Korean Buddhist Philosophy - The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

 Korean Buddhist Philosophy

Jin Y. Park

The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

Edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield

Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328998.003.0032

Abstract and Keywords

This article provides an introduction to Korean Buddhist philosophy. Korean Buddhism is a part of the East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. During its fifteen-hundred-year history, which began in the fourth century and continues to today, Korean Buddhism has developed in a close relationship with Chinese Buddhism and at the same time generated its own unique views. Buddhism, together with Confucianism, constitutes one of the two veins of philosophical traditions in Korea. This article discusses five Buddhist thinkers: Ŭisang (625–702), WOnhyo (617–686), Pojo Chinul (1158–1210), T'oe'ong SOngchOl (1912–1993), and POpsOng (1913–), with respect to the three themes of HwaOm (Ch. Huayan) Buddhism, SOn (Ch. Chan; Jap. Zen) Buddhism, and Buddhist ethics.

Keywords: Ŭisang, WOnhyo, Pojo Chinul, T'oe'ong SOngchOl, POpsOng, Buddhist ethics, Buddhism, HwaOm

KOREAN Buddhism is a part of the East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. During its fifteen-hundred-year history, which began in the fourth century and continues to today, Korean Buddhism has developed in a close relationship with Chinese Buddhism and at the same time generated its own unique views. Buddhism, together with Confucianism, constitutes one of the two veins of philosophical traditions in Korea. Five Buddhist thinkers are discussed in this essay: Ŭisang (625–702), WOnhyo (617–686), Pojo Chinul (1158–1210), T'oe'ong SOngch'Ol (1912–1993), and Pópsóng (1913–), with respect to the three themes of HwaOm (Ch. Huayan) Buddhism, SOn (Ch. Chan; Jap. Zen) Buddhism, and Buddhist ethics.

Ŭisang is credited as the founder of the HwaOm school. From 661 to 668, Ŭisang studied in Tang China with Zhiyan (602–668), the designated second patriarch of Chinese Huayan Buddhism. During this time, Ŭisang also became a colleague of Fazang (643–712), who later became the third patriarch of the tradition. Ŭisang's thought on HwaOm Buddhism is well articulated in a short piece titled The Diagram of the Reality Realm of the One Vehicle of Hwaöm Buddhism (HwaOm ilsüng pOpkye to), which has had a significant impact on Korean HwaOm thought up to today.

WOnhyo, Ŭisang's contemporary, is one of the most influential Buddhist thinkers in Korean Buddhism. WOnhyo joined a monastery during his teens. Without specific teachers to guide him, he read widely and wrote

commentaries on major Mahāyāna texts, making a significant contribution to the commentarial tradition in East Asian Buddhism. WOnhyo made two attempts to travel to China, neither of which was completed. A life-changing experience during his second unsuccessful journey to China is cited frequently as the moment of his awakening to the truth that the mind is the source of one's understanding of the external world. (p. 374) Wónhyo left behind him a voluminous corpus, the themes of which include HwaOm Buddhist thought, Mind-Only (Cittamātra/Yogācāra) philosophy, the Lotus Teaching, and bodhisattva precepts, among others.

Pojo Chinul was a major figure in establishing the SOn Buddhist tradition in twelfth-century Korea and is considered one of the most important figures in Korean SOn Buddhism. Chinul joined a monastery at the age of eight (1165). Like Wónhyo, Chinul mainly trained himself without specific mentors until the age of twenty-five (1182), when he passed the governmental examination for monks. Instead of taking a governmental post, Chinul continued his own practice, traveling to different monasteries, and finally settled down at the Songgwang monastery in 1200, where he trained disciples, gave dharma talks, and wrote on Buddhism until his death. Chinul's Buddhism developed around the core SOn doctrine that the mind is the Buddha. In later days, Chinul adopted Kanhwa SOn and promoted it as the most effective way to attain awakening. The Kanhwa SOn tradition has remained the most prominent SOn tradition in Korea since Chinul's time, demonstrating his lasting impact on Korean Buddhism.

T'oe'ong SOngh'Ol is one of the most important figures in the second half of the twentieth century in Korean Buddhism; he represents a SOn absolutist and subitist position. POpsOng might not be as well recognized as the other three thinkers introduced here; however, POpsOng's Buddhist thought represents engaged Buddhism in contemporary Korea, one of the important and emerging fields in Buddhist philosophy today. We will discuss POpsOng's engaged Buddhism together with WOnhyo's discussion of bodhisattva precepts. This will offer a response to the question of Buddhism's position in social philosophy and ethical theories, as has been raised in recent years among western Buddhist thinkers.

The Universal and the Particular in the Hwaöm Thought of Ŭisang

Ŭisang discusses the ultimate vision of HwaOm Buddhism in his “Verse on the Dharma Nature” (POpsOng ke), which is included in the Diagram of the Reality Realm of the One Vehicle of Hwaöm Buddhism (HwaOm ilsuing pópkye to). The verse consists of 210 Chinese characters deployed in a diagram that demonstrates the interpenetration of all beings in the phenomenal world, the core theme of HwaOm Buddhism. In the HwaOm Buddhist tradition, the original nature of a being, frequently referred to as “the dharma nature,” is characterized by its nonsubstantiality. The basic Buddhist doctrine postulates the identity of a being as conditional. A being in Buddhism is not an owner of independent and permanent substance but exists in the milieu of conditioned causality. Buddhism identifies its causal theory as dependent-arising. The traditional definition of the concept appears in early (p. 375) Buddhist texts as follows: “Because this happens, that happens; because this ceases, that ceases.” A being's identity is possible only as a differential notion in Buddhism, which challenges the identity principle in substantialist philosophy.

