Written Again at the Abbot's Room of the Unthinkable又題不思議方丈
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 2 passages · 126 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 9 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
The Room of the Unthinkable (不思議房) is the place where the Master of Discipline Jinpyo (眞表) of old lodged and cultivated the truth, and where Maitreya and Kṣitigarbha showed themselves in the body and gave him the precepts. There is a wooden ladder whose height is some hundred feet, and only by going down along the ladder can one reach the abbot's room. Below it is all a ravine beyond measuring. The house is drawn up with iron chains and nailed to the rock, and it is handed down in the world that a dragon of the sea did it.
The perilous ladder stands up like a rainbow, long beneath my feet,
and turning my body I go straight down a full ten thousand fathoms.
The man who reached the utmost is gone and now leaves no trace;
the old house, being held up, has not yet fallen.
From what place did the Buddha of sixteen feet (丈六) appear?
The great thousand worlds too might be hidden within this.
A guest of Wansan (完山), hidden among the clerks, who has forgotten contriving,
washes his hands and comes to burn a single petal of incense.