I am going to share a story I have just read in Oriental Ghost Stories By Lafcadio Hearn. The title of the story is A Passional Karma. Let me briefly narrate the story to you all first. The author went to watch a play called 'Peony-Lantern'. The story of the Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern is like this:
A young samurai named Hagiwara Shinzaburo went to visit O-Tsuyu, the daughter of a high-class samurai, with O-Tsuyu family physician. Shinzaburo was a unusually handsome and gentle lad and O-Tsuyu was as beautiful as a morning dew.(Tsuyu signifies Morning Dew) It was a love at first sight without the physician knowing and soon they have to part. At parting, O-Tsuyu whispered that if Shinzaburo was to not come and see her again, she will surely die.
The physician soon realised the relationship between the youths and decided to not bring Shinzaburo from seeing O-Tsuyu again. He was scared as O-Tsuyu's father has a reputation of cutting off heads. Soon after, the two love-sick youths became very sick and O-Tsuyu died. (With her servant O-Yone) Shinzaburo was grief-stricken and he placed a tablet with O-Tsuyu's name on it on his Buddhist shrine. O-Tsuyu and O-Yone came back to find him on the Festival of the Dead and bluff Shinzaburo that they are not dead and told him that its a horrible thing for people to tell him that they were dead. Shinzaburo and O-Tsuyu was very happy together and O-Tsuyu and O-Yone came back night after night. Tomozo, the servant of Shinzaburo, was afraid that his gentle master was duped by some cunning wanton and went to check on his master in his room late at night.
He was freaked out when he saw a being long dead. He ran all the way to Hakuodo Yusai, a person who could tell other people's fortunes by looking at the faces. The old man was very worried as the young man would die very soon if he was to be with a ghost. He managed to convince Shinzaburo to check out where O-Tsuyu and O-Yone said they were staying. Shinzaburo went and found out that instead of houses, he found tombs with O-Tsuyu and O-Yone names. Terror-stricken, he went to find the high-priest for help and the high-priest lent him a amulet and told him to chant a certain sutra every night in his house. He also ask him to paste holy-texts over every opening of his house. Night arrived and O-Tsuyu and O-Yone was not able to enter the house. Thus the undead went to haunt Tomozo threatening him if he dun peel off one of the holy-texts, he will know how hateful they can be. Tomozo's wife persuaded her husband to request for gold in return from taking away the amulet and the holy-texts. The ghosts managed to find gold and bribe Tomozo. Tomozo peel away the holy-texts and let the ghosts entered the room. Shinzaburo was found dead the next morning.
According to the author, Christians believed that they had only one human life to enjoy in this world and they would only be too glad to follow a dead sweetheart into the grave. However, in Buddhist thinking, they have millions of lives and the author think that he was selfish not to give up even one life for the sake of the girl who came back to him from the dead. In both religion's thinking, Shinzaburo was contemptible, cowardly and selfish. I am surprised and glad at the same time that the thinking of both religion is different yet similar in a righteous way.
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