Tonight’s story once again deals with the topic of attachment, as in the Buddhist sin of improper attachment to others. And like several stories we’ve read so far, it uses snakes as a symbol of that attachment. In this case, the suffering caused by attachment is pretty extreme, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for the father.
The Tumors of Heirokuzaemon of Shimōsa Province’s Father
In a place called Yokkaichi in Usui, Shimōsa Province, there was a man named Heirokuzaemon. One time an itinerant monk came to his place and asked for lodging. Although he had asked for a room, the monk stayed up all night long reciting the Lotus Sutra without sleeping. Throughout the night, he heard something moaning, “Look… Look…” on the other side of a shōji partition.
The monk was bewildered. In the morning he asked Heirokuzaemon, “Do you have a puppy in the other room? Something was moaning all night long.”
Heirokuzaemon replied, “I am ashamed, but as you are a monk let me tell you. The one who was moaning is my father. For more than twelve years he has been suffering. First he developed a tumor on his right shoulder, then he developed a similar tumor on his left shoulder, and after that a large hole appeared in each of them. When he looks to his left, the right tumor says, ‘Look this way!’ Whenever he looks to his right, the left tumor says, ‘Look this way!’ He is tormented day and night by these boils telling him, Look this way! Look this way! so that he has spent the last twelve years squatting with his hands on the floor, looking left, then looking right, over and over again. For the first five or six years I tried to help him with medical treatments and exorcisms, but they had no effect, so for the last five or six years I’ve just left him there.”
The monk listened, and then replied, “Let me meet him.”
“Very well,” said Heirokuzaemon, and he brought the monk to his father.
“Tell me about when these tumors first appeared,” said the monk to the father.
The father said, “I am ashamed to tell you this. When I was younger, I laid with a servant girl. Heiroku’s mother was the most jealous woman in the world, and she strangled the servant girl to death. Not three days after the servant girl was killed a tumor appeared on my right shoulder. Seven days after that Heiroku’s mother died, and not three days after that a tumor appeared on my left shoulder. Both tumors tell me, ‘Look this way! Look this way!’ and if I refuse even once, the pain becomes so unbearable, like being strangled to death. For the past twelve years they have been ordering me to look at them without rest.”
The monk listened carefully and replied, “Then, let me say a prayer for you.” He uncovered the father’s shoulders, sat behind him, faced the tumors, and recited the Lotus Sutra. Doing so, a tiny snake stuck its head out of the hole in the right tumor. The monk recited faster and with pausing, and soon the snake’s head stuck out nine centimeters. Holding the sutra in his hand, the monk pulled the snake out of the hole. Then he turned towards the left tumor and recited the sutra, and a snake stuck out its head just like before, so holding the sutra in his hand, he pulled that snake out of the hole. He constructed two burial mounds for the snakes, recited prayers over them and mourned them.
Afterwards, the tumors healed and the holes closed up. Both father and son were overcome with gratification. It is said that everyone in this area became devout believers in the Lotus Sutra.
