Simji Succeeds the Patriarch心地繼祖

Simji succeeds the patriarch.

The monk Simji (心地) was a son of the great king Heondeok, of the Kim clan, the forty-first ruler of Jinhan.

From birth he was filial and brotherly, and by nature pure and wise.

At the age of setting his mind on learning he shaved his head, followed a teacher, and strove in the Way.

While staying at Jungak,〔present Gongsan〕 he happened to hear that Lord Yeongsim of Songnisan was transmitting the Vinaya master Jinpyo's tallies of the Buddha's bones and holding a Dharma assembly to certify the fruit, and he made up his mind and went to find it.

When he arrived he was past the deadline, and they would not allow him to take part.

So he settled on the ground, knocked in the courtyard, and followed the crowd in homage and repentance.

After seven days a heavy snow fell from the sky, but in the space of about ten cheok where he stood, the snow swirled and did not fall.

The crowd saw this divine wonder and allowed him into the hall.

Simji, out of modesty, pleaded illness and withdrew, and stayed in a room, secretly paying homage toward the hall.

Blood ran from both his elbows and his forehead, just as with Jinpyo on Seongyesan. The bodhisattva Ksitigarbha came every day to comfort him.

When the session ended and he was on his way back to his mountain, he saw two tallies stuck in the folds of his robe.

He took them back and told Yeongsim, and Yeongsim said, "The tallies are in the case. How could they have come here?"

On inspection, the sealed label was as before, but when he opened it they were gone.

Yeongsim thought this very strange and wrapped them up again and stored them away.

Simji set out again, and it was the same as at first, so he went back again and told him, and Yeongsim said:

"The Buddha's intent lies with you; you shall uphold and carry it out."

So he gave him the tallies.

Simji bore them on his head and returned to his mountain, and the mountain god, leading an immortal, came to the summit to welcome him.

The god led Simji to sit on a rock, prostrated himself below the rock, and reverently received the right precepts.

Simji said, "Now I mean to choose a site to enshrine the holy tallies, but it is not something we can decide. I ask the three of you to climb to a high place with me and throw the tallies to divine it."

So with the gods he climbed to the top of the peak and threw them toward the west, and the tallies were carried off flying on the wind.

Then the god made a song, which said:

The blocking rock draws far back, flat as a whetstone, The fallen leaves fly and scatter, brightness is born. Found and gained, the tallies of the Buddha's bones, Welcomed to a pure place, sincerity is offered.

When the song was done they found the tallies among the woods and springs, and on that very ground they built a hall and enshrined them.

The small well north of the Cheomdang at present Donghwasa is that place.

Yejong of this dynasty once had the holy tallies brought and enshrined in the palace to venerate them, and suddenly one tally, the one inscribed 'nine', was lost; he had one made of ivory to replace it and sent them back to the original temple.

Now they have gradually changed to the same color, so that new and old are hard to tell apart, but their substance is neither ivory nor jade.

Looking at the first scroll of the Divination Sutra, it lists the names of the one hundred and eighty-nine tallies.

The first is seeking the highest vehicle and gaining non-retreat; The second is the fruit sought appearing and being duly certified; The third and fourth are seeking the middle and lower vehicles and gaining non-retreat; The fifth is seeking supernormal powers and gaining accomplishment; The sixth is cultivating the four pure practices and gaining accomplishment; The seventh is cultivating worldly meditation and gaining accomplishment; The eighth is gaining the wondrous precepts one wishes to receive; The ninth is gaining the full precepts one has received before;

〔Correcting by this text, the 'newly obtained precepts' Maitreya spoke of means precepts first obtained in this life, and the 'precepts obtained before' means those once received in a past life and received again in addition in this life; it does not mean the newness or oldness of what arises from cultivation and what is originally present.〕

The tenth is seeking the lower vehicle and not yet abiding in faith; The next is seeking the middle vehicle and not yet abiding in faith.

And so on up to the one hundred and seventy-second, all of which are matters of gain and loss, good or evil, in past and present lives.

The one hundred and seventy-third is casting off the body and having already entered hell,〔from here on all are fruits of the world to come〕 and the one hundred and seventy-fourth is having died and already become an animal.

And so on: hungry ghost, asura, human, king of humans, god, king of gods, hearing the Dharma, going forth, meeting a holy monk, being born in Tusita, being born in the Pure Land, seeking out and seeing the Buddha, abiding in the lower vehicle, abiding in the middle vehicle, abiding in the highest vehicle, and the one hundred and eighty-ninth, gaining liberation, and the rest.〔Above it spoke of abiding in the lower through the highest vehicles and gaining non-retreat, and here it speaks of gaining liberation in the highest vehicle; this is the only distinction.〕

All of these are the differing forms of good and evil retribution across the three times.

When one divines with these and the result matches what the mind has done, it is a response; if not, the mind is said not to have been utmost, and it is called empty and false.

So these two tallies, the eighth and the ninth, are simply ones that came out of the one hundred and eighty-nine.

Yet the Song biography says only one hundred and eight tallies. How is this? Probably they mistook it for the name of the hundred and eight afflictions and called it so, without weighing and searching the text of the sutra, and that is all.

Also, on examination, the Wangdae jongnok in two scrolls, composed by the scholar Kim Gwanui (金寬毅) of this dynasty, says that at the end of Silla the daedeok Seokchung (釋冲) presented to Taejo one robe of the Vinaya master Jinpyo and one hundred and eighty-nine precept tallies (戒簡). Whether these are the same as the tallies passed down at present Donghwasa or different is not known in detail.

In praise it is said:

Born and raised in the palace, early he left the cage, Frugal, diligent, and clever, gathered from heaven. In the snow piled full in the courtyard he gained the divine tallies, And carried them to the highest peak of Donghwasa.