Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 39

Text for the specially appointed Seon-discourse assembly at Seobotongsa西普通寺行別例談禪文

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 · 150 Chinese characters · reading time 1.7 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 39 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.

心法西來。傳一窠之佛印。頓門東峙。分萬泒於祖源。苟無斁於談揚。卽有資於福利。眷惟涼德。早迫樂推。職此重艱。乘國風之澆薄。稽于術數。遇法算之奇屯。加又星躔。多變於上天。水戶適衝於大歲。將何修飾。弭厥災危。宜憑覺蔭之淸涼。極演宗乘之微密。玆投禪宇。特敞道場。洋乎杭舌之言。契彼鏡空之照。伏願遄承保護。丕擁吉祥。和氣致祥。七政叶璣衡之正。生民樂業。四方無鼙鼓之鳴。

The law of mind came from the west and transmitted, just as it was, the single seat of the Buddha-mind (佛印); and the gate of sudden awakening stood tall in the east, dividing into ten thousand branches from the patriarchs' source. If one truly does not weary of discoursing upon it and sending it abroad, there is at once an increase of blessing and benefit.

Looking back, my virtue is thin, yet long ago I received the people's glad raising of me up and took charge of this heavy and difficult seat. I have come at a time when the customs of the land have grown shallow; and when I examine the arts of calculation, I meet in the reckonings of the calendar a strange and blocked fortune. Moreover the constellations change often up in the heavens, and the station of the water-force (水戶) has just now collided with the Great Year. With what, then, shall I take hold and bring that calamity and peril to a stop?

It is fitting to lean upon the cool shade of enlightenment and to set forth to the full the hidden meaning of the school's teaching. So we go to the meditation hall and open a rite there specially. How vast are the words upon the tongue that ferry living beings across! They answer exactly to that mirror-like empty shining.

Prostrate, I pray that we may swiftly receive protection and embrace great auspiciousness. Let a harmonious air call forth good omens, so that sun and moon and the five planets answer to their true places upon the celestial instrument; and let the people delight in their livelihood, so that no war drums sound in the four quarters.

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