Note: This is another in the monthly excerpts from “Tales of the Lotus Sutra.”
There was a certain bhikṣunī, her name [long since] forgotten, who lived on the outskirts of the Kunshan district of Suzhou. She became a nun at an early age and took to constant recitation of the Lotus Sūtra, which she performed devotedly a day for some twenty-odd years. In appearance she was unusually beautiful and refined, so much so that anyone who caught sight of her was struck immediately with affection for her. During the first year of the Yongchang era [689] a certain district office manager named Zhu began to entertain wicked fantasies about her and sought to press her with his less than honorable designs. Yet the bhikṣunī remained firm in her chastity and refused to give in to him.
Angered by her rejection, Zhu made a great deal of trouble for the abbey and intentionally sought to disrupt their regular means of livelihood. The bhikṣunīs were at a total loss as to where to turn to rid themselves of this plight. Whereupon, the nun who kept the Lotus said, “How could the Lotus Sūtra fail to show its spiritual potency in this matter?” She then donned her purified robe, entered the Buddha hall, burned incense, and professed [solemn] vows.
Not long thereafter the office manager, availing himself of some official pretext, came to the abbey to pass the night. His heart, of course, harbored other intentions. But the very instant he sought to find his way to the nun’s quarters, his lower extremities were seized with a burning pain and his male member dropped off. Rivulets of perspiration streamed from his skin, leprous ulcers broke out over his entire body, and his eyebrows, beard, and sideburns all fell out. The office manager grievously recanted, but even after trying a hundred remedies, he still was never completely cured.