The Cloud Dream of the Nine - Kim ManChoong

“Have you, great teacher, any means of awakening me?” asked Yang.

“That is not difficult,” said the priest. He raised his stone staff and struck the railing, when suddenly a white cloud arose all about them that came forth from the recesses of the hills till it enclosed the tower and made all dark and indistinct so that no one could see.

The Master, bewildered as in a dream, called loudly: “Will the Teacher not teach me the true way, instead of applying to me the terrors of magic?” He did not finish what he was about to say, for suddenly the clouds moved off and everybody had disappeared, including the priest and the eight ladies. He was greatly alarmed and mystified, and looked with wonder to find the tower with its ornamented curtains, but it also had passed from view. He turned his eyes upon himself to find his body, and there he was sitting cross-legged on a little round mat in a silent temple. There was an incense brazier before him from which the fires had died out. The moon was descending towards the west. He felt his head and it had just been shaved, with only the prickly roots noticeable. A string of a hundred and eight beads was round his neck, and there he was a poor insignificant priest with all the glory of General Yang departed from him. His mind and soul were hopelessly confused and his heart beat with trepidation. He suddenly awakened and said: “I am Song-jin, a priest of Yon-wha Monastery.”

[CUTLINE: Yang Looks away from the World: Back to Religion]

As he thought over the past he remembered how he had been reprimanded and what had followed. He recalled his flight to Hades and how he had transmigrated into human life; how he had become a clansman of the Yang family; his passing the examination and becoming a high Hallim; his promotion to the rank of General, and later to be the head of the entire official service; how he had memorialised the Emperor to resign his office; his retirement with the two Princesses and the six ladies how he had enjoyed music and dancing and the notes of the harp and lute; how he had drunk wine and played at go, and had lived his days in pleasure. Now it was all as a passing dream.

Then he said: “The Teacher indeed, knowing my great sin, sent me forth to dream this dream of life so that I might learn the fleeting character and instability of all earthly things and the vain loves of human kind.”

So he hastened to the stream of water rushing by and washed his face, put on his priest's cassock and hat and went to take his place among the disciples before the Teacher. When they were arranged in order the Teacher called with a loud voice and said “Song-jin, how did you find the joys of mortal life?”

Song-jin bowed, shed tears, and said: “I have at last come to realise what life means. My life has been very impure and my sins I can lay at no one's door but my own. I have loved in a lost and fallen world, where for endless kalpas I should have suffered sorrow and misery had not the honoured Teacher by a dream of the night awakened my soul to see. In the ages to come I can never, never sufficiently thank Thee for what Thou hast done for me.”

The Teacher said: “You have gone abroad on the wings of worldly delight and have seen and known for yourself. What part have I had in it, pray? You say that you have dreamed a dream of mortal life upon the wheel and that now you think the two to be different, the world and the dream itself; but that is not so. If you think it so it will show that you are not yet awakened from your sleep. Master Chang became a butterfly, and the butterfly became Master Chang. Was Chang's becoming a butterfly a dream, or was the butterfly's becoming Chang a dream? You, Song-jin, now think yourself reality, and your past life a dream only; you do not reckon yourself one and the same as the dream. Which shall I label the dream, you Song-jin, or you So-yoo?”

Song-jin replied: “I am a darkened soul and so cannot distinguish which is the dream and which is the actual reality. Please, Teacher, open to me the truth and let me know.”

The Teacher said: “I shall explain to you the Diamond Sutra to awaken your soul, but there are other and new disciples whom I am shortly expecting. I await their coming.”

Before he had ended speaking the gate-keeper came in to say: “The eight fairies of Lady Wee who called yesterday have again arrived before the gate and desire to see the Great Teacher.”

They were invited in, and as they entered they joined hands and bowed, saying: “We maids, though we wait upon Lady Wee, are untaught and unlearned and have never known how to repress the lawless workings of the soul. Our earthly desires have gone forth after sin and evil in the dream of mortal life and there is no one to save us but the Great Teacher, who in love and mercy Himself came to call us.

“We went yesterday to Lady Wee, confessed our sins and wrongdoings and asked forgiveness. Now we have bade a long farewell to her, and have come home to the Buddha. We humbly pray that the Great Teacher will forgive our many shortcomings and tell us the way to the blessed life.”

