Kim ManChoong - The Cloud Dream of the Nine

He dressed carefully, followed the course of the stream upwards, and found the eight fairies seated on the stone bridge so that they met suddenly face to face, he and they.

[CUTLINE: The Fairies on the Bridge (from frontispiece)]

Song-jin laid aside his pilgrim's staff and made a deep, low bow, saying: “Ladies of the Fairies' Paradise, hear what a poor priest has to say. I am a disciple of the Master Yook-kwan and live on Lotus Peak. Just now I am returning from a mission beyond the mountains on which he sent me. This stone bridge is very narrow, and you goddesses being seated upon it block the way; will you not kindly take your lotus footsteps hence and let me pass?”

The fairies bowed in return and said: “We attendants who wait on Queen Wee are on our return from carrying a message of goodwill to the Master of the Temple, and have stopped here for a little to rest. We have heard that it is written in the Book of Ceremony concerning the law of the road that man goes to the left and woman to the right. Now as this bridge is a very narrow one, and we are already seated here, it would seem more fitting that you should avoid it altogether, and cross by some other way.”

Song-jin said in reply: “But the water of the stream is deep, and there is no other way. Where do you suggest that your humble servant should go?”

The fairies replied: “It is said that the great Talma [4]

came across the ocean on a leaf. Now if you are a disciple of the Teacher Yook-kwan and have learned the doctrine from him, naturally you will have learned to do some such wonderful thing. There surely will be no difficulty for you to cross this narrow stream instead of standing here and disputing with us girls about the way.”

Song-jin laughed and said: “I see by your ladyships' behaviour that you ask that I pay some price or other for the right to cross, but I have no money, for I am only a poor priest. I have, however, eight jewels which I will present to you if you will kindly permit me to pass by.”

At this he threw the peach blossom that he carried in his hand before them and it became four couplets of red flowers, and these again were transformed into eight jewels that filled the place with sparkling light, shooting up to heaven.

The fairies each picked up one; then they looked toward Song-jin, laughed in a delighted way, arose, mounted the winds and sailed off through the air.

Song-jin stood at the head of the bridge and watched them for a long time till they were lost in the clouds and the sweet fragrance had melted away. In loneliness, as though he had failed of his highest hopes, he came back to the temple and gave his message from the Dragon King to the Master.

The Master reprimanded him for his late return, and Song-jin said: “The Dragon King treated me so liberally, sir, and his urgent request to stay was so impossible to refuse, that I have been delayed beyond the time.”

The Master gave no direct reply, but simply said: “Go away and rest.”

Song-jin went back to his little hut of meditation while the evening shadows closed down upon the day. Since meeting with the eight fairies his ears had been ringing with sweet voices, and though he tried to forget their beautiful faces and graceful forms he could not succeed. However much he endeavoured to rein in his thoughts he found it impossible. His mind was as that of a person half insane or half intoxicated. He pulled himself together, however, and knelt reverently, saying: “If a man study diligently the Confucian Classics and then grow up to meet a king like Yo or Soon, he can either become a general to go abroad, or be a minister of state at home. He can dress in silk and carry a seal of office at his belt; can bow before the king; can dispense favours among the people; can look on beautiful things with the eyes and hear delightful sounds with the ears. He can have his fill of glory in this life, and can leave a reputation for generations to come; but we Buddhists have only our little dish of rice and flask of water. Many dry books are there for us to learn, and our beads to say over till we are old and grey. It may be high and praiseworthy from the point of view of religion, but the vacant longings that it never satisfies are too deep to mention. Even though one gets to understand all the laws of the Mahayana revelation, though one proclaims the same and finds oneself exalted to the place of sage and teacher, when once the spirit and soul dissipate into smoke and nothingness, who will ever know that a person called Song-jin once lived upon this earth?”

So his thoughts wandered. He tried to sleep but sleep refused to come. The hours grew late. Sometimes he closed his eyes for a little, but the eight fairies persistently appeared before him in a row and drove sleep far away. Then he suddenly realised that the great purpose of Buddhism was to correct the thoughts and the heart. “I have been a Buddhist for ten years,” said he, “and I had well-nigh succeeded in getting done with the world till this deceitful mind of mine got itself tangled up to the damage of my soul.”

He burned incense, knelt, called in all his thoughts, counted his beads, recalled to his consciousness the thousand Buddhas that could help him, when suddenly one of the temple boys came to his window and spoke, saying: “Elder brother, are you asleep? The Master is calling you.”

