Matching the Rhymes of the Poem Head Seat Yeong Sent to Im of the Ministry of Works (工部)次韻聆首座寄林工部
予昨詣方丈。師偶言曰。禮山香川寺。是吾之舊居也。爲賊兵所歷。頽沒已久。故人林工部巡按此郡。俾郡宰陳君具材營葺。予以詩謝之。子亦可賡和耶。因出其詩示之。卽和成一首奉呈。
Yesterday I went to the abbot's room, and the master happened to say: 「Hyangcheonsa (香川寺) in Yesan is where I lived long ago. Bandit troops passed through, and it has long since fallen to ruin; but my old friend Im of the Ministry of Works (工部), making his round of that district, had the district magistrate Jin provide timber and thatch its roof. I thanked him with a poem — will you too follow with an answering poem?」 Then he brought out that poem and showed it to me. At once I answered it, completed one piece, and respectfully present it.
Interlinear notes 1
幷序
A preface is included.
吾師釋中老。於世眞爲洲。周回在巨海。高顯無狂流。自從得際斷。萬事徒悠悠。孤高靑霞想。躙躒支許儔。天子爲邀致。一別煙林幽。流水戀舊浦。白雲思古丘。雖蒙賜袍寵。身若生瘡疣。又猒人世隘。譬如踈屬囚。愛山似麋鹿。捉月非獼猴。香川是舊居。雲水好在不。悵望數間屋。摧頽半巖頭。自言旦暮去。無厚山之羞。夢先身獨往。萬里隨輕颷。不是不勇歸。閱世故應留。幽徑久蕪沒。來訪無羊求。廢井桐圭滿。荒階苔錦稠。或恐樵蘇輩。刈松落蒼虬。又惜林下泉。盡屬野民喉。經室鞠爲囿。旅草生油油。溪茖人不採。阻入紫花甌。問師何苦戀。未展雪眉脩。比之鳥棲處。此若由籠抽。比之魚遊處。此可免含鉤。薄雲鋪魯縞。恠石列荊璆。何以充㸑薪。枯楠大蔽牛。至今猶在耳。嘷鶴與鳴鳩。塵侵墨蜂髮。最是師心憂。每欲起殿宇。碭基删縹瑈。臨水亞綠戶。架巖聳丹樓。中成佛龕室。彩棟蛟龍鎪。耽耽極壯麗。兜率牛頭侔。此意久未就。林泉爲之愁。林公古丈夫。智秘龜六眸。公餘遊古寺。萬景赴冥搜。咄嗟搆飛閤。翔翮得自由。想像殿壁間。天人列弓矛。自昔浮屠者。成物由邦侯。吾聞頭陁寺。楚都信爲樞。室就孔江夏。堂成蔡郢州。是助宗法師。結構留千秋。層軒丹刻煥。深殿睟容柔。又聞章留後。偶向廢寺遊。世尊亦塵埃。古殿空颼飀。寺僧遇使君。告訴不自休。章公顧兵徒。棟宇俾營修。書傳名煥煥。千載尙欝攸。此輩復不見。此事復誰收。唯師與林公。名與古人優。我亦不檢束。牽戀無五楸。誓將陪甁錫。同爲香火謀。
Our master is an elder among monks, and truly becomes an island for the world. Girdled about by the great sea, he stands high and clear, with no raging waves. Since he attained the severing of the ends before and behind, all affairs are merely far away. With lone and lofty thoughts of the azure haze, he treads down the likes of Zhi Dun and Xu Xun. The Son of Heaven welcomed him in, and once he left the misted, secluded woods. The running water longs for its old creek, the white clouds think of the old hill. Though he received the favor of a bestowed cassock, his body feels as if it had broken out in sores. And loathing the narrowness of the human world, he is, as it were, like a prisoner of a thinned-out clan. His love of mountains is like the elk's and the deer's, but his grasping at the moon is not the monkey's. Hyangcheonsa is where he lived of old — are its clouds and waters well? Sadly he gazes at the house of a few bays, fallen, half left on the rock's brow. He says of himself that he will go morning and evening, and not thicken his shame before the mountain. His dream goes alone, ahead of his body, following a light whirlwind ten thousand li. It is not that he lacks the courage to return; it is passing through the world that keeps him. The secluded path has long been rough and buried, and no one like Yang and Qiu (羊求) comes seeking. The abandoned well is full of paulownia leaves, and moss-brocade is thick on the rough steps. I fear perhaps the woodcutters and grass-cutters will fell the pines and bring down the green coiling dragons. And I regret that the spring beneath the grove belongs entirely to the throats of the country folk. The room that held the scriptures has all become a garden, and self-sprung grasses grow rank. No one digs the wild garlic by the stream, and its red flowers are barred from entering the bowl. I ask the master: why do you long so painfully, unable to smooth those long brows white as snow? Compared with where a bird roosts, this is like having slipped out of the cage; compared with where a fish plays, this is enough to escape biting the hook. Thin clouds spread out Lu's white silk, and strange stones are laid out like the jade of Mount Jing (荊山). With what shall the firewood be supplied? A dry camphor tree, so big it hides an ox. Even now they are still in my ears: the crying