- Hyung-yul’s Courage
- 1 One spring day in 1909, Sahng-jeh-nim taught Hyung-yul something, saying, “Though I die, do it in this way . . . .”
- 2 Witnessing this, Gim Ja-hyun jealously pleaded, “Please, teach me as well.”
- 3 Sahng-jeh-nim reproved him. “If I do, will you give all your ancestors to Me?”
- 4 “Give You all my ancestors?” Ja-hyun said. Instantly, he found himself standing on a rock at the top of Mo-ahk Mountain.
- 5 Looking around, he realized that the rock was in the middle of a great river. Finding no way to leave, he just wandered in circles.
- 6 Sahng-jeh-nim said to Hyung-yul, “Being his relative, how do you feel about this? Do you feel pity for him? Should I let him go? Should I let him cross the river?”
- 7 “I do not know,” Hyung-yul said. “Do as You wish. I cannot tell You to do this or that.”
- 8 “Why do you feel that way?” Sahng-jeh-nim asked.
Smiling, Hyung-yul said, “I, too, think he is despicable, so I will not say whether You should spare him or not.”
- 9 But then Hyung-yul turned away and said to himself, “What wrong did the son do? The son cannot take on the father’s transgression.”
- 10 Nodding his head, Sahng-jeh-nim said, “You have courage.” With this, Ja-hyun was suddenly sitting beside Hyung-yul.
- 11 Sahng-jeh-nim said to Ja-hyun, “By whose virtue do you think you are here?
- 12 Because Hyung-yul said, ‘The son cannot take on the father’s transgression,’ I transported you across the river. Otherwise, you would have kept wandering in circles.”
- (JSD Dojeon 10,11)
