Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 12

Short Letter in Reply to the Great Seon Master Mun答文大禪師小簡

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 · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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.

某啓。予前以短簡。遙寄于蓮階。想千里遼遠。至今猶未呈似。今蒙所寄手緘。方諳已達。兼認法體佳勝。欣抃欣抃。噫。予未嘗不悲丈下之失穴離巢。託人僑居。然聞主人覺禪師。乃丈下之上足也。寺亦弟一大伽藍。則其朝夕奉養。必不至匱。是獨一段喜事耳。所諭一皆稟受。伏惟爲法珍重。謹白。

So-and-so reports. I sent a short letter earlier to where you dwell, far away; but thinking the thousand li vast and distant, I took it that it had not been delivered even yet. Only on receiving the letter in your own hand that you have now sent did I know that it had indeed arrived, and with it I came to know that your dharma-body is in beauty and at ease. I am glad, glad.

Ah — I have never ceased grieving that you, great master, lost your cave and left your nest, and had to lodge with another and depend on him. Yet I hear that the host, the Seon master Gak, is your own foremost disciple, and that the monastery too is a great one of the first rank; so the attendance given you morning and evening will surely not fall short. This is the one thing in it that gladdens me.

All that you instructed me in I have received, every item. Bowing, I consider: for the sake of the dharma, keep your body well. I respectfully report.