Notice of the Same Kind Posted at Daean Temple大安寺同前榜
夫浮屠氏之法。一也。或稱禪或稱敎。何也。佛心謂之禪。佛說謂之敎。敎也者。得法之具也。沿而得之。則筌蹄也芻狗也。如或不然。桎梏文字。而迷其指歸。則終身遑遑。求佛甚勤。而見效轉遲也。若禪者。佛與祖見性之一印也。夫靈源本覺。如月淸淨。本無點埃。苟不爲妄情所染。有以廻光返照。懸解迢悟。則自家已分。直趣菩提。其路甚捷。其功甚速。是禪之爲無上大乘也。由是我太祖大王。因哲師祕要。崇信宗門。乃大闢五百禪宇。闡揚心法。然後北兵自却。無復寇邊。然則禪之利於世也。可勝導哉。後雖祖述舊章。燃燈不絶。道或因時否塞。故宗風祖脈。幾微不振。自爾國步連致搶攘。世莫知其端緖。獨樞密相國崔公。慨然發憤。思有以復振宗綱。重華祖樹。乃銳意參禪。凡衲僧之籍籍有名者。雖至幽隱。無不屈節邀致。若中外伽藍演禪法之所。則月課殿最。賞勤詰慢。以激其鋒矣。力行如是。未及數年。而禪風復大扇矣。頑虜之入境。未幾自熄。亦未必不由禪力之致然也。今夫鳳城之外鵠嶺之北。有大安寺者。儲靈蓄秀。實三韓之根柢。本欲鎭宣智論。却兵壓災之地。而閱年寢遠。棟宇傾圮。殊不合先王創制之意。以是上方命有司。更創而新之。制度宏侈。無以復加矣。然立寺。所以弘法也。寺立而法筵猶寂。亦義所不能忍視也。故我相國悉以私錢。充其經費。肇自今年四月十五日。開大會。其餘鼻孔遼天之輩。無不詣席。拈槌豎拂。辨駮西來之旨。凜乎機鋒不可觸也。間或點破佛眼語錄。指明心要。於是乎自縉紳大夫。至于士庶。奔赴諦聽。瞙拜踊躍。於其法味也。無有不浹肌膚淪骨髓而歸之者。是豈三韓萬世太平極理之漸耶。嗚呼。世及下衰。風俗澆漓。爲公卿宰輔者。不可純以仁義禮樂化民成俗。必參用佛法。靜截人心。膏潤由生。於以鎭國。以作金城之固。此亦執政者之一段奇策也。人公處身富貴。不爲富貴所折困。耽嗜禪法。執志牢確。乃至輕財重法。汲汲於佛事。爲國家奉福如此。則其愛君享上。安民濟世之志。淵乎不可涯也。非夙植般若種智。安能及是耶。赴會禪流。具疏于左云耳。
Now the Buddha's Law is one. Why is it that some call it Seon and some call it the Teachings? The Buddha's mind is called Seon, and the Buddha's words are called the Teachings. The Teachings are the implement by which the Law is got. If one gets it by following them, they are the fish-trap and the dog of straw. But if it be otherwise, and one's hands and feet are bound to the letters so that one does not know where they lead, then though one flounder to the death and seek the Buddha with the greatest diligence, the seeing of any effect is the slower for it.
Seon is the single seal by which the Buddhas and the Patriarchs saw into their nature. Now the numinous source and the original awakening are clear and clean as the moon, and from the first there is not a single speck of dust in them. If one is truly unstained by deluded feeling and turns the light back to shine within, is loosed from what bound one and awakens far off, then from one's own house and one's own portion one goes straight on to bodhi; and that road is very near and its merit very swift. This is why Seon is the great vehicle above which there is nothing.
By this our Great Progenitor the King followed the secret essentials of Master Cheol (哲師) and believed highly in the school, and opened wide five hundred Seon halls and made the Law of the Mind resound. After that the northern soldiers withdrew of themselves and no more coveted our frontiers. If it is so, can the benefit of Seon to the world be told to the end?
Afterward, though the old law was carried on in succession and the lighting of the lamp did not cease, yet the Way was at times blocked according to the age. And so the air of the school and the lineage of the Patriarchs were almost unable to flourish. From that time the fortunes of the state came one after another to disorder, yet the world did not know the thread of its cause.
Only the Chancellor and Privy Councillor, Lord Choe (崔公), stirred himself with indignation and thought to shake out again the mainstay of the school and to bring the Patriarchs' tree into flower once more. So he sharpened his purpose and took part in Seon; and of every monk of the robe whose name was widely spoken, even one who was hidden away in obscurity, there was none whom he did not bend himself to invite. In the monasteries within and without, wherever the Law of Seon was spread abroad, he set a monthly reckoning of performance and rewarded the diligent and reproved the idle, and so whetted their keenness. His exertion being such, in not many years the air of Seon rose up greatly again. Even that the fierce barbarians entered the border and before long faded away of themselves — one cannot be sure that this was not brought about by the power of Seon.
Now outside Bongseong (鳳城), north of Gongnyeong (鵠嶺), there is a temple called Daean (大安). It has heaped up the numinous and gathered the excellent, and is truly the root of the Three Han. From the first it was a ground meant for setting forth the treatises of wisdom, for turning back soldiers and quelling calamity; but as the years ran on and it grew distant, the ridgepoles and the buildings tilted and fell, and it answered ill to the purpose for which the former king had built it. For this reason the king gave order to the office in charge to build it again and make it new. The plan of it was broad and splendid, with nothing to be added.
Yet the setting up of a temple is for the spreading of the Law. If the temple stands and the seat of the Law is still silent, this too is a thing no righteous man can bear to look upon. And so our Chancellor brought out all his own money to meet the expense of it, and from the fifteenth day of the fourth month of this year he opened a great assembly.
Of the others too, that company whose nostrils rise toward heaven — there was none who did not come forward to the seat. They raised the staff and set up the whisk and probed and argued the meaning of what came from the West, and they were so imposing that the blade's edge of their mechanism could not be touched. Between times they pointed out and clarified the Recorded Sayings of Foyan (佛眼語錄) and showed forth the mind's essential. Thereupon, from officials and great officers down to the scholars and the multitude of the people, they came running to listen closely and bowed and leapt for joy. There was none who did not go back wet to the skin and soaked to the marrow with that flavor of the Law. How should this not be a sign of the great peace and the utmost governance of the Three Han for ten thousand generations?
Ah — the age has come down and decayed, and the customs have grown thin. Those who are ministers and chancellors cannot teach the people by benevolence and righteousness, by rite and music alone, and so make their customs. They must use the Buddha's Law together with these and still and cut off the hearts of men, and then a rich wetting arises from it. With this they press down upon the state and make the firmness of a city of iron; and this too is one rare device of the man who holds the government.
The lord sets his body amid wealth and rank, yet is neither broken nor harried by wealth and rank; he delights in the Law of Seon, and his holding of purpose is firm and sure. Coming to hold goods light and the Law heavy, he presses on in the Buddha-work and offers up blessings for the state in such a way as this. If it be so, then his purpose to love his sovereign and uphold his superiors, to give the people peace and carry the age across, is so deep that its end cannot be reckoned. Had he not planted the seed-wisdom (種智) of prajna long ago, how could he have come to this?
The Seon guests who came forward to the assembly are set down in full at the left.