He answered: “Though your desire is one greatly to be praised, the law of the Buddha is deep and hard to attain. It cannot be learned in a moment of time. Unless there be great earnestness and a deep heart of longing it can never be attained. I ask that you fairy maidens think well over it before you decide.”

The eight fairies then withdrew, washed the rouge and colour from their faces and put aside the silks and satins in which they were bedecked. They took scissors and cut away their clouds of floating hair, and again entered to say: “We have made the necessary changes in our persons and will take the teaching of the Master with sincere and faithful hearts.”

The Teacher answered: “Good, good. Since you eight have thus shown your true and earnest purpose, why should I longer withhold the Truth from you?”

Then he led them to their places in the Hall of the Buddha and made them recite the Sacred Sutras and the Chin-on. Thus did Song-jin and the eight priestesses awaken to the truths of religion and become partakers of the Buddha.

The Great Teacher, seeing the faithfulness and devotion of Song-jin, called his disciples to him and said: “I came from a far distant world to the Empire of the Tangs in order to preach the Truth. At last I have found one who can take my place and the time has come for me to go.”

He took his cassock, his alms-dish, water-bottle, his ornamented staff, his Diamond Sutra, gave them to Song-jin, bade farewell, and took his departure to the west.

From this time Song-jin became chief of the disciples on the heights of Yon-wha and taught the Doctrine, so that fairies, dragons, demons and men all revered him as they did the late Great Teacher. The eight priestesses, too, served him as their master, drank deeply of the Doctrine, and at last they all reached the blissful heights of the Paradise to come.

Appendix

[1] Page 3.

—The worship of the hills. This religion of the East finds its origin in a passage of the “Book of History” which reads, “King Soon (2255-2205 B.C.) offered sacrifice to God, to the six Honourable Ones, to the hills and streams, and to the multitude of spirits.”

Since that far-away time mountains have been regarded as divinities, presiding over the fortunes of the State and the welfare of the King, and as such have had prayers and sacrifices constantly offered to them.

[2] Page 3.

—Deluge. In the “Book of History” there is an account of a deluge that lasted for nine years, from which the people were saved by the might of Ha-oo (2205-2197 B.C.).

[3] Page 4.

—Chin See-wang. (221-209 B.C.). This is the king who built the Great Wall of China; he is likewise famed for having destroyed all the libraries and literature of the kingdom, saying that it was a source of pride and contention, and of no service to the State. For this his unblessed name has been handed down through the centuries as keul-e to jok, the “thief of literature.”

[4] Page 10.

—Talma. He was the 28th, or last of the Indian patriarchs, Boddhidarma.

[5] Page 16.

—Chee-jang. The God of the Buddhists, who has supreme charge of all earthly things, and under whose commands the King of Hades is supposed to act.

[6] Page 18.

—Saree. These are relics that are said to spring forth from the body of a faithful Buddhist, usually during cremation. They are guarded with great care, oftentimes having monumental stones placed over them; sometimes again they are swallowed by devoted disciples.

[7] Page 20.

—Pong-nai Hills. One of the fabled abodes of the genii, supposed to belong to some celestial island in the Eastern Sea. The story of it dates from 250 B.C. The fairy inhabitants of the place are said to live on gems found on the sea-shore. The elixir of life is also dug from its enchanted slopes.

[8] Page 21.

—Panak. A youth of great beauty who lived in the time of the Chin Kingdom, 300 A.D.

[9] Page 23.

—Willows. Before the capital of ancient China there was a grove of willows where people said their farewells and where expressions of sorrow at departure were spoken; hence the willow became the token of special love. It is the first tree, too, of springtime to announce by its blush of green the happy season.

[10] Page 30.

—Koo Sa-ryong. He was a noted rebel who attacked the State during the period of the Tangs, 840 A.D.

[11] Page 37.

—Nakyang. This city lies south of the Yellow River, not far from the great elbow where the stream turns east, and its name to-day is Ho-nan. The capital mentioned in the story is modern Si-an, or Si-ngan, that lies about 250 miles directly west.

[12] Page 19-43.

—Superior Man. This is a translation of the term koon-ja, which means a man of superior virtue. Learning and training play their part, but goodness is the sine quâ non for this great master. His superior, again, in the scale of immortals is the “Sage,” or holy man.

[13] Page 46.

