Hymn on the Lotus Sutra and Encomium on Cessation and Contemplation — Hymn on the Lotus法華經頌。止觀贊。幷序 法華頌
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 · 1 passages · 140 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 19 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.
Because living beings are turned upside down, the Buddha,
following expedient means, drew out parables and led them to the true nature.
Gathering the three and advancing to the one, the principle is hard to exhaust;
within the gate of non-duality he surpasses the host of sages.
It is as though the sun had come to the middle of the sky:
this is high noon, and there is no shadow at all.
At that time all the gods and men listened closely,
and sixty minor kalpas were as the time of eating one meal.
Alas, the three realms are boiled down in suffering,
like the several sons at play in the burning house.
First he used the parable of the cart drawn by sheep to bring them out,
and then he gave them the great ox-cart adorned with the seven treasures.
If a man read it four times and still cannot split the principle open,
his mind is yet that mind of his and his tongue that tongue.
Only when this tongue is no tongue and this mind no mind
will he gain the true quiescence.
His disciple, a lay devotee whose style-name is Chungyeong (春卿),
bows his head to the Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law.
Kalpa by kalpa and life by life he wishes to receive and hold it,
and may perhaps see a blue lotus grow from beneath his tongue.