Synopsis by William Disbro, created from: Beyond The Hero, Classic Stories of Men in Search of Soul.by Allan Chinen, Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam Books, 1993.
An older woman lived with her son and daughter-in-law and makes life hard for the younger but uncomplaining woman. One day the young woman gave a rice cake to a passing monk and the mother-in-law demanded that it be returned. The monk understood the difficult situation and returned it along with a towel that was to be used by the young woman to wash her face. She used the towel each day and became more beautiful. The older woman grew more jealous and found out about the towel. She sent her daughter-in-law on a dangerous errand and while she was gone the older woman stole the towel and washed her own face. With each wipe of the towel her face became more distorted and ugly and finally looked like a goblin's face. When daughter-in-law returned home and realized what had happened she left to search for the monk to learn how to reverse the process.
All ends well with the older woman's self-reformation involving forgiveness, kindness and generosity. Masks are an integral part of society and critical for youths to master but then they become objects to remove in order to attend to inner substance rather than outward appearances.
Background to Reliquary series
Back to Small Box Reliquaries
Back to Gallery
|
