Mad Monk IV

“Where's the timber?” the abbot asked Mad Monk. “It's in the well of our temple,” Mad Monk replied. He said the timber had been sent downriver from Shichuan to the River Qiantang (錢塘江), which flows past Hangzhou. “All we have to do,” he added, “is to build a crane over the well and pick all the wood log by log.”

Though unconvinced, Miaosong had to have the crane set up over the well. As soon as the crane had been put up, a huge log buoyed up from the well. When it was hauled up, another one popped up. And then another and another and another. After the seventieth log came up, carpenters hired to rebuild the temple said “That's enough.” The seventy-first log in the well couldn't be hauled up. The well was renamed Shen-yun-jing (神運井) or God-transport Well. As the seventy-first log got stuck at the bottom of the well, it is also known as Yun-mu ku-jing (運木古井) or Wood-transporting Old Well.

There is a famous wood statue of Mad Monk at the West Garden Temple or Xiyuanshi (西園寺) in Suzhou (蘇州), a Chinese Venice in the province of Zejiang (浙江). The image is dressed in rags and tatters, with a broken fan in one hand. The anonymous sculptor's consummate genius is displayed in the face of Mad Monk. It has different features, when viewed from three different angles. Known as the Three-Faced Mad Monk, the image looks like a happy man, laughing jovially and mirthfully, when it is viewed from one angle. It's called Chun-feng man-mian (春風滿面) or the “Vernal Breeze in the Whole Face” image. A joyful and happy man is said to show that face in Chinese. Looked at from another angle, the face is that of an inconsolably sad man. The faithful call it Chou-mei ku-lian (愁眉苦臉) or the Face Showing Bitterness with Knitted Brows. If a worshipper looks at the same face from still another angle, half of it is laughing and joyful and the other half contorted with a tearless sob. People call it Pan-xiao pan-ku (半笑半哭) or the “Half-Laughing Half-Crying” Face.

The unknown master created the three-faced image to portray graphically the Mad Monk who did what he wished regardless of what others might think of him and let them either berate him or laugh at him. Probably he acted like a mad monk to endear himself to his countless followers during his lifetime.

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