A monk of the Capital one day decided that he had allowed himself to grow lazy. He vowed that, each day for the next one hundred days, he would make a pilgrimage from Kyoto to the Hie Shrine and back again.

He made these uneventful pilgrimages, noticing nothing interesting or untoward until his trip home on the eightieth day. A young woman stood crying by the road, and he could not help expressing his concern and asking if he could help.

"You're a pilgrim," the young woman said, somewhat incoherently, and it took some time for the monk to coax the story from her.

"My mother has finally died," she said at last. "She was sick for some time, and I found her dead this morning. I don't know what to do. I can't even move the body. I'm all alone, I'm so tiny and weak, and all my neighbors are busy preparing for festivals and I'm sure they'll be no help at all."

The monk was moved by the young woman's sad tale. Anyone could see that she was in need of help. But if she could not persuade her neighbors to help, the monk doubted that he would have any more success. He might be the only person available. And yet, if he did help move the body, he would be polluted and unable to continue his pilgrimages. He would have wasted eighty days.

Another look at the young woman removed any doubts that remained. She needed his help more than he needed to finish another twenty days' worth of pilgrimages. "Don't worry. I will help you take care of your mother's body."

The two of them attended to the body that night. While the monk had no doubt that he had done the right thing, he was nonetheless disappointed. Eventually, he decided that he would still visit the shrine.

He began to doubt this decision the next morning as he walked to the shrine. The pollution of death might be superficial, but the taboos were quite clear. Even worse, a larger crowd than usual had gathered around the shrine, listening to a medium deliver oracles.

The monk, self-consciously praying in isolation, was sure that none of those people had touched a dead body less than a day earlier. He felt quite out of place at this holy site.

"You, there," the medium said, in a voice rather louder than before, and the monk looked up to find the woman's eyes fixed on him. Eyes downcast, he approached her, conscious of the crowd that watched the spectacle.

But the medium did not speak until he had come quite close, and then only in a whisper. "I know what you did last night."

The monk opened his mouth, and realized that he could not possibly offer an explaination for his actions.

"It was wonderful," the medium said. "I admire your compassion for one in need. Taboos are only secondary to the Teaching. Enlightened people can judge when there's a good reason to break taboos." The medium glanced at the crowd. "Unenlightened people need to be guided, given extra help in maintaining their faith. The taboos don't matter; the person does."

The monk's heart lifted to hear the medium's words. Ever after, he paid special attention to the plights of others around him, performing kind services for them; he no longer doubted himself or the rightness of these compassionate impulses.

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