Notice of the Seon Discourse Assembly at Changbok Temple昌福寺談禪榜
夫道之興替。皆係乎時。故禪法中微。幾至如線。我晉康公扶而起之。力築潰堤。手廻狂瀾。有以維持。然後源流益漲。祖道大行於世矣。公大安三年。得古昌福寺於城之東南。遂拓而新之。今上卽祚之二年。將大闢叢林。闡揚心法。先是。公聞禪之司南弁公。遠遁深山。修眞鍊行。嘗累徵不至。公欲卑辭屈致。或者曰。業已長往。其不迹人間久矣。恐不能易致也。公笑曰。諸佛菩薩。皆以廣度衆生爲意。安有恡法不傳。如人巨富能積而不能散耶。必不爾也。遂聞于上。上遣使敦諭。果應命上道。一如公所忖度。法王鼎來。龍象知歸。凡結社精修如眞公等高行之人。悉皆赴召。其餘宗門宿德。無不臻湊。其集如雲。禪席之盛。古今所無是會也。弁公主盟。眞公副焉。說六祖壇經徑山語錄。每夜談空。率以爲常。乃至五敎。聞人韻士。亦得參赴。分日得場。互談其敎之宗旨。始也各執意相矛楯。雖聞禪法也。亦不甚心服。惘如也。及徐涉其趣。漸入蔗境。領得心要然後。槾山一破。翕然隨以定。自是摳衣請益。知禪之爲無上大法門也。達磨不云乎。千經萬論。只是明心。言下契會。敎將何用。大哉禪之爲道也。雖智所不能及。言所不能窮也。大略以了心爲宗。若欲了心。無心可了。無了之了。是爲眞了。了則是心。心外無佛。如迷自己分上有靈光大寶。向人求索。終日奔忙。祇自苦耳。佛祖所談。無易斯旨。今擧此最上勝味。飽飫士大夫。使入一妙眞源。下至庶人。游霧蒙潤者多矣。一槌手段。已做三韓萬世。則我國其可涯哉。開席凡二十有八日而始罷。其預會高流。咸列于左云云。
Now the rising and the fading of the Way is in every case bound to its time. And so the Law of Seon declined midway and came to be almost as thin as a thread. Our Lord of Jingang (晉康公) took hold of it and raised it up, laboring to build up the broken dike and turning back the maddened flood with his hands, so that there was a holding fast. After that the stream swelled the more, and the Way of the Patriarchs was greatly practiced in the world.
In the third year of Da'an (大安) the lord came upon the old Changbok Temple (昌福寺) to the southeast of the city, and at last widened and renewed it. In the second year of the reign of our present sovereign he was about to open a great monastic assembly there and make the Law of the Mind resound.
Before this, the lord had heard that Master Byeon (弁公), a guide of the Seon school, was hidden far away in the deep mountains, cultivating the real and tempering his conduct, and that though he had been summoned several times he had not come. When the lord would lower his words and bend himself to invite him in, someone said: "He has gone far off already and has long left no trace in the world of men. I fear he cannot easily be brought." The lord laughed and said: "All the Buddhas and bodhisattvas make it their purpose to carry living beings across. How should he hoard the Law and not hand it on, as a man of great wealth knows only how to heap up and not how to scatter? It will surely not be so." At last he reported it to the king, and the king sent an envoy to urge him earnestly. He did indeed answer the command and take to the road, exactly as the lord had reckoned.
When the King of the Law had just come, the eminent monks knew where to turn. All the men of lofty conduct, such as Master Jin (眞公) who had bound himself to a society and cultivated with precision, came forth at the summons. Of the others too, those of high virtue in the school, there was none who did not gather in, so that the assembly was like a cloud. For the flourishing of a Seon seat, there has never been a gathering like this, in old days or now.
Master Byeon presided and Master Jin assisted. They expounded the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch and the Recorded Sayings of Jingshan, and they made it their regular daily business to speak of emptiness night after night. Even men of name and refined scholars of the Five Teachings could take part. The days were divided and seats obtained, and each spoke of the tenets of his own teaching.
At first each held fast to his own meaning and they became spear and shield to one another; and though they heard the Law of Seon, their minds did not much follow it and they seemed as if dazed. But as they slowly steeped themselves in its meaning and gradually entered where the sweetness is and got hold of the mind's essential, then it was as though the mountain that had blocked them collapsed at a stroke, and with one accord they followed and were settled. From then on they drew their collars together and asked for instruction, and knew that Seon is the great gate of the Law, above which there is nothing.
Did not Bodhidharma say: "A thousand sutras and ten thousand treatises are only the brightening of the mind. If one awakens at once beneath the words, what use will one make of the teachings?" Great indeed is the being of Seon as a Way! It cannot be reached even by wisdom, nor exhausted even by words.
In outline, it takes awakening to the mind as its tenet. One would awaken to the mind, yet there is no mind that can be awakened to. The awakening that has no awakening is the true awakening. Awaken, and that is the mind; and outside the mind there is no Buddha. Not knowing that upon one's own portion there is the great jewel of the numinous light, to seek it from others and run about busily all day long is only to torment oneself. In what the Buddhas and the Patriarchs have said, there is nothing to change in this meaning.
Now this highest and most exquisite flavor has been raised up to feed the officials and gentlemen full and bring them into the one marvelous and true source. Down to the multitude of the people there are many who have roamed within the mist and been touched by its wetting. One stroke of the raised staff has already accomplished a matter of ten thousand generations for the Three Han; how then should the end of our country's blessing be reckoned?
The seat was open for twenty-eight days in all before it closed at last. All the eminent men who took part in that assembly are set down in order at the left.
Interlinear notes 1
文以類附無所述先後
The writings are appended by their kinds, and the order of earlier and later is not set down.