As one of the major East Asian Buddhist schools, HwaOm Buddhism emphasizes the reality of the conditioned

causality at the entire level of the phenomenal world and discusses it especially through the relationship between

the noumenal and the phenomenal. The ultimate teaching of the school is expressed frequently through the symbol of the jewel net of Indra. Imagine the universe as a net that stretches infinitely. Further envision that a glittering jewel sits in each knot of the net. The jewel itself is transparent and has no identity of its own. The identity of each jewel is constantly constructed through what it reflects. In the world of Hwaöm Buddhism, each entity in the cosmos is like a jewel in the net. All beings exist within the net of dependent-arising. In this interrelated world, the identity of the subject is not defined by the independent and permanent essence of the subject but already includes its other. Ŭisang defines a being's identity in this nature as interfusion and nondual. The nature of what is reflected in each jewel cannot be analyzed systematically because of its quantitative immensity and its fluctuating quality. In the “Verse,” Ŭisang describes the logic of Indra's net as follows: “Within the one is encompassed the

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all, and within the many is the one. / The one is the all and the many are the one.” The idea of mutual penetration reaches culmination in the signature Hwaöm statement, as Ŭisang states: “In one particle of dust is contained the ten directions [the entire world]. / All other particles of dust are the same” (HPC 2.1a). In the logic of Hwaöm Buddhism, any being, however infinitesimal it might be, is identified with the entirety of the world. Since all beings already exist within the net of conditioned causality, the one and the many are not separate. Ŭisang explains this relationship between the one and the many by using the example of the number “one” and the number “ten”:

In the teaching of the great dependent-arising, if there is no “one,” the “many” cannot be established. [Practitioners] should be well aware of this nature. What is called the “one” is not the “one” by its self-nature. [By the same token], what is known as the “ten” is not the “ten” by its self-nature; the “ten” comes to be known as the “ten” by its relation to others [or by dependent-arising]. All of the beings produced out of dependent-arising do not have definite marks or a definite nature. Since there is no self-nature, beings do not exist independently, which suggests that birth actually means no-birth. No-birth means no need to abide, and no abiding means the middle path. (HPC 2.6b)

There exists no eternal, unchanging one-ness or ten-ness that grounds the nature of either the one or the ten. Both the “one” and the “ten” (and in that sense, any being (p. 376) in the world) earn their identities through the ever-changing causal transformation.2 The logic of conditioned causality, however, does not negate the existence of individual beings on the phenomenal level: that is, the one and the ten are different. Despite the individuality that is recognized on the phenomenal level, Hwaöm thought also consistently emphasizes the noumenal aspect of the phenomenally separated existence: hence, the one is the ten. Two issues deserve our attention here: first, the paradigm of one particle-qua-the world does not indicate that a specific one is the entire world all the time on every occasion. The one is the ten when we focus on the “one” at a given moment in a given situation, and the same can be said about any other entity in the world, which is represented in Ŭisang's “Verse” as “a particle of dust.” When the notion of the one in “the one is the all” is interpreted as referring to exclusively a specific one— such as the emperor (the one) as opposed to the people (the all)—the Hwaöm vision risks supporting a totalitarian vision. Second, the phenomenal (the one) and the noumenal (the all) are nondual, and so is the particular and the universal. The phenomenal and the noumenal are hermeneutically constructed concepts, not ontologically separated realities. These two issues should be the ground to respond to the criticism that Hwaöm Buddhism is a form of a philosophy of idealism.

Ŭisang further elaborates the identity of the “one” and the “all” by using the concept of the six marks. The six marks consist of three pairs: universality/particularity (K. ch'ongsang/pyólsang), sameness/difference (K. tongsang/yisang), and integrity/fragmentation (K. sóngsang/koesang). As in the case of the one and the ten, these seeming binary opposites coexist in the identity of an entity. The first in the pairs—universality, the sameness, and

integrity—characterize the totality of the world as understood from the noumenal level. The second sets of each pair—particularity, difference, and fragmentation—characterize the individual entities at the phenomenal level like each jewel in Indra's net. The six marks making up the three pairs demonstrate the contradictory identity through which Hwaöm Buddhism understands an entity. An individual entity is characterized by the marks of particularity, difference, and fragmentation, whereas the nature of its individual identity is constructed through its relationship with others, and its identity is inseparable from the marks of universality, sameness, and integrity.

In Chinese Huayan Buddhism, the mutual interpenetration of the noumenal and the phenomenal is explained through a theory known as the fourfold worldview. The fourfold worldview consists of (1) the world of the phenomenon (C. shifajie; (p. 377) K. sabópkye), (2) the world of the noumenon (C. lifajie; K. yibópkye), (3) the world of the unobstructed interpenetration of the noumenon and the phenomenon (C. lishi wuai fajie: K. yisa muae pópkye), and (4) the world of the unobstructed interpenetration among phenomena (C. shishi wuai fajie; K. sasa muae pópkye). The first of the Huayan fourfold worldview represents the world that consists of individual existences; it is the world of the many, where diversity exists seemingly without a coherent system. The second stage of the fourfold worldview postulates a world that is understood from the perspective of the principle. However diverse existence in the phenomenal world might be, no being exists outside of conditioned causality, which is the structure of the world from the Buddhist perspective. Hence, the third layer of the fourfold worldview declares that there is no conflict between the world of diversity and the world of one principle. Considering the phenomenal diversity in light of the first three stages, Huayan envisions at its fourth level that all entities in the world are mutually influential and interconnected without conflicts.

Ŭisang explains the relationship between the noumenon (the universal) and the phenomenon (the particular) as follows: there is a mutual identity of the noumena (the universal) and the phenomena (the particular); there is a mutual identity of the noumenon and the noumenon, and there is a mutual identity of the phenomenon and the

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phenomenon (HPC 2.6a). This is the world in which the universal and the particular, and the particular and the particular, are mutually interpenetrating due to their dependently arising nature. Ŭisang identifies the nature of things arising in the law of the dependent-arising as the “middle path.” The Buddhist middle path does not indicate the meridian point of the two participating elements. Instead, it indicates that “all polarities are interfused” (HPC 2.5b). The one and the many, the noumenon and the phenomenon, the universal and the particular are interfused in the sense that neither has self-nature and that both exist in the midst of conditioned causal movements.

Language and Subjectivity in Chinul's Sŏn Buddhism

Zen Buddhism shares with Hwaöm Buddhism the idea of the mutual interfusion of beings but develops its own paradigm that addresses the main concerns of the school. The basic premise of the Zen school claims that the sentient being is the Buddha. The premise is an oxymoron: if the sentient being is the Buddha, why are (p. 378) sentient beings still not enlightened? If the sentient being is the Buddha, what is the meaning of enlightenment? Zen Buddhism challenges the traditional logic of philosophy by answering these questions with the following statement: the sentient being is the Buddha, and yet the sentient being is the sentient being.

