The Two Hyes Mingle with the Dust二惠同塵

The two Hyes (惠) mingle with the dust.

The monk Hyesuk (惠宿) hid his light among the followers of Hoserang (好世郞). When the young lord had already withdrawn his name from the register, the master too went to live in hiding in Jeokseon village.〔There is a Jeokgok village in present Angang-hyeon.〕

Some twenty years later, the gukseon Lord Gucham (瞿旵公) once went out to those fields to hunt as he pleased.

One day Hyesuk came out on the left of the road, took hold of the reins, and asked, "Might a humble monk follow along too?"

The lord allowed it. Then they galloped and charged this way and that, stripped to the waist and vying to be first, and the lord was pleased.

When they sat down to rest and roasted and boiled the meat and pressed it on one another, Hyesuk too chewed and ate with them without the slightest sign of reluctance.

Then he came forward and said, "There is finer meat here now. What if I offered you more?"

The lord said that would be good.

Hyesuk sent the others away and cut the flesh of his own thigh, set it on a tray, and offered it, the blood dripping onto his clothes.

The lord said in shock, "How has it come to this?"

Hyesuk said, "At first I took you, my lord, for a benevolent man, one who could extend his own heart to reach others. That is the only reason I followed you.

Now that I see what you love, it is only a delight in killing, harming others to feed yourself. How could this be the doing of a benevolent man and a gentleman? You are not one of us."

Then he shook out his robe and left.

The lord was greatly ashamed, and when he looked at the tray he had been eating from, the meat was still there, not lessened at all.

The lord thought this very strange and went back and reported it to the court.

King Jinpyeong heard of it and sent an envoy to summon him, and Hyesuk showed himself lying asleep on a woman's bed. The envoy, thinking this unclean, turned back, and seven or eight li on he met the master on the road.

When asked where he was coming from, he said, "I went to a seven-day service at a donor's house in the city, and I am coming back now that it is over."

The envoy reported these words to the king, and men were sent to check the donor's house, and that too proved true.

Not long after, Hyesuk suddenly died, and the villagers carried him on a bier and buried him east of Ihyeon〔also called Hyeonghyeon〕.

A man of that village coming from the west of the pass met Hyesuk on the road and asked where he was going.

"I have lived long in this land, and I only wish to wander somewhere else."

They bowed to each other and parted, and after about half a li he trod on the clouds and vanished.

When the man reached the east of the pass, the burial party had not yet dispersed. He told them the whole story, and they opened the grave and looked, and there was only a single straw shoe.

Now north of Angang-hyeon there is a temple named Hyesuk, which is said to be where he lived, and there is a stupa as well.

The monk Hyegong (惠空) was the son of an old woman who worked for hire in the house of Lord Cheonjin (天眞公), and his childhood name was Ujo (憂助).〔This is probably in the native tongue.〕

The lord once suffered from a boil and was near death, and those coming to ask after him filled the street.

Ujo, aged seven, said to his mother, "What is happening in the house that there are so many guests?"

His mother said, "The master has come down with a terrible illness and is about to die. How do you not know?"

Ujo said, "I can cure it."

His mother thought his words strange and told the lord. The lord had him called, and he came and sat below the bed without saying a word, and in a moment the boil burst.

The lord took it for chance and did not think it very strange.

When he grew up he kept hawks for the lord, and pleased the lord greatly.

At first there was a younger brother of the lord who had obtained office and was going to the provinces, and he asked for the hawk the lord had chosen and took it to his post.

One evening the lord suddenly thought of that hawk, and meant to send Ujo the next morning to fetch it.

Ujo already knew this beforehand, fetched the hawk in a moment, and presented it at daybreak.

The lord was greatly startled and understood, and only then knew that the curing of the boil in earlier days had all been beyond ordinary reckoning.

The lord said, "I did not know that a supreme sage had entrusted himself to my house, and I shamed you with wild words and unseemly acts. How can that sin be washed away? From now on, I beg you, be my guiding teacher and lead me."

Then he went down and bowed.

Once his divine and wondrous powers were revealed, he at last went forth as a monk and changed his name to Hyegong.

He always lived in one small temple, and was always wildly drunk; he carried a basket on his back and sang and danced in the streets, so he was called the Monk with the Basket (負簣和尙).

The temple where he lived was accordingly called Bugaesa (夫蓋寺), which is the native word for basket.

He would always go into the temple well and not come out for months, so the master's name was given to that well.

Every time he came out, a divine boy in blue clothes rose up first, so the temple monks took this as their sign. When he came out his clothes were not wet.

In his last years he moved to Hangsasa.〔This is Oeosa in present Yeongil-hyeon. Popular tradition says, 'As many people as the sands of the Ganges came out into the world here, so it was named Hangsa-dong.'〕

At that time Wonhyo, who was composing commentaries on various sutras, always went to the master to ask about his doubts, and at times they joked with each other.

One day the two went along a stream catching fish and shrimp and eating them, and relieved themselves on a rock.

Hyegong pointed at it and said in jest, "Your dung is my fish."

So for this reason it was named Oeosa (吾魚寺), the Temple of My Fish.

Some say this was the Dharma master Wonhyo's remark, but that is wrong.

Local custom wrongly calls that stream Mouicheon (芼矣川).

Lord Gucham was once wandering in the mountains when he saw Hyegong lying dead in the middle of a mountain path. The corpse was swollen and burst and had bred maggots, and he grieved for a long time.

When he turned his horse and entered the city, he saw Hyegong wildly drunk, singing and dancing in the marketplace.

Also, one day he took a rope twisted from grass into Yeongmyosa, tied it around the golden hall, the sutra towers on the left and right, and the corridors of the south gate, and told the gangsa, "This rope must be taken down only after three days."

The gangsa thought it strange but did as he said.

Sure enough, after three days Queen Seondeok made a royal visit to the temple, and the fire in the heart of Jigwi (志鬼) came out and burned the pagoda, but only the places where the rope was tied escaped the calamity.

Also, when Myeongnang (明朗), the patriarch of the Divine Seal school, newly built Geumgangsa and held the completion assembly, all the eminent monks gathered, but the master alone did not come.

Myeongnang then burned incense and prayed devoutly, and a little later Hyegong arrived.

Just then heavy rain was falling, but his robe and trousers were not wet and no mud clung to his feet.

He said to Myeongnang, "Your summons was so earnest that I have come."

His divine traces were quite many.

At the end he floated in the air and announced that he was leaving the world, and his relics were beyond counting.

He once looked at the Zhaolun (肇論) and said, "This is what I wrote long ago," so it is known that he was a later body of Sengzhao (僧肇).

In praise it is said:

Hunting at will on the grassy plain, lying at the head of a bed, Singing wildly in the tavern, sleeping at the bottom of a well. A single shoe floated into the air; where did it go? A pair of precious lotuses blooming in the fire.