crane and the cooing dove. Dust invades the black bees' down — this is the greatest worry of the master's heart. Always he means to raise a hall, widening the ground and cutting away the overgrowth. Facing the water he would set a green gate, and astride the rock raise a red tower. In the middle he would make the Buddha's niche, and carve dragons into the painted pillars. Grandly exhausting all magnificence, it would match Tusita Heaven and Ox-head Mountain (牛頭山). This intent has long gone unfulfilled, and the grove and the spring grieve for it. Lord Im is a stalwart of the old sort, his wisdom hidden like the six-eyed turtle's. In the leisure of office he roamed the old temple, quietly seeking out ten thousand views. In a moment he framed a soaring pavilion, and flying wings won their freedom. I imagine that between the walls of the hall heavenly beings have arrayed their bows and spears. From of old, in the building of temples, the making of things depended on the district magistrate. I have heard that Toutuo Temple (頭陁寺) was truly a key place of the Chu capital. Its rooms were completed by Kong of Jiangxia (孔江夏), its halls by Cai of Yingzhou (蔡郢州). This was their help to Dharma Master Zong (宗法師), and what they built has remained a thousand autumns. On the tiered halls the red carving shines, and in the deep hall the gentle figure is soft. I have heard too that Zhang the Acting Commissioner (章留後) happened to roam an abandoned temple, where the World-Honored One too was dust, and in the old hall only the wind blew in vain. A monk of the temple met the Commissioner and could not stop himself from pleading, so Lord Zhang looked round at his troops and had the building raised and repaired. Handed down in writing, the name shines, and after a thousand years is flourishing still. Such men we do not see again — who will take up such work again? Only the master and Lord Im have names ample enough to stand beside the ancients. I too cannot hold myself in check; drawn by longing, yet I have no five catalpa trees. I vow to attend his water-bottle and staff, and together to plan for the incense fire.
Interlinear notes 4
大般若曰。善現白佛言。何菩薩與世間作洲渚。故發趣無上正等。佛言。比如巨海大小河中高顯可居。周回水斷。是名洲渚。如是善現色。前後際斷。乃至諸佛正等。由此前後際斷。一切法斷。
The Great Prajñā Sutra (大般若經) says: Shanxian (善現) asked the Buddha, 「How is it that a bodhisattva becomes an island for the world and advances toward unsurpassed right awakening?」 The Buddha said, 「As an illustration, what stands high and habitable in the midst of the great sea or of rivers great and small, cut off all around by water, is called an island. Just so, Shanxian, form (色) has its ends before and behind severed, and so too does the right awakening of all the Buddhas; it is by this severing of the ends before and behind that all dharmas are severed.」
師雕造無量壽如來。送安是寺。故師詩。常憂野馬集。翳損靑蓮眸。
The master had an image of the Tathāgata of Immeasurable Life (無量壽如來) made and sent it to be enshrined in this temple. Thus his own poem says, 「Always I fear the gathering haze will veil and harm those eyes like blue lotuses.」
頭陁寺碑云。層軒延豪。又云。丹刻翬飛。睟容已安。
The 「Stele of Toutuo Temple」 (頭陁寺碑) says, 「The tiered halls receive the heroic,」 and again, 「The red carving is as if a pheasant were in flight, and the gentle figure is already at ease.」
杜甫同章留後遊山寺詩曰。雖有古殿存。世尊亦塵埃。使君騎紫馬。奉擁從西來。山僧衣藍縷。告訴棟架摧。公爲顧兵徒。咄嗟檀施開云云。
Du Fu's poem 「Roaming a Mountain Temple with Zhang the Acting Commissioner」 says, 「Though the old hall still stands, the World-Honored One too is dust. The Commissioner came from the west on a red horse to be received, and a mountain monk in tattered robes pleaded that the pillars and racks had fallen. For this the Lord looked round at his troops and in a moment opened almsgiving,」 and so on.