The Two Sages of Naksan: Avalokitesvara and Jeongchwi, and Josin洛山二大聖 觀音 正趣 調信

Long ago, when the Dharma master Uisang first returned from Tang, he heard that the true body of Great Compassion dwelt inside a cave on this seashore, and for that reason he named the place Naksan (洛山). This refers to Mount Potalaka in the Western Regions, called in the language of this land Sobaekhwa (小白華), the Small White Flower; because it is the place where the true body of the great sage in white dwells, the name was borrowed.

He kept the fast for seven days and floated his sitting mat on the water at dawn, and the dragons, devas, and the eight kinds of beings attended him and led him into the cave. When he paid homage toward the air, a string of crystal prayer beads was given out to him, and Uisang received it and withdrew. The dragon of the East Sea also offered one wish-fulfilling jewel, and he received it and came out.

Only after keeping the fast for seven days more did he see the true form. Avalokitesvara said, "On the mountaintop above the seat a pair of bamboos will spring up. It is right to build a hall on that ground."

When Uisang heard this and came out of the cave, bamboo had indeed sprung up from the ground. So he built a golden hall, made an image, and enshrined it; the round face and fine bearing were solemn, as if made by heaven. The bamboo then vanished. Only then did he know that this was the place where the true body dwelt.

Because of this he named the temple Naksansa, enshrined the two jewels he had received in the holy hall, and left.

Later the Dharma master Wonhyo came following in his footsteps, seeking to look upon her in reverence.

When he first reached the fields to the south, a woman in white was reaping rice in the middle of a paddy. The master asked for the rice in jest, and the woman answered in jest that the rice was not ripe.

Going on, he came under a bridge, where a woman was washing a menstrual cloth. The master asked for water, and the woman scooped up that filthy water and offered it. The master poured it out and scooped up stream water instead and drank.

At that moment a blue bird on a pine tree in the middle of the field called out, "Give it up, monk." Then it suddenly hid and did not appear. Under that pine lay a single cast-off shoe.

When the master reached the temple, under the seat of Avalokitesvara there was the other of the pair of shoes he had seen before. Only then did he know that the holy woman he had met before was the true body itself. Therefore the people of the time called that tree the Avalokitesvara Pine (觀音松).

The master wished to enter the holy cave and see the true form once more, but wind and waves rose greatly, and he could not enter and went away.

Later the patriarch Beomil (梵日) of Gulsan went into Tang during the Taihe years and came to Kaiguosi (開國寺) in Mingzhou.

A novice with his left ear cut off, who was at the very end of the assembly of monks, said to the master, "I too am from your home country. My house is in Deokgi-bang, Ingnyeong-hyeon, in the region of Myeongju. Master, if one day you return to our country, you must build my house."

After that he traveled through the various monasteries, obtained the Dharma from Yanguan (鹽官),〔the matter is fully given in his main biography〕 and returned to the country in the seventh year of Huichang, the jeongmyo year. He first built Gulsansa (崛山寺) and transmitted the teaching.

In the twelfth year of Dazhong, the muin year, on the night of the fifteenth of the second month, in a dream, the novice he had seen long ago came under the window and said, "Long ago at Kaiguosi in Mingzhou I made a promise with the master and received your consent. Why are you so late?"

The patriarch woke in alarm, took several dozen men, went to the region of Ingnyeong, and searched for the place where he lived.

A woman lived in a village below Naksan; when asked her name she said Deokgi (德耆). The woman had a son, only eight years old, who always went out to play by the stone bridge south of the village, and he told his mother, "Among those I play with there is a golden child."

The mother told this to the master. The master, startled and glad, went with the child to look under the bridge where he played. In the water was a stone buddha, and when they pulled it out, its left ear was cut off, just like the novice he had seen before. It was an image of the bodhisattva Jeongchwi (正趣菩薩).

So he made divining sticks and divined the site to build on, and the upper part of Naksan was auspicious, so he built a hall of three bays and enshrined the image.〔The old book puts Beomil's story first and the two masters Uisang and Wonhyo after. But on examination, Uisang and Wonhyo were men of the reign of Gaozong, and Beomil was a man after Huichang, so they are more than one hundred and seventy years apart. Therefore the order has now been reversed in arranging them. To say, as some do, that Beomil was a disciple of Uisang is absurd.〕

On the twenty-second day of the tenth month of that year the fortress fell. Ahaeng (阿行) did not escape, but Geolseung (乞升) did, and after the soldiers withdrew he dug them up and presented them to the gamchangsa of Myeongju-do.

At that time the nangjung Yi Noksu (李祿綏), serving as gamchangsa, received them and kept them in the gamchang storehouse, and each time the post changed hands they were handed on.

