極樂之鄉 Not a Thousand Miles to Go
樵子聞言道：「老爺切莫憂思。這條大路，向西方不滿千里，就是天竺國，極樂之鄉也。」長老聞言，翻身下馬道：「有勞遠涉。樵子闻言道：「老爷切莫忧思。这条大路，向西方不满千里，就是天竺国，极乐之乡也。」长老闻言，翻身下马道：「有劳远涉。
逐句解 Line by line
The woodcutter heard him and said, "Reverend sir, do not be anxious.
The woodcutter answering the master's poem is a small piece of grace. He has no standing to comfort an arhat, as he called him, and he does it anyway.
This main road runs west not a full thousand lǐ, and then you are at the country of India, the land of ultimate bliss."
A Ming 里, lǐ, comes to roughly 576 metres, so under a thousand of them is something under 576 kilometres — a few weeks of walking, not the endless road of the poem. 極樂之鄉, the land of ultimate bliss, is the Pure Land of the west, and the woodcutter is using it loosely for India.
The elder heard him, turned in the saddle, dismounted and said, "We have put you to the trouble of coming so far.
翻身下馬, to turn and come down off the horse, is what you do to speak to somebody as an equal. He has just been told the journey is nearly over and his first act is to get down and thank a woodcutter.
The answer to the poem is a piece of local knowledge from a man who knows the road. The master has been describing an endless journey and the woodcutter tells him it is about three weeks.
It is not quite true — there is a good deal of book left, and India is not the Pure Land whatever the local people call it. But it is what somebody who has never been further than the next market town honestly believes, and it is offered as a kindness.