Record of the Neungpa Pavilion (凌波亭記) for the Reverend Hyeok (赫上人)赫上人凌波亭記
或曰。權豪貴人之有喜爲亭榭游觀之樂。人猶或非之。況浮屠而務爲此者。其無奈幾於夸浮羨侈而戾於道耶。予曰。非也。且人情之皆欲至於靑蓮佛界白玉仙臺者。無他焉。蓋以其地之淸淨無塵故耳。夫地之淸淨。則心亦爾也。未有心淸淨而爲濁惡熱惱之所乘者也。由是觀之。雖在人間世上。苟得値地之淸淨。而有以汰其心慮。則是亦佛界也仙臺也。何羨於彼哉。由是而習焉。其蹈佛仙境界。亦其漸也。三岳山人宗赫者。本曹溪韻士也。嘗放浪方外。浮雲其迹者久矣。越貞祐某年。偶得古院於壽春郡之坤維號德興者。以其山水可愛。故因駐錫焉。其棟宇之欹仄者悉更之。垣墻之頽圮者亦新之。乃至恢拓舊制。以廣其群髡棲集之地。然後意以爲有賓客之經由。吾不可不供其位。廢應接之禮矣。雖然。於佛宇中。亦不可置其放情肆體遊賞宴喜之所矣。於是選寺之傍地有水之泓碧漣漪者。遂植礎波底。跨亭於其上。以茅覆之。遠而望之。若輕舟畫舫浮在滄浪然也。有遊讌其上。則凡坐賓之俯仰屈伸一嚬一笑之態。與夫柸盤几席樽壺棋局之影。瀉在波面。若從明鏡中見人物什器之羅列映澈者。至如春水漫淥。日光涵明。有魚可數百尾遊泳族戲。俯鑑之了了然可數。或涼秋八九月時。木葉半脫。霜落水淸。丹楓夾岸。倒映波上。爛然若濯錦江中。此皆水亭所以爲勝也。雖大略如此。至絶異處又不可得而名言矣。見之者心自知耳。若傳夸於人。則口不能如眼也。畫之者。狀其粗耳。丹靑不能似其眞也。噫。以此餉客。其誰謂浮屠不宜有亭榭游觀之樂乎。自皇華星節。至于行旅之東西者。莫不遊踐。方其逍遙盤薄也。意若控靑彎跨白鶴。出乎八極之表矣。何白玉仙臺之足導哉。遊者尙爾。如吾禪老之常宴坐飽淸景者。想已與靑蓮佛界爲隣矣。何謂戾於道耶。赫公素喜文。憑予友韓鴻傳乞予爲記。欲爲亭之飾而傳之後。予不頷凡二年。韓君不能無慍色。然後粗志其一二。而因署其額曰凌波。蓋以亭之拔水斗起也。嗚戲。僕亦老矣。異日當掛冠高謝。以幅巾藜杖。往遊其中。作風月主人。而於一篇一詠。盡瀉無窮之景。以償予今日之懸懸傾佇也。湖山有靈。姑需焉。貞祐十一年。白雲居士待制典誥李春卿誌。
Someone said: "Even when men of power, of free and lavish temper, of noble rank take pleasure in building pavilions and towers for the delight of roaming and sightseeing, people still sometimes call it wrong. How much more a monk who puts his strength into such a thing — is this not close to boasting and frivolity, to envy and extravagance, and so contrary to the Way?"
I said: "No. Moreover, that the feelings of all men long to reach the Buddha-realm of the blue lotus and the immortals' terrace of white jade has no other cause. It is simply that the ground there is clear and clean and without a speck of dust. Now when the ground is clear and clean, the mind too is so; and there is no one whose mind is clear and clean and who yet burns with the muddied, the evil, the scorching afflictions. Seen by this, though a man dwell in the world of men, if he truly meets with ground that is clear and clean and can wash his mind and his thought in it, then this too is a Buddha-realm, this too an immortals' terrace. Why should he envy the other? And if by this he practices, then to tread the borders of Buddhas and immortals is likewise a matter of degree."
The man called Jonghyeok (宗赫), the mountain-dweller of Samak (三岳山人), was from the first a man of refinement out of Jogye (曹溪). Long before, he had set out wandering beyond the world, and it was long since he had made his traces a drifting cloud. In a certain year of Jeongu (貞祐) he happened upon an old hostel called Deokheung (德興), to the southwest of Chuncheon district (壽春郡). Its hills and waters were lovely, and for this he set down his staff there.
He repaired every ridgepole and eave that had tilted, and renewed what had fallen of the walls. Then he widened the old plan and enlarged the place where the body of monks might lodge and gather. After that he thought: "If a guest should happen to pass by, I cannot but prepare a place for him, or the courtesy of receiving guests will lapse. Even so, within the Buddha-hall one cannot set a place for laying feeling aside and stretching the body, for roaming and taking one's pleasure, for feasting and rejoicing."
So on the ground beside the temple he chose a spot where the water was deep and green and the small waves rose, and at last he planted footing-stones beneath the waves, laid a pavilion across them, and thatched it with reeds. Looked at from afar, it is as though a light skiff, a painted barge, were afloat on the green waves.
When men roam and feast upon it, then the bearing of every seated guest — looking down and looking up, bending and stretching, one frown and one laugh — and the shadows of cups and trays, of armrests and mats, of wine-jars and flasks and the paduk board, all pour down upon the face of the water. It is as if one saw, within a bright mirror, men and things and furnishings ranged in rows and shining clear. When the spring water brims green and the sunlight sinks into it and is bright, then looking down upon the several hundred fish that swim and play in shoals, they are so distinct that one could count them. Or in the cool autumn of the eighth and ninth months, when the leaves are half fallen and frost has come and the water is clear, and the red maples that flank the bank are reflected upside down upon the waves, the splendor of it is as of silk being washed in midstream. These are all the reasons the waterside pavilion is held to be excellent.
Though the outline of it is such, when it comes to the utmost of what is rare there, that again cannot be named and told. The one who sees it simply knows it of himself in his mind. If he would hand it on to another and boast of it, the mouth falls short of the eye; and the painter paints only its coarse shape, for his colors cannot make it resemble the truth of it.
Ah — since with this he feeds his guests, who would say that the delight of roaming and sightseeing in pavilions and towers does not befit a monk? From the king's own shining envoys down to the traveler going east and west, there is none who does not roam and set foot there. Just when they stroll about and take their seats, the mind seems to draw the blue luan-bird and bestride the white crane and go forth beyond the eight limits. What need is there to bring in the immortals' terrace of white jade? If it is so even for those who merely roam, then one like our master, who sits always in stillness and takes his fill of the clear scene — surely he has already become a neighbor to the Buddha-realm of the blue lotus. How should this be called contrary to the Way?
Master Hyeok loved letters from the first, and leaning upon my friend Han Hongjeon (韓鴻傳) he begged me to compose a record, meaning it for an adornment of the pavilion and to be handed down hereafter. For two whole years I did not nod, and Han could not but show an angry face; and only then did I set down roughly one or two of these things, and on that account wrote across its brow the words "Neungpa (凌波)" — Riding the Waves. It is because the pavilion rises sheer out of the water and stands up alone.
Ah, I too have grown old. Someday I shall hang up my cap and decline high place, and with a cloth kerchief (幅巾) and a goosefoot staff go there to roam and be master of the wind and the moon. Then in one poem and one chanting I shall pour out all that boundless scene, and so repay what today I have yearned for and leaned toward. If the lake and the hills have spirits, let them wait a while. In the eleventh year of Jeongu, the Recluse of White Cloud, Daeje and Jeongo, Yi Chungyeong, records this.