept. “I have pondered this for days until it drove me mad and then made me sane again. He will not. My father will rather believe that Han Lung murdered his son, having tortured out of him all the personal memories I would be likely to present as evidence that I am Yang.”
“In fact,” said Lao Shan, “I have just come from Chang-an, where Yang’s father has already buried the bones of his son. They were found with his clothes in an abandoned house near the ancient dolmens.”
The madman wept more loudly, pounding his breast and tearing at his hair.
“Yang’s younger brother is now the heir. Is the Minister likely to believe in the miracle of his first son’s survival in the body of a notorious criminal? Or would he, and the new heir, have Han Lung immediately arrested and put to death of the brutal murder of Yang?”
“Please, Master, I understand that whatever I may believe—whatever I may hold true within myself—what others see of me has more power to decide my identity than what I believe myself. But surely, you of all people must believe my story. You were there when the bandits attacked us. You warned me not to run. It was me—Yang—who abandoned you to the bandits. I did not know you were the great Master Lao Shan. I took you for a lowly monk. I am sorry for that. I am truly sorry.”
“Let me ask you,” said Lao Shan, “how do you know that I do not have a similar tale to tell? What if the demons perform this charade of theirs again and again for their amusement? What if I am actually the bandit Han Lung whose spirit was taken from his body before his death and put into the reanimated body of a dead old monk named Lao Shan? Could you know?”
The madman did not have to think long before he answered, “No. But all the monks here believe you to be their Master. You must be him.”
“All the bandits believe you to be their leader, Han Lung. Must you not be him?”
“But they believe I am insane. The monks don’t think that of you!”
“Perhaps Han Lung studied the sutras as a youth. Perhaps he was a monk before he became a bandit. Perhaps I am a better imposter than you.”
The madman put his hands over his ears. “Please, Master,” he begged as his tears darkened the wooden floor, “call me by a name. Call me Yang or call me Han Lung and that is who I shall be. If you do not save me, I will surely go mad again, and this time I will die.”
“It is not in my power to decide who you are. I recall telling Yang that the cause of enjoyment and the cause of suffering were the same.”
“Yes. I remember. You also said that the self is an illusion. Now I understand that pain and suffering both come from the self.”
“And have you learned the nature of the self?”
The madman wept bitterly at those words, remembering how he had scoffed at the old monk. He cried for a long time, until there were no more tears. “I understand,” he said finally. “I cannot go home. Let me stay here. You were to be my tutor for the sutras. I will stay to study the Buddha’s teachings with you.”
“And I will be honored to teach you whether you are Yang or Han Lung,” said the Master.
In the T’ang histories, it is said that the mad bandit Han Lung became a distinguished disciple of Master Lao Shan, but nothing is said about the nature of Han Lung’s madness. Upon the Master’s passing, Han Lung became Abbot of Ch’ing Feng Temple and was known officially as “Master Anatman,” for by then he was widely renowned for his teaching of the doctrine of “no self.” No details are given for why he was also called “Master Madman.”
Even during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643 A.D.), one could still view the prayer beads that Master Lao Shan had passed down to his successor. They were made of cherry and ebony wood and displayed on top of a folded ricepaper text at Ch’ing Feng Temple . It is said that Tang Yin, an early Ming scholar widely known for exposing unscrupulous practitioners of Taoist alchemy, transcribed the above tale from that text. (He is referred to in an anonymously-written cautionary narrative of the period called “The Alchemist and His Concubine.”) Stylistic clues suggest that Tang Yin’s text may have been later embellished by Wang Shih-cheng (1525-1590 A.D.) sometime after he wrote his scandalous novel, Gold Vase Plum.
Ch’ing Feng Temple was destroyed by fire under the Manchus in 1647.
December 18, 2005