Daehyeon of the Yogacara and Beophae of the Hwaeom賢瑜珈海華嚴

Daehyeon of the Yogacara and Beophae of the Hwaeom.

The daedeok Daehyeon (大賢), patriarch of the Yogacara school, lived at Yongjangsa on Namsan.

The temple had a stone sixteen-foot image of Maitreya, and whenever Daehyeon circled it in homage, the image too turned its face to follow him.

Daehyeon was wise, his speech precise and quick, and his judgments clear.

In general, the weighed meanings and principles of the school of characteristics (相宗) are deep and hidden and hard to split open.

The famous Chinese scholar Bai Juyi once tried to fathom them and could not, and said:

"Consciousness-only is deep and hard to break open; Buddhist logic does not open even when split."

For this reason it had long been hard for students to receive and carry it on.

Daehyeon alone corrected and settled what was wrong and mistaken, and in a moment opened the deep and hidden, wielding his blade with ease.

Those who came after in the eastern country all followed his teaching, and the scholars of China too at times obtained it and made it their eyes.

In the reign of King Gyeongdeok, in the twelfth year of Tianbao, the gyesa year, in summer, there was a great drought.

By royal edict he was brought into the inner hall to lecture on the Golden Light Sutra and pray for sweet rain.

One day, at the time of the meal service, the bowls were laid out, but a long time passed and the pure water was slow in being offered. The supervising official rebuked those in charge, and the one making the offering said:

"The palace well has dried up, and we were slow only because we had to draw water from far away."

Daehyeon heard this and said, "Why did you not say so sooner?"

When the time for the noon lecture came, he held up the censer and stayed silent, and in a moment the well water surged up to a height of some seven gil, level with the temple banner pole.

The whole palace was astonished, and because of this the well was named Geumgwangjeong (金光井), the Golden Light Well.

Daehyeon once called himself the Monk of Cheonggu (靑丘沙門).

In praise it is said:

Circling the Buddha on Namsan, the image turned to follow, In Cheonggu the sun of the Buddha hung once more at midheaven. He knew how to make clear waves surge in the palace well, Who could know it was one wisp of smoke from the golden censer?

The next year, the gabo year, in summer, the king again invited the daedeok Beophae (法海) to Hwangnyongsa to lecture on the Avatamsaka Sutra.

The king came in person, burned incense, and said calmly:

"Last summer, when the Dharma master Daehyeon lectured on the Golden Light Sutra, the well water rose seven gil. How is your own power in the Dharma?"

Beophae said, "That was only a small matter, hardly worth mentioning. To tilt the blue sea outright, drown the eastern peak, and send the flood into the capital would be no hard thing."

The king did not believe him and took it for a joke.

When the noon lecture came, he drew the censer to him and sat in stillness, and in a moment there was suddenly a sound of wailing inside the palace.

A palace official ran in and reported, "The east pond has already overflowed and swept away fifty-odd bays of the inner hall."

The king was dazed and lost his composure, and Beophae said with a smile:

"I was about to tilt the East Sea, and the water veins swelled first, that is all."

Without knowing it, the king rose and bowed.

The next day Gameunsa reported, "Yesterday around noon the seawater swelled and overflowed up to the steps in front of the Buddha hall, and toward evening it went back."

The king believed and revered him all the more.

In praise it is said:

The waves of the sea of Dharma, how wide is the dharma realm. The filling and shrinking of the four seas is no hard thing. Do not say the hundred million Sumerus are great, They all lie at the tip of one finger of our master.

〔Some write 'Seokhae'.〕