The Fox Monk

Two mountains pinch a pass, and the wind finds its way through, howling all year. Bao-xiang Temple is wedged in the middle of the pass, like a bar across the mountain gate. Passing merchants, porters, and examining scholars all rest and add oil here, praying for safe passage. The incense-money gathered is no small sum, yet what reached the Buddha's bronze bowl was always a notch less than what the pilgrims dropped in — that missing notch went into the private purse of the abbot, Hui-ming. The gilding at the hall's corner peeled long ago and a finger of the Buddha's statue broke; Hui-ming would not mend it, saying only that "the Buddha does not mind being poor."

Hui-ming is a fat monk, round face, round belly, his laughter two rounds of mirth. He is warm to pilgrims, "Amitabha" never leaving his lips, then turns his back and books the fat goose and fine rice they offered onto his own stove. The two young novices are too small to speak. He often instructs: "The Buddha eats vegetarian; these fleshy things, your master takes on his sin."

That autumn came unbroken rain. One evening the mountain mist pressed down and a traveling monk knocked at the gate through the rain. His black robe was old to whiteness, his hat-brim dripping, a woven bamboo sutra-case on his back, hempen shoes worn through. Hui-ming, ill-tempered, saw his gaunt look and seeming lack of fat, and lazily let him into the side hall, setting out half a lamp and half a bowl of cold rice to send him off.

The traveling monk was not particular. He brightened the lamp to read his sutra; he ate the rice, licking even the rice-grains at the bowl's bottom. At night Hui-ming watched through the window and saw him sit cross-legged on the cushion, back straight as a cut of dead wood, motionless till dawn.

For days the rain did not lift, and the traveling monk stayed. Idle, he helped sweep fallen leaves and fill the lamp-oil, asking no pay. Hui-ming sneered inwardly: another poor sour monk, eating and lodging free. Yet he gradually felt something off — the traveling monk's gaze was too clear, so clear that whenever Hui-ming skimmed a portion, he felt those eyes behind him.

Once, a rich household below sent a live pig, saying it was to repay a vow, for the temple to "receive the sacrifice on the Buddha's behalf." Hui-ming beamed and, in private, whetted his knife, meaning to slaughter and salt it for slow enjoyment. The traveling monk passed the kitchen just then and asked only: "Donor, is this pig repaid to the Buddha, or to you?" Hui-ming faltered and, in the end, dared not kill it, releasing the pig down the mountain.

Another day, Hui-ming went by night to take from the bronze bowl's incense-money, meaning to shift a few strings under his mattress. He had just reached in when a figure appeared in the lamp-shadow — the traveling monk, standing behind him, watching quietly, no one knew since when.

Hui-ming's hand jerked in fright and the money-strings fell, clattering.

"Master," said the traveling monk faintly, "that money before the Buddha — how many fat geese does it feed you?"

Hui-ming's face burned to the ears; he forced a smile: "Brother jokes; this poor monk was only... counting."

The traveling monk shook his head, pressed him not, only took from his case a scroll of old sutra, spread it on the desk, and pointed to a line: "'If one would know all Buddhas of the three times, one should regard the nature of the dharma-realm — all is made by mind alone.' Your mind — does it make a Buddha-hall, or a dining-hall?"

Hui-ming could not answer.

Next day the sky cleared and the traveling monk would leave. Hui-ming, for the first time, prepared hot gruel and dry rations to see him off. The traveling monk took them; at the gate he turned and smiled — and in that smile Hui-ming suddenly saw in his eyes a fleck of amber light, like a beast's, gone in a flash.

When he had gone far, Hui-ming's heart unsettled, went to open the bronze bowl and count. He lifted the lid and froze: the incense-money within was not a coin short, but two strings more than usual; only on the money-cord was stuck, plain to see, a single shaft of fiery-red fox-hair.

Hui-ming pressed that fox-hair into his sutra and spoke of it to no one. Only after that, he dared not touch the money before the Buddha; the pilgrims' fat geese and fine rice, he honestly turned to common use. He often woke startled at midnight, feeling that in the side hall, on the cushion, still sat a cut-of-dead-wood shadow.

As for where the traveling monk went, none knew. The mountain folk only say that after, in the stretch around Bao-xiang Temple, no thieving fox came near the temple — the fox fears the Buddha, the Buddha fears the fox, and the two, strangely, kept the peace.