Happy Thoughts - Sleep Stories for Grownups-A Passional Karma-Pt 3

Happy Thoughts – Sleep Story for Grownups – A Passional Karma-Pt 3

  Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Positive Affirmations And Audio Stories podcast.

We’re carrying pn with the conclusion of a  very special Japanese story today, so why not settle in and have a listen! It was written by Lafcadio Hearn. We're continuing with our Sleep Stories series-and this is part 3 of this traditional story. It’s got a bit of mystery and a bit of chill!

Coffee fuels us up ... donations keep us going... please pop over to ko-fi for a coffee donation if you'd like to financially support our work. If you would like to get more inspiration and motivation, there are lots of inspirational positive videos, messages and artwork over there.

https://ko-fi.com/happythoughts


Many thanks, your listens, likes, subscribes and support mean the world to us.


This podcast is available on Spreaker, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio and most podcast platforms and apps. If you like what you hear please feel free to share and to leave a review on your site of choice.


Visit my Bandcamp page for more inspiration affirmations, meditations and stories for purchase and sample. Helping you live the positive lifestyle that you deserve.


https://stefanialintonbon.bandcamp.com

__________

And for the children, do check out our other podcast "The Classic Children's Story Podcast ".

Also, have a look at our YouTube channel of stories, affirmations, songs and more for kids:

https://www.youtube.com/@SleepStoriesandFairyTales4U

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/positive-affirmations-and-audio-stories--1338752/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi is Stefana over at Positive Informations and Audio Stories,
bringing you happy thoughts, inspiration, motivation and entertainment to start
your day. We used the power of positive words to
help you live the positive, uplifting lifestyle that you deserve.
We're continuing our series of sleep stories and we're continuing

(00:26):
our story of the passional Karma. This is the conclusion.
Are you ready. When we last left the story, o
Yone was trying to get her mistress another visit with
her lover at Jiwatasan, but it wasn't quite working. Then Omine,

(00:51):
the wife of Tomo'sou, finally found out why he was
so afraid, and she came up with a cunning plan.
She urged him to make a deal with the dead,
and that's where our story carries on from Then, the

(01:15):
passion of Omine yielded to wonder and alarm. But she
was a subtle woman and she devised immediately a plan
to save her husband by the sacrifice of her master.
And she gave to Mosou a cunning counsel, telling him
to make conditions with the dead. They came again on

(01:40):
the following night at the hour of the ox, and
Omine hid herself on hearing the sound of their coming
Karen Kron Kara Coron. But Tomosu went out to meet
them in the dark and even found the courage to
say to them what his wife had told him to say.

(02:01):
It is true that I deserve your blame, but I
had no wish to cast you anger. The reason that
the o Fuda has not been taken away is that
my wife and I are able to live only by
the help of Hajiwaa Summer, and that we cannot expose

(02:22):
him to any danger without bringing misfortune upon ourselves. But
if we could obtain the sum of a hundred rio
in gold, we should be able to please you, because
we should then need no help from anybody. Therefore, if

(02:43):
you will give us a hundred rio, I can take
the o Fuda away without being afraid of losing our
only means of support. When he utter these words, O yone,
and assume you looked at each other in silence for
a moment. Then oh Yonie said, Mistress, I told you

(03:09):
that it was not right to trouble this man, as
we have no cause of ill will against him. But
it is certainly useless to fret herself about Howgey water summer,
because his heart has changed towards you. Now once again,
my dear young lady, let me beg of you not

(03:31):
to think any more of him. But Oh Suyu, weeping
made answer, dear Yonie, whateven may happen? I cannot possibly
keep myself from thinking about him. You know that you
can get a hundred yold to have the old food
got taken off? Only once more, I pray, dear Yonie,

(03:55):
only once more bring me face to face with Haijiwada Sama.
I beseech you. And hiding her face with her sleeve,
she thus continued to plead, Oh, why will you ask
me to do these things? Responded, O, yone, you know

(04:20):
very well that I have no money. But since you
will persist in this wom of yours in spite of
all that I can say, I suppose that I must
try to find the money somehow and to bring it
here tomorrow night. Then, turning to the faithless Damozo, she said, Jamozo,

(04:46):
I must tell you that Hadji water Samma now wears
upon his body a mamori called by the name of
kai on Nioai, and that so long as he wears,
we cannot approach him. So you will have to get
that memory away from him by some means or other.

