Short Letter in Reply to the Chief Seat Donyu答敦裕首座手簡
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 · 138 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 12 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.
I report. On such a day of such a month your attendant so-and-so arrived, and I received the teaching written in your own hand. Bowing, I observe that your dharma-body is in full blessing, and the heart that had been looking up in expectation is much consoled. The two matters you instructed me in I have received one by one, and together with them you condescended to bestow on me such and such things of sea-greens, which I have received. I thank you deeply, deeply.
Of late I hear that you, the great master at the Dharma King's seat, taking your great age for the reason, have no mind at all to tread the dust of the capital again. Is this truly so? If it is so, then it not only runs counter to this little one's thirsting regard, but is not the spirit of one who holds the great Way and roams unhindered wherever he goes. What I wish is that with one staff and one bowl you would tread this ground for a while and see what the new capital looks like, and steep the capital in the grace of the dharma even for a single day; after that, what harm would there be if you went off at your leisure, as an idle cloud returns to the peaks? I only ask that you weigh it in the mirror of the dharma. And so forth.