In approaching the paradoxical nature of the existential reality of a being, Pojo Chinul underlines the importance of understanding the nature of one's mind. In his Encouragement to Practice: The Compact of the Samādhi and

Prajñā Community (Kwönsu chönghye kyölsa mun 1190), Chinul states, “When one is deluded about the mind and gives rise to endless defilements, such a person is a sentient being. When one is awakened to the mind and gives rise to endless marvelous functions, such a person is the Buddha. Delusion and awakening are two different states, but both are caused by the mind. If one tries to find the Buddha away from this mind, one will never find him” (HPC 4.698a). In this passage, one notices that the commonly held binary opposites, for example delusion and awakening, or the sentient being and the Buddha, are acknowledged but at the same time negated by attributing the ground of the existence of such dualism to the mind of a being. For Chinul, delusion arises not through a certain quality of an entity external or internal to the subject but through the subject's failure to see the nonsubstantial nature of one's ontological reality. Here one notes the fundamental difference of the focus between HwaOm and SOn Buddhism. Whereas Ŭisang's HwaOm Buddhism primarily concerns itself with the phenomenal world and understands each being within that structure, Chinul's SOn Buddhism gives priority to an individual's awakening to his own existential and ontological reality.

One way to interpret Chinul's SOn Buddhism is to understand it as an attempt to address the problem of subjectivity in the process of the individual's awareness of ontological reality, and the problem of subjectivity is closely linked to the subject's relation to language. As is well known, SOn Buddhism has been keen to the function of language in the subject's mode of thinking. However, Chinul points out that the emphasis on the limits of language and thought is not a SOn-specific feature but is found in most Buddhist schools. In explaining the meaning of SOn Buddhism, Chinul is especially aware of Fazang's fivefold taxonomy, in which Fazang placed Chan Buddhism (which he calls the Sudden school) at the fourth level, one step below the Huayan school. Fazang also characterized the teaching of the Sudden school as simply focusing on forgetting language and thoughts in an effort to create the undisturbed state of the mind. Responding to such characterizations of Chan Buddhism by Fazang, Chinul explains in his Treatise on Resolving Doubts about Huatou Meditation (Kanhwa kyOrüi ron) that all five stages of Buddhism in Fazang's fivefold doctrinal classification in their own way deal with the problem of language and of the thinking process. Chinul repeatedly emphasizes that the idea of cutting off language does not belong exclusively to the SOn school, nor is the nature of the achieved goal through SOn practice different from that described by other Buddhist schools, especially by HwaOm Buddhism. If we follow Chinul's logic here, we come to a rather interesting point. That is, the SOn school does not offer any doctrinal renovation of Buddhism; Chinul might even seem to say that the main concern of (p. 379) SOn Buddhism is not Buddhist doctrine itself, since Buddhist doctrines are all already spelled out by existing Buddhist schools. At the same time, the Buddhist teaching SOn represents is not and cannot be different from the teachings expounded by other schools. Chinul's ready admission of the identity between SOn Buddhism and other Buddhist schools at the ultimate level leads one to ask the question: if there is no difference between the two, what is the identity of SOn Buddhism? For Chinul, SOn teachings, especially SOn hwadu meditation, facilitate a state through which the subject makes a radical change in his or her mode of thinking; the doctrinal schools offer a description of the Buddhist worldview and the SOn school teaches how to activate in the mind of the practitioner what has been stated in the doctrinal schools.

Chinul does not consider the linguistic rendering as found in Buddhist scriptures deficient as it is. However, Chinul points out that the linguistically rendered reality of the objective world is not always reflected in the existential reality of the subject. What, then, are the causes of the gap between the linguistically rendered reality and the reality of the subject? In this context, Chinul cites Chinese Chan Master Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163) to point out the structural problem in one's thinking process as a major cause that is responsible for such a gap: “The influence of established thought being so strong, the mind in search of enlightenment itself becomes a barrier and thus the correct knowledge of one's mind has rarely obtained a chance to manifest itself. However, this barrier

does not come from outside nor is it something that should be regarded as an exception” (HPC 4.732c). The problems of the situation at this point become internalized and subjectivized.

At the beginning of the Treatise, Chinul juxtaposes SOn with HwaOm, equating them in terms of their vision of the ultimate reality and at the same time distinguishing them in terms of how to approach this reality. For Chinul, the investigation of one's mind is critical in this sense. The mind is allegedly the locus in which the gap between the existential reality of the subject and the hermeneutical reality represented in linguistic rendering of Buddhist teaching takes place. Hence, Chinul repeatedly emphasizes that “the mind is the Buddha,” and SOn practice toward enlightenment, for Chinul, is to be awakened to the very nature of one's mind. In the later stage of his life, Chinul was firm in proposing that hwadu meditation can facilitate the environment in which the practitioner can attain this goal, and the capacity of hwadu in achieving this goal is closely related to the way in which language functions in hwadu meditation.

Chinul argues that language in Buddhist teachings other than SOn hwadu meditation functions simply as a tool to impart meaning. The hwadu meditation employs language not to communicate meaning but to facilitate an environment in which the subject makes a transition from being a mere receptor of the described meaning to an active participator in the reality described in language—that is, hwadu as it is does not present truth, nor does it offer a way to correct the problem that individuals might have. Chinul writes, “The moment one tends toward the slightest idea that the hwadu must be the presentation of the ultimate truth or that it enables one to treat one's defects, one is already under the power of the limitations (p. 380) set by linguistic expression” (HPC 4.733b). The hwadu is like a catalyst: as it is, it is not pertinent to what is happening to the subject; it simply facilitates a transformation in the subject without itself being involved or changed by the transformation. The transforming function of the hwadu is for Chinul what distinguishes SOn Buddhism from all other Buddhist schools.

In explaining the functioning of hwadu language, Chinul employs the distinction between the “live word” (K. hwalgu) and the “dead word” (K. sagu) and “the involvement with the word” (K. ch'amgu) and “involvement with meaning” (K. ch'amüi), borrowing the concepts from Dahui. These distinctions are characterized by the language's relation to the subject rather than the specific nature of linguistic expressions themselves. Chinul criticizes passages like “In this endless world, between me and others, there is no gap even as infinitesimal as the thinness of a hair” (HPC 4.733a) as examples of dead words because “they create in the practitioner's mind barriers derived from understanding” (HPC 4.733a). As opposed to dead words, live words generate “no taste”; they create a dead-end situation to the practitioner in which the practitioner loses all of the resources to exercise his or her thinking process.

