Can't think of this story's end

O

Oniw17

ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum?
Valued Senior Member
It's a story about an ascetic and his falsely proclaimed illegitimate son. Anyone know it?
 
No, definitely not. Sorry for being so brief, I was using a cell phone. It was some monk or guru or something. The son of a local whore came to him claiming to be his illegitimate son. The ascetic knew that this was false, but went along with it anyway. I can't remember the rest. This story has been stuck in my head, but I can't find the ending anywhere.
 
Is this what you were thinking of?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back again.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”
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I beleive in some tellings of the story the girl is a prostitute.
 
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