Classic New Translation of The Carnal Prayer Mat, Chapter 4

Wei Yangsheng’s lips curled into a cold smile. With a “shua” he snapped his folding fan shut and struck it heavily against his palm, his burning gaze meeting the old monk’s:

“Master, your line of reasoning is indeed watertight. But this talk of karmic retribution is nothing more than a trick to frighten ignorant villagers. Only by painting it in blood and gloom can you cow those illiterate fools. Yet when you try to debate logic with a clear-minded scholar like myself, it falls apart completely!”

His debating spirit ignited, he raised his chin with animated flair, his words growing ever sharper and more cutting:

“Though the Way of Heaven is stern, it still shows tolerance toward all things in the world. True, many who indulge in lust and debauchery meet swift retribution, but look back at the timeless tales of talented scholars and beautiful ladies—every hero is dashing and unrestrained, every heroine tender and affectionate. If Heaven were truly busy every day tallying these romantic affairs and settling accounts for every liaison, how would it differ from a brothel pimp? Would that not be absurd!”

At this clever point, Wei Yangsheng could not help clapping his hands and laughing, his face full of cunning and arrogance:

“Heaven has its own rules. Those who murder and pillage, who commit atrocities against nature, will sooner or later suffer divine punishment—that is an iron fact. Using this principle to urge goodness and deter evil is more than sufficient. But you, Master, are still unsatisfied, insisting on dragging the pleasures of men and women into this karmic framework. Why go to such lengths?”

The old monk, seeing his glib and eloquent manner, did not grow angry but let out a cold snort through his nostrils:

“According to you, then, there truly exist cheap tricks where one can steal another’s wife or daughter and escape unscathed? Heaven’s net of karma has always been wide-meshed yet never lets a single fish slip through. Let me tell you plainly: from ancient times to the present, not one person who violated another’s wife or daughter has ever escaped retribution! The history books are filled with it in black and white, and common folk pass the tales down by the thousands upon thousands.”

The old monk lowered his eyelids, his fingers spinning the prayer beads with a clicking sound, then suddenly chuckled and spoke slowly:

“Patron, listen to this principle of mine.”

“When men out there take advantage of others’ wives and concubines, they can’t wait to stretch their necks three feet long and boast to everyone of their skill and good fortune. They slap tables in taverns and cross their legs in teahouses, terrified the world might not know what a bargain they struck. Why? Because they are happy for people to know—it’s a fine way to gild their reputation.”

The old monk paused, pressing the beads onto the table, his voice suddenly sinking:

“But what if retribution falls upon their own heads? Their wife is seduced away, their daughter’s virtue stolen—do you see them beating gongs or drums? Do they go around telling everyone, ‘My wife ran off with another man’? Bah! They would rather sew their mouths shut and plug their ears, silencing every witness. Why? Because they cannot bear the shame! They can only swallow their broken teeth and, if they cannot stomach it, kill the offender and then slit their own throats.”

The old monk narrowed his eyes and tapped the table with his bony fingers:

“So, Patron—you only see those libertines strutting about, thinking Heaven is blind and retribution has failed. Little do they know, retribution has long arrived, only it strikes in secret, in their own inner chambers, upon their beloved daughters and dearest wives. They dare not speak of it, cannot speak of it; to speak would be stabbing themselves in the heart.”

“And those adulterous women, those eloping daughters? They deceive their spineless husbands and foolish fathers, keeping the men in the dark like living cuckolds, while the men, after wine and meat, beat their chests and brag to their rascally friends: ‘In all my life of debauchery and plunder, have I ever seen the slightest retribution?’”

At this, the old monk suddenly threw back his head and laughed, his laughter like an owl’s cry echoing through the empty meditation hall.

“Retribution is never thunderbolts or flames striking on the spot. It is an account Heaven keeps for you. Today you take someone’s wife; tomorrow someone will take your daughter. Today you destroy someone’s family; tomorrow someone will destroy yours. Only you dare not settle this account, nor can you—until one day retribution knocks at your own door and you suddenly realize: Heaven has never been blind.”

The old monk stopped laughing, resumed spinning his beads, and his voice returned to its earlier calm:

“Not to mention that true physical adultery is not the only way to incur a debt of lust! The moment a man’s heart stirs with lecherous fire, his wife and daughters at home sense it in their spirits and unknowingly send their souls wandering!”

The old monk lifted his eyelids slightly, his gaze slicing across Wei Yangsheng’s face like a knife:

“For instance, some men marry wives who are coarse and heavy-featured. At night, rolling in bed, the man looks at that ugly flesh and feels no vigor at all, his mind desperately fantasizing about the pretty young woman he glimpsed on the street by day. Thus he treats the ugly wife beneath him as that wanton wench and seeks his pleasure.”

The old monk paused, his voice dropping lower:

“But this fool never imagines that the ugly wife beneath him likewise despises him as an impotent wretch. Eyes closed, her mind is replaying the fair-faced young man she dallied with by day, pretending the man atop her is someone else as she pleasures herself!”

His beads struck the table with a sharp click, making the candle flames flicker:

“Such filthy matters of sharing a bed yet dreaming separate dreams—how many households perform them nightly behind their bed curtains? Though the outer skin of chastity remains unbroken, in truth, where is there any chaste and loyal wife left?!”

The old monk narrowed his eyes, a mocking curve at his lips:

“Is this not the first worldly retribution visited upon a lecher? Before the body moves, the mind is already soiled; before the flesh is breached, the soul has already flown. This is retribution!”

