Hyehyeon Seeks Stillness惠現求靜
1Only the Tongue Remained, Red and Soft after Three Years
恵現求静釋惠現百濟人.小出家苦心專志誦蓮經爲業,祈禳請福霊應良稠.兼攻三論染指通神.初住北部修徳寺有衆則講,無則持誦四逺欽風户外之履滿矣.稍猒煩擁遂徃江南逹拏山居焉.山極嵓險來徃艱稀.現静㘴求忘終于山中.同學轝尸置石室中,虎啖盡遺骸唯髏舌存焉.三周寒暑舌猶紅軟.過後方變紫硬如石,道俗敬之藏于石塔.俗齡五十八即貞觀之初.現不西學静退以終,而乃名流諸夏立傳在唐聲著矣.
Hyehyeon seeks stillness.
The monk Hyehyeon (惠現) was a man of Baekje.
He left home as a boy to become a monk, and with all his heart and a single will he made the recitation of the Lotus Sutra his work. When he prayed to ward off disaster and ask for blessings, the divine response was truly frequent.
He also studied the Three Treatises, and no sooner had he set his hand to them than he reached the marvelous.
At first he lived at Sudeoksa in the northern district. When there was an assembly he lectured, and when there was none he recited. From every quarter people looked up to his influence, and the shoes outside his door were many.
Little by little he grew weary of being crowded and pressed, and at last he went to live on Dallasan in Gangnam.
The mountain was all rock and very steep, and those who came and went were few.
Hyehyeon sat in stillness, sought forgetfulness, and ended his days in the mountain.
His fellow students carried his body and laid it in a stone chamber. A tiger ate it all, and of the bones that were left only the skull and the tongue remained.
Through three years of cold and heat the tongue stayed red and soft.
Only after that did it turn purple and harden like stone. Monks and laymen honored it and kept it in a stone pagoda.
He was fifty-eight in worldly years, and it was the beginning of Zhenguan.
Hyehyeon did not go west to study, but withdrew into stillness and ended his days there, yet his name flowed to China, a biography was written, and his fame was known in Tang.
2Payak of Goguryeo Was the Same
夫又髙䴡釋波若入中國天台山,受智者教觀以神異間山中而㓕.唐僧傳亦有章,頗多霊範.讃曰.鹿尾傳經倦一塲,去年清誦倚雲藏.風前青史名流逺,火後紅蓮舌帶芳.
Again, the Goguryeo monk Payak (波若) went into Tiantaishan in China, received the teaching and contemplation of the master Zhizhe, became known in the mountains for his wonders, and died there.
The Tang Seungjeon also has a passage on him, with many divine examples.
In praise it is said:
Weary of one more session passing on the sutras with a deer-tail whisk, last year he hid his clear recitation, leaning on the clouds. Before the wind, in the green pages of history, his name flows far; after the fire, his tongue, like a red lotus, still carries its fragrance.