(05:10):
As well. As he moved the ofuda, Tomoso feebly made
answer that I can also do if you will promise
to bring me the hundred widow. Well mistress said, Oyoni,
you will wait, will you not until tomorrow night? Oh

(05:31):
dear yone sobbed the other. Have we to go back
to night? I can without seeing hawt ye waa sah
ah ah tis cruel, and the shadow of the mistress
weeping was led away by the shadow of the maid.

(05:54):
Another day went, and another night came, and the dead
came with it. But this time no lamentation was heard
without the house of Ajiwara, For the faithless servant found
his reward at the hour of the ox and removed
the ofuda. Moreover, he had been able, while his master

(06:15):
was at the bath, to steal from his case the
golden Mamori hamulet, and to substitute for it an image
of copper. And he had buried the kai on niai
in a desolate field. So the visitants found nothing to
oppose their entering. Veiling their faces with their sleeves, they

(06:40):
rose and passed like a streaming of vapor into the
little window from which over the holy text had been
torn away. But what happened thereafter within the house to
Moso never knew. The sun was high before he ventured
again to appear which his master's dwelling, and to knock

(07:02):
upon the sliding doors for the first time in years.
He obtained no response, and the silence made him afraid.
Repeatedly he called and received no answer, then ate it
by omine. He succeeded in effecting an entrance and making

(07:24):
his way alone to the sleeping room, where he called
out again in vain. He rode back their rumbling shutters
to admit the light. Still within the house, there was
no stir. At last, he dared to lift a corner
of the mosquito nette, but no sooner had he looked

(07:45):
beneath than he fled from the house with a cry
of horror. Jean Sabuda was dead, hideously dead, and his
face was the face of a man who had died
in the uttermost agony of fear. Lying beside him in
the bed were the bones of a woman, and the
bones of the arms, and the bones of the hands

(08:10):
clung fast about his neck. Hakohodo y say, the fortune
teller went to view the corpse at the prayer of
the faithless Tomoso. The old man was terrified and astonished
at the spectacle, but looked about him with a keen eye.

(08:31):
He soon perceived that the O Fuda had been taken
from the little window at the back of the house,
and on searching the body of Shinzaburo, he discovered that
the golden mamori had been taken from its wrapping, and
a copper image of Fudo put in place of it.

(08:51):
He suspected to Moso of the theft, but the whole
occurrence was so very extraordinary that he thought it to
consult with the priest Ryoseki before taking further action. Therefore,
after having made a careful examination of the premises, he
betook himself to the temple shin Banzui, ing as quickly

(09:16):
as his aged runs could carry him. No Saiki, without
waiting to hear the purpose of the old man's visit,
at once invited him into a private apartment. You know
that you are always welcome here, said Ryoseki. Please see
to yourself at ease. Well, I am sorry to tell

(09:42):
you that hajiwar Asama is dead. Yusai wonderingly exclaimed, yes,
he is dead, but how did you learn of it?
The priest responded, Hajiwara Sama was suffering from the results
of an evil karma, and his attendant was a bad man.

(10:04):
What happened to Hajiwara Sama was unavoidable. His destiny had
been determined from a long time before his last birth.
It will be better for you not to let your
mind be troubled by this event. Yusaiah said, I have

(10:25):
heard that a priest of pure life may gain power
to see into the future for a hundred years. But
truly this is the first time in my existence that
I have had proof of such power. Still, there is
another matter about which I am very anxious. You mean,

(10:50):
interrupted Yoseki, the stealing of the holy Mamori the kai
on Nurai. But you must not give yourself any concern
about that. The image has been buried in a field,
and it will be found there and returned to me
during the eighth month of the coming year, so please

(11:11):
do not be anxious about it. More and more amazed,
the old Ninsomi ventured to observe I have studied the Ennu,
Fengshui and the science of divination, and I make my
living by telling people's fortunes. But I cannot possibly understand

(11:33):
how you know these things, Yoseki answered gravely, never mind
how I happen to know them. I now want to
speak to you about Hajjiwata's funeral. The house of Hajiwarta
has his own family symmetry, of course, but to bury

(11:55):
him there would not be proper. He must be buried
besides o Suyu the Lady Ijima, for his comra relation
to her was a very deep one, and it is
but right that you should erect a tomb for him
at your own cost, because you have been indicted to
him for many favors. Thus it came to pass that