When SOn Buddhists criticize language and theorizing, it is because they are the very tools for the subject to carry out the process of domesticating the external world and tailoring it according to the mode of thinking most familiar to the subject. The hwadu meditation, especially the “live word” and the “direct involvement with word,” are tools that put a break in the familiar world created by the subject. Dead words subjugate themselves to a sign-system and habituated mode of thinking. As opposed to dead words, live words become the mediator among the practitioner, language, and the world by disrupting the preexisting order and meaning structure of these three elements established in the subject's mind. The promise of hwadu meditation, for Chinul, is that this experience by the subject of the unfamiliar territory will lead the subject to the realization of her ontological reality, which from the Buddhist perspective is existence in the milieu of the conditionally arising process.

Nondualism and Mahāyāna Buddhist Ethics

Despite the differences in their emphasis, both Ŭisang's HwaOm Buddhism and Chinul's SOn Buddhism find their basis in the fundamental Buddhist vision of nondualism. In Ŭisang's HwaOm Buddhist thought, the particular and the universal, the phenomena and the noumena, are understood as being in a state of interpenetration; in Chinul's SOn Buddhism, the mind of the subject is the source of all delusions, and delusion in this context signifies understanding a phenomenon—be it an individual being, an event, or any abstract concept—as an independent occurrence instead of the result of a multilayered, causal process. If things are by nature void of independent essence and polar opposites are to be understood according to their mutual penetration, how does one construct an ethical system from such a nondual (p. 381) philosophy? In Ŭisang's HwaOm vision of the mutual interpenetration of entities, both good and bad, right and wrong, purity and impurity are understood as being empty. In this nondual world, as Ŭisang states, “saiisāra and nirvāṇa are always harmonized together” (HPC 2.1a). The same applies to Chinul's SOn Buddhist world, as he says, “there being no purity or impurity, there is no right or wrong” (HPC 4.710c). Where do ethics stand in this antinomian world of HwaOm and SOn Buddhism? Given that Buddhism involves not only philosophical but also religious tradition, and that one of the fundamental functions of the latter is to provide practitioners with guidelines to follow in the process of Buddhist practice, the issue of Buddhism's position in ethical and moral systems makes us pause and wonder what kind of ethical paradigm it might offer.

The Mahāyāna Buddhist approach to ethics is well grounded in the fundamental Mahāyāna Buddhist position on the reality of existence. A being does not have an unchanging essence, nor do moral and ethical categories. The fact that a being exists only in the milieu of conditionally arising causal processes does not negate the individual's existence on the phenomenal level, and the same applies to moral and ethical categories. In other words, Mahāyāna Buddhism does not negate the necessity of moral values or ethical categories; however, it also underlines that precepts, moral rules, and ethical definitions exist and are acknowledged always in the context of their provisional nature. WOnhyo makes clear the double-edgedness of the Mahāyāna Buddhist position toward ethics in his discussion of bodhisattva precepts. The precepts by definition indicate rules that Buddhist practitioners are obliged to observe. When one observes a rule, what is the ground for this observation? Are moral rules and ethical categories given by the absolute power and thus to be respected in all circumstances, or are they abided by because of the beneficial consequences they promise to produce?

WOnhyo discusses bodhisattva precepts focusing on the provisional nature of the value category. Precepts are rules that Buddhist practitioners are required to abide by. However, even precepts cannot escape the dependently arising nature of the world, which means that no precepts, and in that sense, no moral or ethical categories, are to be accepted as having absolute independent values of their own. In Essentials of Observation and Violation of Bodhisattva Precepts (Posal kyebon chibOm yogi), Wónhyo discusses the three categories of observing and transgressing the foundations of bodhisattva precepts. First, he discusses major and minor offenses; second, he shows the profound and shallow understandings of observing and transgressing precepts; and third, he presents the ultimate way of observing and transgressing precepts. In the first two sections, WOnhyo offers basic concepts of precepts and how the same precepts can be interpreted differently based on the subject's intention involved in a certain action. In these two sections, as in the case of most moral teachings, Wónhyo promotes the importance of respecting the existing rules. In the third section, titled “Ultimate Observation and Violation of Precepts,” Wónhyo changes the direction of his discussion and revisits the very concepts of precepts and of observing and

violating them. The result is to underline the fundamentally provisional nature of moral rules and ethical categories. Wónhyo writes:

(p. 382) That precepts exist only based on multilevel conditional causes [and thus are empty] does not negate their existence in reality. Violating precepts is also like this; so is personal identity. In dealing with precepts, if one sees only their nonexistent aspect and says that they do not exist, such a person might not violate precepts but will forever lose them, because s/he denies their existence. Also, if someone relies on the idea that precepts do exist and thinks only on the existent side of precepts, even though s/he might be able to observe the precepts, observation in this case is the same as violation, because such a person negates the ultimate reality of precepts [which is emptiness]. (HPC 1.585a, emphasis mine)

When existence is understood through a differential notion instead of being anchored on substantial essence and the particular and the universal are intersubsuming, any attempt to create a closed value system faces a problem of appropriation. Appropriation requires an appropriator, and this logic cannot but question the validity of the created system. As Wónhyo states, the ambiguity of categorized values does not completely negate the necessity of a value system itself. Instead, the awareness of the multilayered contexts out of which a value system is constructed demands a constant readjustment of the existing system. Wónhyo's thought on bodhisattva precepts in its outlook proposes an ethical theory that challenges normative forms of ethics. It was, however, not until recent years that Korean Buddhist traditions began to seriously consider the position of Buddhism as an ethical theory. In contemporary Korean Buddhism, the issue of individual practice and awakening on the one hand and the social engagement and ethical dimension of Buddhism on the other has generated a polemic that makes the issue of Buddhist ethics more visible. Two Buddhist monk-thinkers took opposite positions: T'oe'ong Söngch'öl defined Buddhism as fundamentally based on the perfection of individual cultivation, whereas Pöpsöng claimed that individual cultivation cannot be achieved without being accompanied by social engagement. Söngch'ol's Buddhism kindled a debate known as the Sudden-Gradual debate, and Pöpsöng's Buddhism offers a philosophical paradigm for a form of engaged Buddhism known as Minjung Buddhism (Buddhism for the masses).

