Why this book

For more than three centuries Korean readers have cherished this novel as a national treasure of Buddhist storytelling, its dream-within-a-dream structure studied and adapted again and again. It asks a question every generation returns to: is a lifetime of power, wealth, and love worth more than one hour of true awakening?

The Story

High on the sacred Five Peaks, the aging Master of Lotus Peak had built a great hall of worship to teach the Dharma to hundreds of monks gathered from across the land, and among them all, young Hsing-chen was counted his very finest, most gifted, and most beloved disciple.

Word reached the mountain that the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea longed to hear the master's teaching for himself, therefore the master, now too frail for so long a journey down, chose Hsing-chen to travel in his place and carry his respectful greetings to the Dragon Palace beneath the waves.

Crossing a stone bridge on his way home that evening, Hsing-chen came upon the Eight Immortals resting beside the water. They teased him with playful, flirting words, but rather than seem rude to such lovely strangers, he offered them wine from his flask and accepted a jade hairpin as a parting gift.

At the Dragon Palace the king pressed cup after cup of wine on his young guest until Hsing-chen grew pleasantly intoxicated, therefore on his slow climb back up the mountain he lingered beside a stream, daydreaming for the first time of the glory and comfort a worldly life might bring him.

Back on Lotus Peak, the Master read the wanting still written plainly on Hsing-chen's face the moment he returned, therefore he scolded him sharply for breaking his sacred vows of detachment, and summoned Yama, the King of Hell, to judge the young monk's fate once and for all.

Yama judged that Hsing-chen's heart, despite years of discipline, remained bound tightly to earthly desire, therefore he sent him to be born again as an ordinary mortal child - Yang Sheng, son of the modest couple Yang Ch'o and Madame Niu, in a quiet village far from any temple.

Yang Sheng grew quickly into a strikingly handsome and remarkably brilliant young scholar, gifted equally with poetry, music, and learning far beyond his years, admired by all who knew him, therefore while still barely grown he left his parents' humble home to sit the imperial examinations in the great, distant capital city.

On the road he met the noblewoman Chin Ch'ae-bong, and the two traded verses of poetry beneath her window one quiet evening, each captivated by the other's wit and grace, therefore they secretly pledged their love to one another before circumstance forced Yang Sheng to travel onward alone, without her.

But war swept suddenly through the region and scattered the roads before their marriage could ever be properly sealed, therefore Yang Sheng fled the fighting alone and found shelter with a kindly old Taoist hermit, who sheltered him through the danger and patiently guided him back onto his path.

From here his long journey wove through many separate lives in turn - each stranger he met along the road, entirely unknown to him, secretly carried a thread first spun long ago back on Lotus Peak, and each one waited quietly to be gathered again into a single, complete fate.

In the bustling city of Luoyang he won the heart of the courtesan Chieh-yu through a song contest fairly judged by his new scholar-friend Wang Sheng before a watching crowd, therefore she vowed before witnesses to remain his and his alone, however long he might be gone from the city.

A celestial maiden named Seonnyeo appeared quietly to Yang Sheng in a still hour and spoke of a bond joining their two souls from a life lived long before this one, but he could not yet grasp the full weight of what she meant, therefore he simply bowed politely and pressed on toward the capital.

He sat the great imperial examinations at last and passed at the very top of every scholar competing across the empire that year, therefore the Emperor himself praised his brilliance warmly before the assembled court and granted him high office and lasting honor on that very same triumphant day.

Yang Sheng was already secretly betrothed to the noblewoman Jing Xiaoye, but the powerful Empress Dowager commanded instead that he marry her own daughter, the Nanyang Princess - and a direct command from the throne itself could not simply be refused or quietly set aside by any subject.

Yang Sheng refused in his own heart to break his given word to either woman, but heaven itself gently untied the impossible knot: Jing Xiaoye was revealed to be no ordinary woman but a celestial being beyond mortal law, therefore both women became his wives together, in harmony rather than rivalry.

One by one, Chin Ch'ae-bong found her way back into his life at last, and Chieh-yu too, arriving exactly as each had once quietly vowed she would, therefore Yang Sheng's grand household slowly filled with the very women his long, winding journey had already crossed and gently touched.

In time eight remarkable women together called him husband, each gifted in her own art of music, poetry, or war, therefore Yang Sheng stood at the very height of worldly glory - highest rank, an emperor's constant favor, a household overflowing with love and honor.

Yet one quiet evening, gazing out from a high palace terrace at everything he had gathered - rank, riches, eight devoted wives - Yang Sheng felt a strange hollowness rise unbidden in his chest, therefore he sighed aloud that even glory as vast as his must end, one day, in dust.

Just then an Old Monk he had never once seen before appeared unbidden on the terrace and struck the stone railing sharply, a single time, with his traveling staff, therefore the solid, glittering world Yang Sheng had always known began at once to shudder, thin, and slowly dissolve like drifting mist.

A single cloud swallowed his entire vision whole, therefore the long, glorious dream broke apart completely at last - and Yang Sheng woke, not as a minister wrapped in fine silk, but as Hsing-chen the monk once more, alone again in a humble hut high on quiet Lotus Peak.

The Master rebuked Hsing-chen gently but firmly for forgetting his sacred path so completely and for so very long, but the Eight Immortals - revealed now as the eight wives of his entire dream-life - knelt down beside him too, deeply ashamed, and pleaded together with him for mercy.

What it means

The Master then explained it plainly to them all: an entire lifetime of glory, love, and eight devoted wives had been nothing but a single dream, sent to teach one lasting lesson - that worldly desire, however vast and dazzling it grows, dissolves in the end like cloud and rain, and true peace is found only in releasing it completely.

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