“If even a fleeting thought brings such sinister backlash, what if you truly break down the door?! Do you truly believe all the gods and Buddhas are blind, that the Creator will allow you to ravage at will while still protecting the chastity of your own wives and concubines, letting them uphold a lifelong memorial arch of virtue for you?! Every word I speak tears at your flesh—is this mere rhetoric?! Weigh it yourself, layman!”

Stung by this venomous thrust, Wei Yangsheng’s face burned, yet he stubbornly retorted, laughing skyward with the slyness of a marketplace rogue:

“Master, your logic sounds indeed cunning and ruthless, leaving no flaw to pick. But I still have one knot in my belly that requires the guidance of a high monk—”

He paused, a trace of overbearing smugness in his eyes:

“When a man with wife and daughter sleeps with another’s woman, Heaven can still send others to sleep with his wife and daughter in repayment. But what if he is a lone widower with neither roof nor land, not even a female dog at home? If he merrily beds every flower-like beauty he finds, where, pray tell, would Heaven borrow women to settle this debt of lust? Would not the heavenly law stall right there? Moreover, a man’s household can support only three or five wives, daughters, and maidens, yet peerless beauties under Heaven are as numerous as stars and inexhaustible! Suppose in this life I have but one wife and one daughter, yet I bed hundreds or thousands of exquisite noblewomen! Even if Heaven sends retribution and throws my wife and daughter to others for ravishment, I would still have traded two old ones for a thousand new conquests—a clear ‘tiny capital, boundless profit’ bargain! How, then, shall Heaven balance its books against such a greedy rogue?!”

Upon hearing this, the old monk’s heart chilled to the marrow, as if a basin of ice water had been poured over him from head to toe. He saw through the man before him—a lust-obsessed libertine whose mind was wholly possessed by carnal desire. Even if the eighty-one precepts of Buddhism were turned into heavenly thunder to strike him, they could not shake his obsession in the slightest!

The old monk fell silent, his profound gaze fixed on Wei Yangsheng for a long while before he said quietly: “Your iron teeth, copper teeth, and honeyed tongue, Patron, I truly cannot match. Yet this matter of karmic retribution cannot be settled by words alone; only when you personally take up the spear and act will the final outcome become clear.”

He paused, a trace of helpless sigh in his voice:

“After you descend the mountain, go seek your number-one beauty and fine wife. When the aphrodisiacs are exhausted, your yang essence depleted, and you are trapped upon the flesh prayer mat between a woman’s legs unable to free yourself, then from the bottom of your heart you may gradually comprehend this Buddhist truth and witness its bloody, actual consequences! I have observed you coldly; your bones hold the makings of a transcendent sage destined for the golden immortals—truly heaven-sent talent. I cannot bear to watch you fall shattered into the bottomless abyss of ten-thousand bones!”

The old monk raised his eyes, his tone suddenly earnest and mournful:

“Should you one day awaken from the great dream, suddenly enlightened, your body scorched by worldly karmic flames with nowhere left to turn, remember to return to Mount Kuocang and seek me. Together we shall discuss a path out of suffering and back to truth. From tomorrow’s dawn onward, I shall sit upon the straw-mat prayer cushion in this thatched hall, my old eyes polished bright, waiting day and night for your return.”

With that, the old monk turned to the side table, smoothed a sheet of snow-white paper, took up a worn sheep-hair brush, dipped it in thick, lacquer-black ink, and with a flick of his wrist wrote a five-character quatrain in one flowing motion:

“Cast off the leather sack,
Go sit upon the flesh prayer mat.
Repent while still alive,
Do not sigh when the coffin is sealed!”

The old monk set down the brush, pinched the still-wet inked paper between two fingers, and held it out to Wei Yangsheng, his face expressionless: “I am but a crude, unlettered ascetic monk who knows nothing of the flowery pretensions of officialdom and the literary world. Though these four lines of verse cut like knives into the heart and sting the ear, they are truly half my heart offered to you. Wronged patron, tuck them into your sleeve and take them away, to serve as a warning when great calamity strikes in the future.”

At these words, the old monk flicked his robe sleeve and stepped back half a pace, standing facing the wall with eyes raised to heaven, assuming the posture of dismissing a guest and closing the door.

Wei Yangsheng understood clearly that this old Zen master no longer found common ground with him. Yet mindful that the other was a renowned high monk and hermit of deep magnanimity, and that a scholar like himself ought not to turn hostile on the spot, he forced down the sullen anger in his heart, tucked his folding fan into his waist, bowed respectfully, and said in apology: “This humble one was born with a lowly, stubborn, and foolish nature. Though I have received Master’s head-on rebuke, I could not heed it—my crime is grave indeed. I beg Master’s Buddhist compassion not to hold it against such a madman as myself. Once I have fulfilled my worldly wishes amid the red dust, I shall return to this precious mountain one day. I hope then that Master will open wide the mountain gate and not shut me out.”

With that, Wei Yangsheng straightened his robes and, following proper etiquette, performed four respectful bows toward the old monk.

The lone-peak monk showed neither joy nor sorrow, likewise bowed deeply in return with four bows, then pressed his palms together in silence, watching wordlessly as the handsome scholar stepped over the threshold and descended the mountain beneath a carpet of rustling autumn leaves.

#ClassicNewTranslationOfTheCarnalPrayerMat