The idea of Buddhism for the masses first appeared in Korean Buddhism at the beginning of the twentieth century, when reform-minded Buddhist intellectuals proposed changing Buddhism to be more relevant to the life of the general public, especially those marginalized in society. As a movement, however, Minjung Buddhism began together with prodemocratic and antigovernmental movements in Korean society during the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. Critical of the subjectivist and solipsistic attitudes that appear in some forms of Buddhist practice, Minjung Buddhists emphasize the social dimension of Buddhist philosophy and contend that Buddhist liberation includes liberation from all forms of suppression. In doing so, Minjung Buddhists make appeals to the bodhisattva ideal and to compassion.

The Sudden-Gradual debate was ignited by Söngch'öl along with the publication of his book, The Correct Path of the Sŏn School (Sönmun chöngno 1981), in which he criticizes the “sudden enlightenment with gradual cultivation” as a (p. 383) heretical teaching in the Sön school and defines “sudden enlightenment with sudden cultivation” as the authentic form of the Sön practice. The idea of sudden enlightenment is based on the fundamental Sön claim that sentient beings are already Buddha the way they are. On the surface, Minjung Buddhism and the Sudden-Gradual debate fall into two exclusively different categories of Buddhist thought: the former focuses on the social aspects of Buddhist philosophy, whereas the latter centers on the nature of individual cultivation. At a deep level, they cannot but reflect each other because, without a clear understanding of the nature

of individual cultivation and awakening as explored in the Sudden-Gradual debate, Buddhist philosophy cannot maintain itself. However, if the subjective world of an individual cannot be linked to the public and objective domain of the social ethical realm, as Minjung Buddhism emphasizes, such a cultivation or awakening contradicts the basic Buddhist doctrines of dependent-arising and no-self. The Sudden-Gradual debate and Minjung Buddhism, then, represent the perennial core issues of Buddhism: that is, how to relate wisdom (realization of one's ontological reality) and compassion (sharing life with others).

Questions have been raised about whether attainment of wisdom (enlightenment) will naturally facilitate compassionate actions for others. Pópsóng's discussion of sudden and gradual aptly applies to this issue. Instead of understanding sudden and gradual as a process from the former to the latter within the subject, Pópsóng relates them to the subject's realization and the social and historical manifestation of that realization, that is, noumenal wisdom and its exercise through compassion in the phenomenal world. In doing so, he incorporates HwaOm Buddhist thought into his emphasis on the social and ethical dimensions of Buddhist enlightenment. Pópsóng was not the first Korean Buddhist to resort to HwaOm Buddhism to underscore the relevance of SOn Buddhism to the social and ethical realities of the practitioner's life. From Chinul in the twelfth century to S'Ongch'Ol in the twentieth century, Korean SOn masters have frequently resorted to HwaOm Buddhist philosophy in an effort to clarify the relationship between the subject and the object in the SOn Buddhist worldview and between an individual's ontological awakening (wisdom) and its social dimension (compassion) in SOn practice.

Reminiscent of the HwaOm vision of the interpenetration of the phenomena and the noumena, Pópsóng claims that the diversities characterizing the phenomenal world require endless engagement in bodhisattva activities in daily life, which Pópsóng identifies as “history.” History of Buddhism, as expressed through his term “historicization,” is contrasted with a metaphysical or transcendental understanding of Buddhism. SOn Buddhist enlightenment, from POpsOng's perspective, cannot be related solely to individual spiritual awakening, nor can it be an asocial event, as has been argued previously. Pópsóng contends that the hwadu of SOn Buddhism are not “dead words intuiting the inner spiritual mysticism. Hwadu meditation is epistemological activity that constantly negates the reification of ideas and self-absolutization of any entity; it is historical movement that actively accepts and

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refreshes the (p. 384) nature of dependent co-arising in one's existence.” Chinul prioritized hwadu meditation in SOn practice, emphasizing the capacity of hwadu to facilitate a fundamental change in one's mode of thinking. POpsOng took this possibility of SOn Buddhism further toward the social dimension and linked the change in an individual as a path toward a social change. POpsOng thus states, “Buddhist enlightenment is not a return to absolute reality; instead, it is a sudden liberation of all the essentialist views regarding one's consciousness and existence, self and the world.” 5 This awakening or liberation of self-closure of an individual needs to take place constantly and continuously as life unfolds. This is a vision of the world in which human desire for a teleological completion needs to give way to the awakening to the openness of the world and of beings.

WOnhyo's bodhisattva precepts suggest an ethical theory that acknowledges rules but only to the degree that the moral rules and ethical categories are understood as provisional and do not have an essence of their own; POpsOng's engaged Buddhism explains the social dimension of SOn and HwaOm Buddhism, emphasizing the indissoluble nature of individual and society, or self and others in the Buddhist world. In both cases, the conventional rule-bounded moral theories are accepted only as a preliminary stage of social theory; in its place, the Mahāyāna Buddhism of Wónhyo and POpsOng proposes a context-bound ethical theory that requires a constant reawakening to one's existential and social reality as one lives in the milieu of the ever-changing causal processes of the Buddhist world.

Bibliography and Suggested Reading

BUSWELL, ROBERT E., JR. (trans.). (1983) The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

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——— (trans.). (2007) Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wónhyo's Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sūtra (Kümgang Sammaegyóng Non). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.

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JORGENSEN, JOHN. (2010) “Minjung Buddhism: A Buddhist Critique of the Status Quo-its History, Philosophy, and Critique.” In Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism, edited by Jin Y. Park. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 275–313.

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ODIN, STEVEN. (1982) Process Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration vs. Interpenetration. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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(p. 385) PARK, JIN Y. (2005) “Zen Language in Our Time: The Case of Pojo Chinul's Huatou Meditation.” Philosophy East and West 55/1, 80–98.