Song-jin, in alarm, said to himself: “His calling me in this unusual way in the middle of the night can only mean something serious.”

He went along with the boy to the Audience Hall of the Buddha, where the chief had assembled all the priests of the temple and was sitting in solemn silence. His appearance was one to inspire fear and question. The light of the candles shone brilliantly. He spoke with great care, but with severe intonation.

“Song-jin, do you know how you have sinned?”

Song-jin, who was bowed low, kneeling before the dais, replied: “I have now been a disciple of the Master for ten years and more, and have never disobeyed any command or any order concerning acts of worship in which I have had a part. I am dark and ignorant I know, and so am not aware of how I have offended.”

The Master said: “There are three things that must be exercised in the ordering of one's acts, namely, the body, the mind, and the soul. You went to the Dragon King and drank wine, did you not? Again, on your way back by the stone bridge you had a long and frivolous conversation with the messengers of Queen Wee. You gave them each a flower and made jokes and light talk. Since coming back, too, you have not put these recollections from your mind and heart, but instead have allowed yourself to be entangled with worldly delights; you have been thinking of riches and honour with all the other temptations of the earth, and have turned with loathing from the doctrine of the Buddha. Thus your three degrees of attainment have all fallen from you in a single hour. You can remain here no longer.”

Song-jin, overcome to tears, prayed for forgiveness. He said: “Great Master, I am indeed a sinner. Still my breaking the rule regarding drink was because the king so forced and compelled me; and my talking with the fairies was only because I asked of them the way. I had had no such intention in my heart. Why am I thus condemned? I will go back to my cell, and though evil thoughts assail me I will keep my spirit awake against them and overcome their madness, so that a true mind will assuredly return. I will bite my hands and I will repent of the wrong I have done, and my heart will be restored. It tells in Confucianism how one can thus return to the right way. As I have sinned will my revered Father not give me a flogging and set me right? This is what I understand to be the teaching of the Buddha. Why should you drive me away from all possibility of reformation? I came to you when I was only twelve years of age, gave up my parents and relatives, cut my hair and took the vows of a priest, and ever since have lived dependent on you. It is just as though you had begotten me and brought me up, and our love is as between an only son and a father. My cell is the special meeting place of the monastery, and my hopes are all here. Where shall I go?”

The Master said: “You desire to go and that is what makes me send you off. If you did not desire to go who would ever think of sending you? You ask 'Where shall I go?' I answer 'To the place where you desire to go.'”

He then shouted: “Hither, Yellow Turban Guards!” Suddenly the commander of the guard dropped from mid-air, bowed low and received his orders.

The Master said: “Arrest this guilty man, take him to Hades, hand him over to the King of Youma and then come back to me.”

When Song-jin heard this his spirit seemed to depart from him, his eyes streamed over with tears, he fell forward and cried out: “Father, father, please hear me, listen to what I have to say. In olden days the great teacher Aron entered the house of a harlot and had intercourse with her, and so broke all the laws of the Buddha. Still the divine Sokka did not condemn him, but took him in hand and showed him more clearly the way. I am guilty of a lack of care, but still as compared with Aron I am surely less at fault. Why do you send me thus to Hell?”

The Teacher replied: “Even though Aron fell into sin, still his mind was repentant; you, on the other hand, have had but one sight of these seductive things and have lost all your heart to them. Your thoughts are now turned to a life of pleasure and your mouth waters for the riches and honours of the world. If we compare you with Aron you are worse by far. You cannot escape the sorrow and distresses that lie before you.”

Still Song-jin cried for mercy, and had no thought of going, so that the stern Teacher comforted him finally, saying: “While your mind remains unpurified even though you are here in the mountains, you cannot attain to the truth; but if you never forget it and hold fast you may mix with the dust and impurities of the way, and your return is safe and sure. If you ever desire to come back here I will go and bring you. Depart now without doubt or question.”

There being no help for it, Song-jin made a low bow before the Master, said good-bye to his priest companions, and went along with the constables of Hell past the Look-out Pavilion till he came to the outer walls, where the guards at the gate asked the cause of his coming.

The constables replied: “At the order of the Teacher Yook-kwan we have arrested this guilty man and brought him.”