—Examinations. According to the old laws of China the official examinations were held only in the years of the intercalary moon, but special examinations might be held at other times with the permission of His Majesty.

[14] Page 49.

—Princess Tak-moon. The daughter of a great Croesus of China, B.C. 150, she has become associated with the most famous of all historic scandals. Through the influence of his skill upon the lute, she became enamoured of the scholar and poet, Sa-ma Sang-yo, and, contrary to all the laws that govern widows and keep them exclusively to the memory of their late husband, she eloped with him. Her name is universally associated to-day with the delights and charms of sweet music.

[15] Page 50.

—Yi Tai-baik. The most famous of China's poets. He lived from 699 to 762 A.D., in the Tang Kingdom, a hundred years or so before the time of this story. He claimed, as this story depicts, that he was one of the genii, exiled for a period to this dusty, troubled world.

[16] Page 50.

—Han Moo-je. Died B.C. 87. He is one of the most famous Emperors of China. At first he was a great lover of Confucian literature, but later this love waned and he became a devotee of Taoism. He is said to have visited the famous Western Queen Mother, So Wang-mo, who kept her court of paradise on the tops of the Kuen-luen Mountains. She also visited him, and this has become the most famous incident in the life of this Emperor, who reigned for over fifty years.

[17] Page 56.

—The Division of the Sexes. This custom has been strictly observed in Korea up to the present time, and forbids not only acquaintance but even the seeing of women and girls by members of the male sex. According to the law of Confucius, brothers and sisters were divided at seven years of age, the girls to abide thereafter in the inner quarters,while the boys were to live their lives outside this enclosure.

[18] Page 58.

—The Feast of Lanterns. Held as a prayer to the first full moon of the year. One of the great sacrificial seasons of the Far East.

[19] Page 58.

—Kok Kang. In the year 785 A.D. King Tok-jong, on the 1st day of the 2nd Moon, called his ministers and made them come to the Kok Kang Pavilion and write for him. The commemoration of this event has become a festival for the literati, and is called the Kok Kang Assembly.

[20] Page 64.

—Wang So-geun. This marvellous woman, by her beauty, brought on in the year 33 B.C. a war between the fierce barbarian Huns of the north and China Proper. She was finally captured and carried away, but rather than yield herself to her savage conqueror, she plunged into the Amur River and was drowned. Her tomb on the bank is said to be marked by undying verdure.

The history of Wang So-geun forms the basis of a drama, translated by Sir John Davis, and entitled “The Sorrows of Han.”

[21] Page 73.

—The Hoi Examination. This is the second regular examination taken by those who have passed the first. The Chon is a special examination taken before the Emperor.

[22] Page 73.

—Hallim. The term hallim means a member of the college of literature, a literary senator.

[23] Page 86.

—So Wang-mo (Western Queen Mother). A great divinity of Taoism, who is supposed to dwell in her paradise on the tops of the Kuen-luen Mountains, Tibet. For thousands of years she has been regarded as the chief of the genii, and kings and emperors have become immortalised from having had audience with her. She dwells by the “Lake of Gems,” near whose border grow the peach trees of the fairies. Anyone eating of this fruit will live for ever. The gentle messengers who carry her despatches are the “azure pigeons” mentioned so often in Far Eastern stories.

[24] Page 102.

—Song Ok. He was a great poet of the fourth century B.C. His teacher was Kool-won, who was drowned in the Myok-na River. Song Ok, by supernatural power, called up the dead spirit of his teacher and talked with him.

[25] Page 105.

—Cho Yang-wang (650 B.C.). He met a fairy from Moo-san Mountains and lived with her. Her way of going and coming was by becoming rain in the evening and visiting him, and by becoming a cloud in the morning and so sailing away.

[26] Page 126.

—Wang Ja-jin. A man of the time of Han Myong-je (58 A.D.), who became one of the genii. He was a magistrate of a far distant county, and yet he came the first day of every month to pay his devotions to the Emperor. His Majesty, amazed at his coming thus over so impossible a distance, had an officer commissioned to watch and find out how he came. This official, when the time came for Ja-jin's arrival, was on the look-out and saw two ducks flying toward the capital. He caught them in a net, when suddenly they changed into a pair of shoes. The shoes, on being examined, turned out to be a pair that the Emperor had given to Ja-jin.