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——— . (2008) Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan, and the Possibility of Buddhist-Postmodern Ethics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

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YUN, WONCHEOL. (2010) “Zen Master T'oe'ong Söngch'öl's Doctrine of Zen Enlightenment and Practice.” In Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism, edited by Jin Y. Park. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 199–226. (p. 386)

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Notes:

(1) Hwaöm ilsüng pöpkye to (Diagram of the Reality Realm of the One Vehicle of Hwaöm Buddhism), Han'guk Pulgyo chönsö (Collected Works of Korean Buddhism, hereafter HPC), vol. 2, pp. 1–8, p. 2.1a. For a complete English translation of this work, see Odin 1982. Throughout this essay, English translations from Classical Chinese and Korean are mine.

(2) Fazang, the alleged Third Patriarch of Chinese Huayan Buddhism, explains the relationship of the one and the ten by employing the concepts of “the same body” (C. tongti; K. tongch'e) and “the different body” (C. yiti; K. yich'e). The one and the ten in the numerals one through ten are different entities (bodies) because the one is not the ten and the ten is not the one. However, they are the same body in the sense that the one cannot obtain its meaning without the rest of the number in the series of one through ten; the same is the case with the number ten. That the one is the same body and at the same time a different body with the number ten can be further explained through the Buddhist concept of identity known as the two levels of truth.

(3) The terms “nounema” and “phenomena” are translations of the Chinese character li (K. yi) and shi (K. sa), respectively. These terms are also translated here as the principle and the particular. Noumena and phenomena in this case are not related to Kantian philosophy or phenomenology in Continental philosophy, even though Huayan Buddhism can be understood as Buddhist phenomenology as I have discussed elsewhere. See Park 2008, especially ch. 8 and 9.

(4) Pópsóng, “Minjung Pulgyo undong ǔi silch'önjök ipchang” (The Practical Standpoint of the Minjung Buddhist Movement), in Chonggyo yön'gu (Religious Studies) 6 (1990): 223–228, p. 223.

(5) Pöpsöng, “Kkadarüm üi ilsangsöng kwa hyöngmyöngsöng” (Commonality and Revolutionality of Enlightenment.” Ch'angjak kwa pip'yöng 82 (Winter 1993): 329–340.

Jin Y. Park

Jin Y. Park is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at American University. Park's research focuses on Zen and Huayan Buddhism, Buddhist-postmodern comparative philosophy, Buddhist encounters with modernity in Korea, and Buddhist ethics. Her publications include Buddhisms and Deconstructions (2006), Buddhism and Postmodernity: Zen, Huayan, and the Possibility of Buddhist-Postmodern Ethics (2008), and Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism (2010).

Oxford Handbooks Online

Japanese and Korean Philosophy Koji Tanaka - The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

 Japanese and Korean Philosophy

Koji Tanaka

The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy

Edited by William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield

Print Publication Date: May 2011 Subject: Philosophy, Non-Western Philosophy Online Publication Date: Sep 2011 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328998.003.0026

Abstract and Keywords

This part of the book starts by stating that the Japanese and Korean traditions of philosophy, when compared with other Asian traditions, present distinctive features. Divisions in Japanese and Korean schools of philosophy are employed and maintained for “practical” reasons. The text here introduces the analysis to follow in this part of the book, stating that it describes the thoughts and ideas developed by Japanese and Korean philosophers and also engages with the issues with which these philosophers grappled.

Keywords: Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, issues, Buddhism, schools of philosophy

THE Japanese and Korean traditions of philosophy, when compared to other Asian traditions, present distinctive features. In China and India, the two main sources of philosophical inspiration in Asia, we can recognize distinctive subschools of thought. This is the case, for example, in the various Buddhist schools of thought that arose in China and India. Divisions between these schools are useful even when the boundaries are not well marked or have been questioned. In Japan and Korea, divisions are employed and maintained for “practical” purposes. For instance, some thinkers are identified as Confucians, some are Buddhists belonging to various sects of Buddhism, and so on. Philosophically, however, the notion of “schools of thought” is difficult to maintain in the Japanese and Korean context. 1 Whereas in China and India (as well as many other parts of the world), there is a tendency to maintain distinctions between schools of thought, philosophers in Japan and Korea tend to adopt and adapt the thoughts afforded by different traditions of philosophy. Instead of division, they are mostly interested in synthesis of thought. Creativity and ingenuity are considered to arise from the ways in which various thoughts can be synthesized in the formation of new ideas. As such, Japanese and Korean philosophers actively synthesize ideas found in the Chinese and Indian traditions (as well as others) into their own contexts.

(p. 298) Thomas Kasulis calls the philosophical orientation that can be seen to underlie the Japanese and Korean traditions one of intimacy as opposed to integrity.2 Instead of pursuing the integrity of their philosophies, by distancing their views from that of others, Japanese and Korean philosophers often seek what is intimately relevant to them. In martial arts, for example, students are taught to absorb what the teacher has learned into their own experiences and practice, to acquire the teacher's knowledge “within their own skins” so to speak. The transmission of intimate knowledge is not unique to martial arts. Much of our knowledge, in fact, is of this kind.

As babies learn how to behave, they replicate much of their parents' behavior in their own responses. In learning about the setting up of a computer, one is often shown what a friend has learned by trial and error. Hence, a concern with intimate knowledge is not unique to Japanese and Korean traditions of philosophy. What is unique, however, is that philosophers in Japan and Korea are primarily concerned with knowledge of this kind. This is not to say that they are only interested in theorizing about intimate knowledge. Rather, their philosophical activities are often carried out from this orientation and for the sake of acquiring such knowledge.

In making explicit such an orientation, one shouldn't insist that it is essential to Japanese and Korean philosophy. Such essentialization both overgeneralizes certain features and mischaracterizes the respective traditions. Nonetheless, it is useful to think of Japanese and Korean traditions as stemming from an orientation of intimacy since it allows us to make sense of the relevancy, significance, and value of the claims and arguments put forward by Japanese and Korean philosophers.

In this section, scholars of international standing not only describe the thoughts and ideas developed by Japanese and Korean philosophers, but also engage with the issues with which these thinkers grappled. In so doing, they exemplify one of the core philosophical values at the heart of these traditions, namely, that philosophy lies not in redescription but creative engagement with the ideas of “the old” when placed in a contemporary context. The authors of the chapters contained in this section focus on a mixture of important topics and prominent figures in Japanese and Korean philosophy viewed from a contemporary point of view.