The soldier guards then opened the gates for them. The constables reached the inner enclosure and announced why Song-jin had been arrested. The King of Hades had him brought in and then spoke to him in the following way: “Honoured Master, although you live in the Nam-ak Hills under Lotus Peak, your name is already on the incense table before the great King Chee-jang [5]

. I have said to myself that hereafter when you are exalted to the throne of the lotus all living creatures of the earth will be greatly blessed thereby. For what possible cause are you arrested and brought here thus in disgrace?”

Song-jin, in confusion and shame of face, did not reply for a long time. At last he said: “I met the fairy maidens of Queen Wee on the stone bridge of Nam-ak and failed to restrain my thoughts about them. Thus I sinned against my Master and now I await the commands of your Majesty.”

The King of Hades sent a message by those who waited on him to King Chee-jang that ran thus: “The Teacher Yook-kwan of Nam-ak has sent me one of his disciples under arrest by his Yellow Turban constables in order that we may decide here in Hell as to his guilt. As he is different from ordinary offenders I am asking counsel of your High Majesty.”

King Chee-jang replied: “A man who would be perfect has his journey to make, and his return, in order to accomplish all things in accord with his own will and purpose. He cannot escape it, so there is no use to discuss the matter.”

Just as the King of Hades was about to decide, two devil soldiers announced that the Yellow Turban guards, by command of Master Yook-kwan, had brought eight more offenders, who were outside the gate waiting. When Song-jin heard this he was greatly alarmed.

The King then ordered them in, when, behold, all the eight fairies of Nam-ak came haltingly over the threshold, and knelt down in the court. The King spoke, saying: “You fairy maidens of Nam-ak, listen to me. Fairy folk live in the most beautiful worlds that are known, and have joys and delights beyond measure. How is it that you have come to such a place as this?”

The eight in great shame and confusion made reply: “We were ordered by Queen Wee to go and make inquiry of the Teacher Yook-kwan as to his health and welfare. On our way back we met with his disciple Song-jin, and because we talked with him the Teacher said that we had defiled the sacred precincts of the hills, and he wrote and asked that we be sent to the place of the dead. All our hopes and prayers are with your Majesty. Pray have mercy upon us and let us go once again into the world of the living.”

The King of Hades then called nine messengers who appeared before him. He ordered them in a low voice, saying: “Take these nine and get them back as soon as possible into the world of the living.”

Scarcely had he finished when a great wind arose and whirled about, carried off the nine into space, drove them asunder, and sent them into the four corners of the earth. Song-jin, following his leader, was borne along by the wind, tossed and whisked through endless space till he seemed at last to land on solid ground. Then the tempest calmed down. Song-jin gathered his scattered senses, and found himself shut in by a range of hills with the waters of a clear, beautiful stream running by. He also saw inside a bamboo paling and between the shady branches of the trees glimpses of thatched roofs, a dozen or more. Two or three people were standing and talking together. They said in his hearing: “The hermit Yang's wife, now over fifty years of age, is to give birth to a child, a marvellous thing indeed! We have expected it now for some time, but no infant's voice is yet heard, a somewhat anxious circumstance.”

Song-jin said to himself: “I am to be born again among men, for now that I behold myself I have no body, but am a spirit only. My body I left on Lotus Peak, where it has already been cremated, and because I was so young I had no disciples to take my saree [6]

and safeguard them.”

Thinking thus over his past his mind was distressed, when a messenger appeared and waved his hand to him to come, saying: “This is So-joo township of Hoi-nam county, of the Tang Kingdom, and this is the home of the hermit Yang. He is your father, and his wife Yoo See is your mother. You are destined from a former existence to be a son in this home. Go in quickly and do not lose the favourable moment.”

At once he went in, and there the hermit sat with his reed hat on his head and a rough hempen coat wrapped about him. He had before him a brazier on which he was preparing some medicinal drink, the fragrance of which filled the house. In the room, indistinctly, there were heard accents of suffering. The messenger urged him on, saying, “Go in quickly now,” but as Song-jin still hesitated and delayed, the messenger pushed him from behind and Song-jin fell to the ground, when suddenly he lost consciousness, seeming to pass into some great convulsion of nature. He called, saying, “Save me, save me!” but the sounds stuck fast in his throat and failed to find expression, so that they became the cries of a little child only. The attendants quickly informed the hermit that his wife had borne him a beautiful son. He took the medicinal drink that he had prepared, went close up to her and they looked at each other with happy faces.