Lament for the Meditation Master Mun文禪師哀詞
吾道友大禪師惠文。字彬彬。俗姓南氏。固城郡人也。某年至京師。落髮禪宗迦智山門。爲名長老。年餘三十。始中空門選。累緇秩至大禪師。越壬辰歲。遙住華岳寺。嘗寄居京師普濟寺傳法。是年。國朝因避虜遷都。師以本寺亦在冠兵屯會之藪。遑遑無所歸。遂至門弟禪師某所住雲門寺。居三年。至閼逢敦牂之歲。感疾而化。師爲人資抗直。一時名士大夫。多從之遊。喜作詩。得山人體。嘗題普賢寺。其略云。路長門外人南北。松老巖頭月古今。人多詠之。因號月松和尙。由是著名。予自弱冠忝交分。聞訃悽悵。爲詞以哀之。
My companion in the Way, the Great Meditation Master Hyemun (惠文), had the courtesy name Binbin (彬彬); his secular surname was Nam (南氏) and he was a man of Goseong district (固城郡). In such-and-such a year he came to the capital, shaved his head in the Gaji Mountain school (迦智山門) of the Meditation order, and became a famed elder. Past the age of thirty he was first chosen in the monastic examination, and rising through the monastic ranks he reached Great Meditation Master. In the imjin year he took charge of the distant Hwaak Monastery (華岳寺), and he had earlier stayed at Boje Monastery (普濟寺) in the capital and transmitted the Dharma there.
In that year the state moved its capital to flee the barbarians. The master's own monastery too lay in a thicket where troops gathered and encamped, and in his confusion he had nowhere to return to. At last he came to Unmun Monastery (雲門寺), where a meditation master who was a disciple of his was staying, and he lived there three years; then in the gabo year he fell ill and departed the world.
In his person the master was upright and straight, and many famed gentlemen of the time followed and roamed with him. He loved making poems and caught the manner of a mountain-dweller. In a poem that he once wrote at Bohyeon Monastery (普賢寺) there is the passage, "The road is long, and men outside the gate go south and go north; the pines are old, and the moon above the rocks is the same now as of old." People recited it much, and so he was called the Reverend Wolsong (月松和尙), and from this his name became known. From the time I was twenty I presumed to share the affection of his friendship. Hearing the notice of his death, in sorrow and desolation I make this writing and grieve.
有髠其首。而僧其衣。服則是矣。心或有非。惟我禪師。是眞大士。旣僧其服。又僧其志。戒行無虧。淸淨心地。餘事爲詩。下茟不怠。至其得意。淸警可愛。門徒索寞。數三沙彌。孰表其隧。孰編其詩。嗟哉我公。已而已而。
Though a man shave his head and put on a monk's robe, the robe may be so while the heart is sometimes otherwise. Our Meditation Master alone was truly a great man. His robe was a monk's, and his will was a monk's. In his keeping of the precepts there was no flaw, and the ground of his mind was clear and clean. With the time left over he made poems, and was not idle in setting down his brush. When he came to a passage where he had caught the sense, it was clear and keen and lovely. His following is desolate: only two or three novices. Who will raise a stone on the way to his tomb, and who will gather up his poems? Alas, our Lord. It is over, it is over.