The way in which the orientation of intimacy plays a role in Japanese and Korean thought can be best understood in the context of ethics. As a student of martial arts imitates the teacher, she or he shares the intimate wisdom of the teacher about martial arts. This sharing is made possible by the sense of compassion one has toward the other. Ethics that arises from the sense of compassion may not be rule driven or based on responsibility, but is based on the sense of responsiveness to everything around us. In the first article of this section, Robert Carter explores a sense of Japanese ethics that can be characterized in this way. It derives from elements of Confucian, Buddhist, and Shintľ ethical traditions that, from a Japanese perspective, all share a common element: namely, charting a path toward becoming an ethical being and living an ethical life with a caring attitude toward the world (p. 299) and others. As Carter presents, the twentieth-century philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō 3 incorporates this element into his thought and presents Japanese ethics to be concerned with living in relationships with others, an ethics of social interaction. Japanese ethics, in his view, focuses on the practice of an ethical path and the cultivation of acting and being in the world of which we are a part.

This feature of Japanese ethics can, in fact, be found in artistic practices. As Mara Miller presents in the following chapter, Japanese aesthetics is concerned with a wider variety of experiences and objectives than its Western counterpart. Japanese aesthetics recognizes such experiences as mononoaware (awareness of the poignancy of things) and shibui (an acetic quality or astringency). These experiences often involve everyday objects and activities. Haiku is a good example of fine arts that have transformed everyday experiences into the expression of aesthetic values. Most important, Miller demonstrates how Japanese aesthetics is tied to the notions of cultivation and personal relationships that obtain between the practitioner and the audiences. Hence, arts are seen as expressions of one's identity as well as the cultivation of intersubjectivity (and/or cosubjectivity).

What is emphasized in both ethics and aesthetics is the practice, actualization, and realization of the ethical and artistic path. One's ethical and aesthetic agency is revealed in the way we are and act in the world. If this is the way that ethics and aesthetics are conceived in Japanese thought, there must be intimacy between the freedom one can express and the nature or world in which one is. In the chapter on natural freedom, Bret Davis shows that

freedom for the Japanese isn't freedom from nature but is, in fact, an expression of nature. Nature is not thought of as an object of study but as a way of life. Naturalness is a way in which things, animals, plants, and people are. Freedom is to be found in the naturalness of our participation in nature. Given that one needs to practice being natural, it follows that freedom, in this sense, is an achievement. One achieves freedom by intimately engaging oneself with the everyday world. One becomes responsive to one's surrounding, whether in terms of a spontaneous compassionate act or in terms of a spontaneous artistic move, by means of actualizing freedom.

The Japanese focus on the realization of nature is given a soteriological character in Buddhism (and Shintō). Dōgen Kigen (1200–1253), often considered the most original and profound Zen thinker, centralizes practice or “enlightening engagement” with the world. Bret Davis engages with the intimacy, or rather inseparable nonduality, of practice and enlightenment as expressed by Dōgen in the following chapter. For Dōgen, enlightenment is a matter of verifying (in the sense of “making true”), realizing (in the sense of “actualizing”), and, thus, authenticating what one truly is in one's practice. In enlightening engagement with the world, however, one is not to assert one's subjectivity. Instead, one is to “drop off the body-mind” and openly and fully engage with the world. Enlightenment for Dōgen is, thus, an (p. 300) ongoing journey of the authentication of the path of illuminating and appreciating the innumerable aspects of the world within the world. Such a journey is not one where the ego schematizes how things are but one where things are allowed to reveal themselves.

The orientation toward intimacy is manifested in many areas of enquiry in Japanese philosophy. What is the context or space in which this intimacy can be ascertained? for Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), the originator of Kyoto “style” philosophy, it is “absolute nothingness.” In his chapter on Nishida, John Maraldo delves deep into this absolute nothingness, a space in which everything is held together and from which all distinctions arise. The world of which we are a part, and in which we are embodied, has a structure composed of distinctions. What is the context in which this world can be found in its own integrity? Absolute nothingness is Nishida's answer. The integrity of the world “as one” must be negated, leaving absolutely nothing. Absolute nothingness must remain obscure and dark since the distinction between clarity and obscurity itself must swing back to nothing. In Nishida's view, it is, nevertheless, from this obscurity or darkness that light may shine to make clarity possible.

When the light shines through, however, the self is not posited as the center but, rather, is placed as only one among many jewels. In East Asian Buddhism, this idea is expressed as Indra's Net, in which each jewel is thought to reflect all other jewels. In her chapter on Korean Buddhism, Jin Park explores the Korean Buddhist development of this thought. For Ŭisang (625–702), considered as the founder of Hwaŏm (Ch. Huayan) Buddhism, all opposites (universal/particular, sameness/difference, integrity/fragmentation) coexist in each entity. The Sŏn (Zen) Buddhist, Pojo Chinul (1158–1210), focused on the nature of the mind and language and problematized the linguistic creation of the world in one's mind. For him, hwadu meditation promises to break out of the mind's activity of individuating being and event in terms of our language from the interpenetrated whole.

The development of Korean Buddhism is constituted by intimate and creative responses to Chinese and Indian Buddhism. For instance, the twentieth-century Buddhists T'oe'ong Sŏngch'ŏl (1912–1993) and Pŏpsŏng (1913–) rekindled the Chinese debate whether awakening is sudden or gradual by introducing a social and ethical dimension informed by Korean society. Pŏpsŏng, and earlier Wŏnhyo (617–686), a contemporary of Ŭisang, also emphasized the intimate relationship that obtains between individual and society as in Indra's Net.

As the reader might have noticed, many more articles in this section are devoted to engaging with the Japanese tradition than that of the Korean tradition. This is because contemporary studies have tended to focus more on the Japanese tradition and, as a result, have generated more philosophical interest among contemporary philosophers.

This situation is regrettable, since it was partially because of the creative engagement of Korean philosophers with the Chinese and Indian material and its dissemination to Japan that Japanese philosophical thought was able to achieve its dominant position. Time may alter this situation. But, for now, more focus is given to Japanese philosophy.

(p. 301) Chapters of this section are written predominantly by philosophers who have exceptional grasp of the Japanese and Korean traditions. They are written in the format of an encyclopedia; yet each author was asked to not only present but also engage with the main issues and major figures of these traditions. It is hoped that readers can enter into Japanese and Korean philosophies and engage these traditions in their own philosophical work.

