Cho Oh-hyun - For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems

For NirvanaFor Nirvana 108 Zen Sijo Poems Cho Oh-hyun introduction byKwon Youngmintranslated byHeinz Insu FenklColumbia University Press NEW YORK Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Translation copyright 2016 Heinz Insu Fenkl All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cho, O-hyn, 1932 author. | Fenkl, Heinz Insu, 1960 translator. | Kwn, Yng-min, 1948 author of introduction. Title: For nirvana : 108 zen sijo poems / Cho O-hyn ; introduction by Kwn Yng-min ; translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl. Other titles: Poems. | Includes bibliographical references. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016002181 (print) | LCCN 2016016304 (ebook) | ISBN 9780231179904 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231179911 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231542432 (e-book) | ISBN 9780231542432 () Classification: LCC PL992.17.O24 A2 2016 (print) | LCC PL992.17.O24 (ebook) | DDC 895.71/4dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016002181 A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-ebook@columbia.edu. BOOK & COVER DESIGN: CHANG JAE LEE COVER IMAGE: JOSEF HOFLEMNER GALLERY STOCK References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Contents , by Kwon Youngmin The moon in the water It was nighttime and everyone else was sleeping. Contents , by Kwon Youngmin The moon in the water It was nighttime and everyone else was sleeping.

Under the calm moonlight, the tree branches cast mottled patterns against the pale skin on the paper doors of the temple rooms. Mr. Kima lay Buddhist student who was pondering the question, What is the self?couldnt get to sleep, and so he had come out into the courtyard. He walked for a while there, treading through the sound of wind chimes that seemed to carry no more than knee-high from the ground. Thats when he saw the stranger sitting there, at the edge of Gwaneum Pond, with his arms hugging his knees to his chest. In the middle of the night? Kim thought.

Even as his hair stood on end, something made him go and stand behind the young man and keep a watchful eye. Perhaps the man sensed Kims presence, perhaps nothe just stared at the deep, mysterious reflection of the moon floating on the water. He sat there, not moving, like some hastily packed bundle of baggage. Just then, the moon shifted, drawing up its own shadowy reflection, and a misty drizzle began to come down. The stranger stood up on his feet as if he were a weak, old man. , he said. , he said.

You can look at the moon in the water but you can never scoop it out... Kim watched him rub his hands over his haggard face and stagger out of the temple gates as dawn was breaking. Musan Cho Oh-hyun, March 2015 On Musan Cho Oh-hyuns Sijo Kwon Youngmin, senior advisor, the Manhae Foundation It has been ten years already since the inaugural Manhae Festival, when I first found my way to Baekdamsa Temple. I was to present a paper at the symposium there on the literary works of the great Buddhist poet Han Yongun. Baekdamsa is the place to which Han Yongun returned in 1922 after he was released from West Gate Prison in Seoul. He had been arrested as one of the masterminds of the 1919 March First independence movement and imprisoned there by the Japanese authorities for more than two years.

Han Yongun, better known today by his Buddhist name, Manhae, wrote the poems for his collection The Silence of Love (1926) at Baekdamsa. Even now the creative origins of the poems in that book are veiled and obscure, but this small mountain temple deep in the valley has become a literary sanctuary that has given rise to one of the great mysteries of Korean literature. On the grounds of Baekdamsa, as I was lost in thought about Manhae Han Yongun, I unexpectedly met a venerable senior monk who, in his humble robe, looked just like Manhae. As I entered with my group, he came up to me with his hands pressed together in greeting and asked me who I was. I returned his bow and told him I was a professor who taught literature at a university. I added that I was also a literary critic.

He laughed loudly upon hearing that. So, he said, Youre one of those people with an attachment to a useless discipline. Literary criticism... I was shocked. I had just met this old monk for the first time and I had no idea how to respond to this kind of conversation, so I just laughed along with him. You write all those reviews, but its all a useless enterprise.

Youre just trawling for writing that has a unique use of language. Its easy for your kind of writing to lack integrity. I was dumbstruck. In my many decades of work as a literary critic, I had published books of just about every kind, and this old monk had just called it all a vain trawling enterprise. He must have noticed the hardening expression on my face. He continued, As for writing, your soul has to be in it for it to be authentic.

But what passes for criticism these days is just taking a theory by one person and taking a work by someone else and arguing back and forth about whos right and whos wrong. Thats why its all in vain. Theres an old story about a lake deep in a valley. One night a big fish swam up a waterfall and ascended into Heaven to become a dragon. People said there must be something left over from that event, so they cast their nets in water. But the fish had already ascended! What could they catch in their nets? Finally, taking hold of my hand, the old monk said, Im just telling you this so we can laugh about it.

I took those words to heart. It seemed to me that he had pointed out the weak spot in my own study of literature. I was crestfallen. Baekdamsa valley was roaring with the sound of water. I lifted my head and turned my attention to the high peaks of Seorak, which were shrouded in fog. The true character of Seorak was revealed to me then, and I had the sudden intense feeling that, for the first time in my life, I had encountered a wizard.

I wondered about that old monk. Later, someone from the group quietly told me he was Musan Cho Oh-hyun, abbot of Shinheungsa Temple in the Mt. Seoraksan complex. Once again, I was shocked. My first meeting with Master Cho was a gift of fate, and now I visit Baekdamsa Temple frequently. These days the road that enters Inner Seorak is maintained like an expressway, but Baekdams valleys are still as remote as ever.

There, the great old monk who looks like Manhae keeps vigil, and Manhaes spirit is still alive and overflowing throughout the valley. Last year, after retiring from Seoul National University, where I had served for more than thirty years, I began the task of gathering together all the poems written by Musan Cho Oh-hyun, including his collections of sijo, and compiled and annotated The Collected Works of Cho Oh-hyun (from which this current volume is extracted). This was the only work I could show to Master Cho, whoten years earlier, when Id first met himhad made the cutting remark that to do literary criticism was like trawling in vain. The task of assembling and organizing scattered materials, comparing variants, putting them in a chronology, and supplying the necessary annotations to provide an authoritative text for the next generation of readersMaster Cho was sure to be critical of this endeavor, to get angry at me again and say that it was all useless. But what was I to do? This was my role as a literary critic. Hadnt he already told me as much? During the Joseon Dynasty, the great monks such as Hyujeong and Yujeong left many Zen poems, but they did not compose a single sijo.

If one looks through Professor Jeong Byeong-uks