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177 Selections from Songs of Yongdam Song of Instruction My children, sons and nephew, respectfully receive my writing. Everyone , including you, is born of the five phases and formed by the three fundamental principles. For twenty years, you have grown up in a prosperous family, partaking of the five moral relationships.1 When I see that your behavior2 has been trouble free, I know it is a happy occasion. I have raised you without any occupation, so is this not both joy and sorrow? I have also thought vividly of all that has passed since my childhood. I have performed the countless affairs of humanity, and that is all I have done. After experiencing these things, among all my troubles, not a single one has allowed me to succeed at an occupation. After laughing once and sweeping all this from my heart, I looked back on my life and my age was already forty. When I looked back upon the customs of the world, I found it was all just this and that and such and such.3 Oh, woe! In my life, I had nothing but this. I settled in Kumi Yongdam, and I made a sacred vow. Face to face, my wife and I sat and we lamented about our lives, and I spoke: “I, your husband, have passed forty years of my life without any misfortune, but now I have no other path. I made my given name again,4 entered the mountain, and vowed to remain. Is this not a serious choice?” I am sorrowful. In my life, if I had known such things were inevitable, I would have abandoned my property. If, through effort, I had exerted myself in the occupation I inherited from my parents, then I would not have avoided this plain dress and these coarse meals.5 With official management of the country,6 in this cold, dizzy world, I sat alone, lamented, and wasted my time, struggling in one way or another. After squandering my property, resentment and sighs of helpless rage were useless. A woman ought to obey her husband [yŏp’il chongbu], should she not? If you, dear wife, cannot once cease talking of the life you once led in your childhood when you dressed and ate well, what then shall become of the harmony 178 Translations between a husband and wife [puhwa pusun]?7 Even for a baby tucked in its swaddling clothes, is it not difficult to bear? Do away with such talk. Instead, let us take one step at a time. Heaven creates everyone, so we must accept its charge. The existence of life relies upon heaven [myŏngnae chaech’ŏn], so what need be there for death’s concern? When God brought forth people, it was not without good fortune [nok]. Oh, for us, how our destiny is so checkered! Wealthy and noble people in seasons past were impoverished and base. Poor and humble people in the seasons to come shall be wealthy and noble. Fortune of heaven turns in cycles; it passes and never returns. But as for our house, the merit of gathering goodness and virtue has, on its own, strengthened from the very beginning, so how could our descendants in generations to come not receive it? From generation to generation, do not lose your good nature. Instead, hold it fast, and after finding comfort in poverty,8 try to govern family through moral training.9 In this world, although others malign others, feign ignorance to their bitter words and pretend as though you do not see their wrongful deeds. Instruct the young, provide a lesson on each matter so they can accept your gentle work, and if you maintain your families, how can this not be true pleasure? I was at peace with myself in this way and that. After the passing of seven or eight months, either in dream or in sleep, I received the Unlimited Great Way.10 After purifying my mind and spirit [chŏngsim susin], I sat down again and wondered, is this not excessive virtue for our family? Was this the return of the cycle of life [sunhwan chiri]? How immeasurable . Even though I thought vividly of the endless past and future, neither writing nor words existed that could express these ideas. People endowed with rich spirits [taejŏ saengnyŏng], do they not exist? Over the past thousand years of Confucianism and Buddhism, has fate [un] also ended? Bounded fate like the wheel of life [yunhoe...

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