In the eleventh month of the muo year, the great meditation master Gagyu (覺猷), abbot of Girimsa and an elder of the school, reported:

"The three jewels of Naksan are divine treasures of the state. When Yangju fortress fell, the temple slave Geolseung buried them inside the fortress, and after the soldiers withdrew he presented them to the gamchangsa, and they are kept in the government storehouse of Myeongju. Now Myeongju fortress too seems hard to hold, so they should be moved and kept in the royal storehouse."

The king consented and sent ten men of the Night Patrol to take Geolseung, fetch them from Myeongju fortress, and enshrine them in the inner treasury (內府). The ten men who ran this errand were each given one geun of silver and five seok of rice.

Long ago, when Silla was the capital, the farm estate of Sedalsa (世達寺) was in Naeri-gun in Myeongju.

The home temple sent the monk Josin (調信) to manage the estate.

When Josin came to the estate, he took a liking to the daughter of the governor, Lord Kim Heun (金昕公), and was deeply infatuated. Many times he went before Avalokitesvara at Naksan and secretly prayed to be granted a bond with her.

But within a few years the woman already had a mate.

He went again before the hall, resenting that Avalokitesvara had not granted his wish, and wept in grief until the sun set. His heart worn out, before he knew it he had fallen into a light sleep.

Suddenly, in a dream, the maiden Kim came in through the door with a bright face and said with a beaming smile, "I once caught a glimpse of you, master, and I have loved you in my heart and never forgotten you for a moment. I could not resist my parents' command and was forced to follow another. Now I have come wishing to be your companion in one grave."

Josin was overjoyed. They went back to his home village together and kept house for more than forty years, and had five children.

The house had only four walls, and there was not even enough of greens to eat. At last they fell into ruin, and supporting one another they wandered in every direction to fill their mouths.

They drifted like this through the fields for ten years, their clothes torn to shreds and not even covering their bodies.

As they crossed the pass at Haehyeon (蟹縣) in Myeongju, the eldest child, fifteen years old, suddenly starved to death. Wailing, they gathered him up and buried him by the road.

With the four remaining, they came to Ugok-hyeon, wove a thatched hut by the roadside, and lived there.

Husband and wife were old, sick, and starving, and could not get up. The ten-year-old daughter went around begging and was bitten by a village dog; crying with pain, she lay down before them. The parents choked with grief and shed a few streams of tears.

The wife, choking, wiped her tears and suddenly said:

"When I first met you, your face was fine, your years were in their flower, and your clothes were handsome. Every tasty morsel I shared with you, and every few feet of warm cloth I shared with you.

But of late, decline and sickness deepen every year, and hunger and cold press harder every day. It is hard to beg even a bowl of drink from the house next door, and the shame endured at a thousand doors is heavy as a mountain.

When the children are cold and hungry and there is no time to do anything about it, what leisure is there for the affections of husband and wife?

The young face and the pretty smile are dew on the grass; the vows like iris and orchid are willow catkins blown on the wind.

You are burdened by having me, and I am made anxious by you. Thinking carefully over the joys of former days, they were the very steps to our sorrow.

I beg you, let us part here."

When Josin heard this he was greatly glad. As they were dividing the children, two each, and about to go, the woman said, "I will go toward my home village. You go south."

Just as they let go of each other's hands and set out on the road, he woke from the dream.

The lamp was flickering low, and the night was about to end.

When morning came, the hair at his temples had turned all white.

In a daze, he had lost all desire for the world. Already weary of the toil of living, it was as if he had been through a hundred years of hardship. The heart of craving and attachment was washed away like melting ice.

Then, ashamed to face the holy form, he repented and cleansed himself without ceasing.

He went back and dug up the child buried at Haehyeon, and it was a stone Maitreya. He washed it with water and enshrined it at a neighboring temple.

He returned to the capital, gave up his post managing the estate, poured out his private wealth to build Jeongtosa (淨土寺), and diligently cultivated pure deeds. Afterward, no one knows where he ended.

In comment it is said:

Reading this account, closing the book, and thinking it over, why should it be only the dream of the master Josin that is so?

Now people all take living in the world to be a joy; they rejoice and they toil, and simply have not awakened, that is all.

So a verse is composed as a warning:

In a moment of pleasure the heart has already grown listless, Unawares, amid sorrow, the face grows old. No need to wait again for the millet to cook, Only now one sees the toil of living is a single dream.

In governing oneself, right or wrong, sincerity of intent comes first, The widower dreams of beauties, the thief dreams of the storehouse. How to be like a clear night's dream when autumn comes, Now and then to close the eyes and reach the cool and clear?