Letter in Reply to the Head of the Songgwang Community答松廣社主手書
某啓。今月九日。忽承慈旨。備省法體動用。嘉勝萬順。欣抃倍切。僕於前年。勢有不獲已而冒浼者。然事極塵累。故惶恐不能直達。但微扣于頤老耳。尋蒙法王丈下。以菩薩大布施之意。流暢深恩。俾得辦儒門大事。其爲銘感。至今猶在骨髓中矣。其時緣來人廻緩。奉謝大晚。方俟罪責。不意丈下復枉珍緘。慰訊周至。申之以過情之褒。抗之於雲霄之上。是豈蕞然所敢當哉。僕雖耄鈍。尙逖聽淸風爽韻者久矣。然常以未親炙爲恨。徒齎此志。偶未敢自達。而丈下乃先及以不識僕面爲恨之辭。非分之語。且驚且感。然丈下之言。似爲大過。僕之於丈下。信自然之意也。何者。靑山白雲肥遁卓行者之不識俗士。理固出於自然矣。何恨之有哉。如僕者。年亦老矣。當掛冠早謝。往陪甁錫。不爲不可。而反不如意。則其以不親炙爲恨。理則然矣。但言之晚耳。然大和尙丈下。不以千里爲迂。常以書札曲通情緖。僕每蒙來敎。宛若親覿。粗以此自慰耳。是亦予之幸與法主忝同一世故也。惟冀爲時自愛云。
So-and-so reports. On the ninth day of this month I suddenly received your kind words, and learned in full that your dharma-body moves in beauty and that all things go smoothly with you; my joy is doubly keen.
Last year, pressed by circumstances I could not help, I troubled you with a request; but as the matter was all too much a defilement of dust, I was afraid and could not put it to you directly, and only knocked quietly at this old man's door. Before long you, the great master at the Dharma King's seat, in the spirit of a bodhisattva's great almsgiving, let your deep favor flow down and enabled me to carry through a great affair of the Confucian house (儒門); the gratitude engraved in me is still in my very marrow. At that time, because the man who had come was slow in returning, my thanks reached you very late, and I was just awaiting your reproof — when unexpectedly you bent once more to send me a precious letter, consoling and inquiring after me in every particular, and adding praise beyond the facts that lifts me up above the clouds. How could so slight a person as I dare bear this?
Though I am old and dull, I have long heard from afar of your clear breeze and cool elegance. Yet I always counted it a regret that I could never come near you, and merely held this wish without being able to state it myself — and now you are the first to say, on the contrary, that you regret not knowing my face. Such words are beyond my station, and I am both startled and moved.
Yet your words seem greatly excessive. That I have not seen you is truly a thing that is so of itself. Why so? That one who dwells at ease among green mountains and white clouds, keeping to a lofty conduct, does not know a worldly scholar — this is a principle that truly comes of itself, so what regret can there be in it? As for one like me, my years too are old, and it would not be wrong for me to hang up my cap, withdraw early, and go to attend at your side; yet things do not go as I wish, so that counting it a regret not to come near you is, in principle, fitting for me. Only I was late in saying it.
Still, you, great reverend, do not think a thousand li too far, and always convey your feeling in full through letters; and each time I receive the teaching you send, it is as though I saw you in person, and with this I console myself after a fashion. This too is my good fortune, that I presumptuously share one age with the master of the dharma. I only hope that you will take care of yourself for the sake of the times.