Uisang Transmits the Teaching義湘傳敎

Uisang transmits the teaching.

The Dharma master Uisang (義湘): his father was Hansin (韓信), of the Kim clan. At the age of twenty-nine he took refuge at Hwangboksa in the capital and shaved his head.

Not long after, he wished to go west and see the teaching. At last he set out with Wonhyo by the road to Liaodong, but the frontier guards on patrol took them for spies and imprisoned them, and only after several ten-day periods were they barely freed and came back.〔This matter is in the main biography by Marquis Choe and in the record of conduct of the Dharma master Wonhyo, among others.〕

At the beginning of Yonghui there happened to be a Tang envoy's ship returning west, and he took passage on it and entered China.

He first stayed in Yangzhou, where the provincial commander Liu Zhiren (劉至仁) asked him to stay in the government office and provided for him generously.

Soon he went to Zhixiangsi on Zhongnanshan and met Zhiyan (智儼).

The evening before, Zhiyan had dreamed. A great tree grew up in Haedong, its branches and leaves spread wide and covered China, and on top was a phoenix's nest; climbing up to look, he found a mani jewel whose light reached far.

Waking, he was startled and thought it strange, and he sprinkled and swept and waited, and Uisang arrived.

He received him with special courtesy and said calmly, "The dream I had last night was an omen of your coming to entrust yourself to me."

He admitted him to his inner room, and Uisang split open the subtle meaning of the Avatamsaka Sutra and made clear even its hidden and delicate points.

Zhiyan rejoiced at meeting fine material and being able to bring out new meanings; it may be called hooking the deep and searching out the hidden, and it was like indigo and madder growing deeper than their original colors.

Soon after, the chief minister of his home country Kim Heumsun (金欽純), also written Inmun in some texts, and Yangdo (良圖) and others went to Tang and were imprisoned, and Gaozong was about to raise a great army and attack the east.

Heumsun and the others secretly sent Uisang, inducing him to go ahead and give warning.

In the first year of Xianheng, the gyeongo year, he returned to the country and reported the matter to the court.

The daedeok Myeongnang (明朗) of the Divine Seal school was ordered to set up a provisional esoteric altar (密壇) and perform the rite to ward it off, and so the country escaped disaster.

In the first year of Yifeng Uisang went back to Taebaeksan, and by the court's wish built Buseoksa and spread the Mahayana widely, and his divine responses were quite well known.

Xianshou (賢首), a disciple of the Zhongnan school, composed the Souxuan Commentary and sent a copy to Uisang, together with an earnest letter that said this:

"The monk Fazang (法藏) of Chongfusi in the Western Capital presents this letter to the attendant of the Hwaeom Dharma master of Silla in Haedong.

Since we parted, more than twenty years have passed. How could the sincerity of my longing ever leave my heart? And with ten thousand li of mist and cloud and a thousand layers of sea and land, I grieve that in this one body I can never see your face again.

What words could express the longing I hold?

Because we made the same affinities in a past life and completed the same karma in this one, we obtained this reward, were steeped together in the great sutra, and were specially granted this surpassing teaching by our late teacher.

I humbly hear that since you, master, returned home, you have opened and expounded the Hwaeom, widely proclaiming the unhindered dependent arising of the dharma realm, the layered net of Indra, and the ever-new Buddha lands, and that the benefit is great and wide; my heart leaps with a joy that grows ever deeper.

From this I know that after the Tathagata's passing, the one who makes the Buddha's sun shine again and turns the wheel of the Dharma again so that the Dharma long abides is the Dharma master alone.

I have made no progress and accomplished little, and the more I look up in thought to this teaching, the more ashamed I am before our late teacher.

I receive and hold it as my lot allows and cannot cast it aside, and only hope to rely on this work to form the affinities to come.

Only, our teacher's chapters and commentaries are rich in meaning but brief in wording, so there are many places where later people find it hard to enter. So I have recorded our teacher's subtle words and marvelous meanings and compiled the Uigi.

Recently the Dharma master Seungjeon copied it and is returning home to pass it on in that land. I ask you, master, to examine it closely, judge what is good and bad in it, and show me your correcting instruction.

I humbly pray that in every world to come, casting off body and receiving body, we may together hear such inexhaustible marvelous Dharma before Vairocana and practice such measureless vows and deeds of Samantabhadra.

If through some remaining evil karma I should one day tumble down, I humbly pray that you, master, will not forget former days, and in whatever realm I may be, show me the right path.

As messengers are available I will ask after you from time to time. I will not write more."〔The text is recorded in the Daemunnyu.〕

Uisang then had the teaching transmitted at ten temples: Buseoksa on Taebaeksan, Bimarasa in Wonju, Haeinsa on Gayasan, Okcheonsa on Biseulsan, Beomeosa on Geumjeongsan, Hwaeomsa on Namak, and the others.

He also composed the Seal Diagram of the Dharma Realm (法界圖書印) together with a brief commentary, gathering in all the essentials of the One Vehicle, and it became a mirror for a thousand years that people vied to treasure and carry.

He wrote nothing else, for to taste the soup in the pot, one slice of meat is enough.

The diagram was completed in the first year of Zongzhang, the mujin year. That year Zhiyan too passed away, like Confucius laying down his brush at the capture of the unicorn.

The world says that Uisang was the later body of Geumsan Bogae (金山寶蓋).

Among his disciples, the ten daedeok Ojin, Jitong, Pyohun, Jinjeong, Jinjang, Doyung, Yangwon, Sangwon, Neungin, and Uijeok were the leaders; all were next to sages, and each has a biography.

Ojin once lived at Goramsa on Hagasan and every night stretched out his arm to light the lamp in the room at Buseoksa.

Jitong wrote the Chudonggi; since he received the teaching in person, its words often reach the marvelous.

Pyohun once lived at Bulguksa and constantly went back and forth to the heavenly palace.

When Uisang lived at Hwangboksa, he circled the pagoda with his followers, and at every step he trod on empty air and climbed without using the stairs.

Therefore that pagoda was given no ladder or steps, and his followers rose three cheok above the stairs and circled treading on air.

Uisang then looked back and said, "If the people of the world see this they will surely think it strange, so it cannot be used to teach the world."

The rest is as in the main biography composed by Marquis Choe.

In praise it is said:

Pushing through thickets, crossing the sea, braving mist and dust, The gate of Zhixiangsi opened to receive the auspicious treasure. Gathering and gathering the Hwaeom flowers for my homeland, Zhongnan and Taebaek share one and the same spring.