(12:21):
Shinzabuu was buried besides Osuyu in the cemetery shin Banzui
in in Yanaka no Sasaki. Here reins the story of
the ghosts in the Romance of the Paeoni Lantern. My

(12:42):
friend asked me whether the story had interested me, and
I answered by telling him that I wanted to go
to the cemetery of shin Banzui in so as to
realize more definitely the local color of the author's studies.
I should go with you at once, he said, but
what did you think of the personages to Wesstern thinking,

(13:06):
I made answer, jeans A Burdho is a despicable creature.
I've been mentally comparing him with the true lovers of
our old ballot literature. They were only too glad to
follow a dead sweetheart into the grave, and nevertheless, being Christians,
they believed that they had only one human life to
enjoy this world. Well, jeans A Brudu was a Buddhist

(13:30):
with millions of lives behind him and a million lives
before him, and he was too selfish to give up
even one miserable existence for the sake of the girl
that came back to him from the dead. Then he
was even more cowardly and selfish. Although a Summari by

(13:53):
birth and training, he had to beg a priest to
save him from ghosts. In every way he proved himself contemptible.
And also, you did quite right in chucking him to death.
From the Japanese point of view, Likewise, my friend responded,
Shinzabuu is rather contemptible, But the use of this weak

(14:20):
character helped the author to develop incidents that could not
otherwise perhaps been so effectively managed. To my thinking, the
only attractive character in the story is that of Oyoni,
type of the old time, loyal and loving servant, intelligent, shrewd,

(14:45):
full of the source, faithful not only to death but
beyond death. Well, let us go to Shin Banzuin we
found the temple an interesting, and the cemetery and abomination
of desale. Spaces once occupied by graves had been turned
into potato badges, between where tombs leaning at all ankles

(15:10):
out of the perpendicular tap was made illegible by scarf,
empty pedestals, shattered water tanks, and statues of buddhas without
heads or hands. Recent rains had soaked the black soil,
leaving here and there small pools of slime about which

(15:34):
swarms of tiny fogs were hopping. Everything excepting the potato patches,
seemed to have been neglected for years. In a shed
just within the gate, we observed a woman cooking, and
my companion presumed to ask her if she knew anything
about the tombs described in the Romance of the Pony

(15:55):
Lantern Ah the tombs of Oh Suyu and O Yone.
She responded, smiling, you will find them near the end
of the first row, at the back of the temple,
next to the statue of Jizo. Surprises of this kind

(16:21):
I had met with elsewhere in Japan. We picked our
way between the rain pools and between the green ridges
of young potatoes, whose roots were doubtless feeding on the
substance of many another o Siou and oyone, and we
reached at last two lightien eating tombs, of which the

(16:44):
inscriptions seemed almost obliterated. Besides the larger tomb was a
statue of chizo with a broken nose. The characters are
not easy to make out, said my friend. But wait.
He drew from his sleeve a sheet of soft white paper,

(17:06):
laid it over the inscription, and began to rub the
paper with a lump of clay. As he did so,
the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface. Eleventh day,
third month, rat elder brother fire six year of Horeki

(17:33):
a d. Seventeen fifty six. This was seen to be
the grave of some innkeeper of Netsu named Kichibei. Let
us see what is on the other monument. With a
fresh sheet of paper, he presently brought out the text
of a kaimio and read en yo een o yo

(17:58):
e takin' ho ne none of the law, illustrious, pure
of heart, and will famed in the law inhabiting the
mansion of the preaching of wonder hmm, the grave of
some Buddhist nun. What utter humbook. I exclaimed that woman

(18:24):
was only making fun of us. Now, my friend protested,
you are unjust to the woman. You came here because
you wanted a sensation, and she tried her very best
to please you. You did not suppose that ghost story

(18:45):
was true, did you? Well? What do you think about that?
Was the true or not? Was you just having a laugh? Hmm?

(19:13):
You decide, And that's it for today. Feel free to
share this podcast with your family, with your friends, with everybody.
And if you need a little more inspiration in between
podcast episodes, please feel free to visit our coffee page.
You can find the website address in the show notes,
and over there you can find more motivation and inspiration

(19:38):
media and if you like, you can buy us a coffee,
yes please, or just have a look around, enjoy and
get inspired. We'll be back again with a new sleep
story for you to keep you interested, entertained, and ready

(20:01):
for a good slumber. So have a good day, stay well,
be happy, and by for now.