Notes:

(1) This may be questioned in the case of the Kyoto school. However, philosophers in Japan, especially those at Kyoto University, don't identify it as a “school.” Instead, they refer to it as Kyoto “style” philosophy.

(2) Thomas P. Kasulis, Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2002).

(3) In this introduction and the following chapters, Japanese names are given in the Japanese way, that is, surname/family name first followed by given name, unless the cited publication prints the name in another way.

Koji Tanaka

Koji Tanaka is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research focuses on logic, history and philosophy of logic, Buddhist philosophy, classical Chinese philosophy, and Japanese philosophy.

Oxford Handbooks Online

Korean Buddhism by Frederick Starr - Ebook | Scribd

Korean Buddhism by Frederick Starr - Ebook | Scribd




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Korean Buddhism


By Frederick Starr
103 pages
2 hours

Included in your membership!
at no additional cost

Description
The author does not overestimate the importance of this little book: it is nothing more than its title claims. It consists of three lectures given to popular audiences, with the accompaniment of many illustrations. It represents, however, a considerable amount of work in an almost virgin field. It has involved hard journeys to remote mountain monasteries, and days and nights of conversation and inquiry with many monks and priests. It is not, however, a profound study nor an exhaustive presentation. It barely touches many a subject, which would alone furnish more material than could be treated in three such lectures. It but scratches the surface.
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FSFrederick Starr

Mu Soeng Sunim - Native tradition in Korean Zen

Mu Soeng Sunim - Native tradition in Korean Zen

Native tradition in Korean Zen

Mu Soeng Sunim

From a talk at Providence Zen Center in January, 1987 and first printed in Primary Point volume 6, number 1 (June 1989) and volume 6, number 2 (October 1989).

One time someone asked Zen Master Seung Sahn about the importance of the history of Zen, and he said, "Knowing the history of your tradition is like coming face to face with your ancestors. These ancestors are your roots; when you know these roots, you also know something about yourself." So when one studies within a certain tradition, it is a natural curiosity to want to know about the roots of that tradition, where the tradition has come from, and what are the sources of inspiration within that tradition.

This talk is primarily about the thirteenth-century monk Chinul, who is the founder of the native tradition of Zen in Korea. But it is also, by necessity, a talk about the larger spectrum of Chinese and Korean Zen traditions. One cannot really understand Chinul's impact on Korean Zen without knowing what went on in Korean Zen before him, and that cannot be understood without some understanding of Zen in China.

Chinul is to Korean Zen what Hui-neng is to Chinese Zen. Hui-neng was not only the sixth patriarch in the line of succession from Bodhidharma, but actually he was the real founder of Zen in China. There are four stages of development of the Zen tradition in China. Each of these stages is associated with a historical incident and points to a key ingredient of Zen practice.

The first was the arrival of Bodhidharma in China. He arrived at the court of Emperor Wu and had an interview with him in which the Emperor enumerated the temples he had built, all the charities and the good works he had done. He then asked Bodhidharma, "What do you think? What is the merit of all this?" Bodhidharma, very coolly, said, "None whatsoever." This must have shocked the Emperor because the answer was so contrary to everything he believed. He then asked Bodhidharma several more questions, to which Bodhidharma gave equally unsatisfactory (to the Emperor) answers. Finally, in frustration, the Emperor asked him, "Who are you?" (meaning, "Who are you to be giving me all these crazy answers?"). And Bodhidharma said, "I don't know," (or, "I have no idea.") Obviously, after this exchange Bodhidharma was not very welcome at the Emperor's court, and he went off and sat in a cave at Shaolin Temple for nine years. So, that is the first step in the tradition of Zen in China - the example of Bodhidharma sitting motionless and facing a blank wall. This is the way we sit even today in our dharma halls.

The second step relates to Hui-neng. Hui-neng was a poor, fatherless boy who used to sell firewood in the marketplace so he could support himself and his mother. One day he heard a monk reciting a line from the Diamond Sutra; he was maybe thirteen years old at the time and when he heard the verse from the Diamond Sutra, he got enlightened on the spot. This is the second step, the tradition of sudden enlightenment. I will not get technical about sudden or gradual enlightenment, but only know that, according to tradition, if one's practice is mature enough and solid enough, enlightenment will happen all of a sudden. You never know the time or the place where it's going to happen or how long it will take to reach this state. Students of Zen practice in the hope that this event will happen in their life. This is the inspiration from Hui-neng's life.

Up until the time of Hui-neng, all the monks were reading the sutras and building temples, hoping that all these good deeds would bring them merit in the next life. Hui-neng said that none of this was necessary to get enlightenment. He went even one more step and said that even meditation wasn't necessary. That was a very radical step in Chinese Zen. Hui-neng never explained how to get to this state of enlightenment but our own teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn, goes all over the world and talks only about this "don't know" mind. He keeps saying over and over again that if you keep this don't know mind one hundred percent at all times, then you are already enlightened. So, if you keep a don't know mind at all times and all places, then sitting meditation is not necessary. This is a direct connection between Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching and Hui-neng's teaching. Later in this article when Chinul and Korean Zen are discussed, it will be seen that Chinul is also talking about one moment of effort - this moment of effort - and that's all it takes.

The third step that took place in the history of Chinese Zen is associated with the patriarch Ma-tsu, who was the second generation successor of Hui-neng. Ma-tsu invented the shock tactics of suddenly shouting at a questioner, hitting the questioner, or suddenly calling out the questioner's name as he was about to leave the room. Ma-tsu was a true innovator in this regard; he wanted to break through all the conceptual thinking we have. Hui-neng talked about arriving at this point but he never talked about how you arrive there. It was left to Ma-tsu to invent all those tactics of sudden shock which jar your consciousness and make a breakthrough.

The fourth step was the compete systematization of the kong-an system. Ma-tsu and his successors were very gifted teachers. Some of his successors also had relatively few students, so they could have personal encounters with their students and be creative enough and skillful enough to bring the student to enlightenment through a shock tactic. This was the Golden Age of Zen, approximately from 700-900 A.D. However, as the number of students grew, personal instruction became very difficult. So, the Zen master used the stories of the old Zen masters to teach their own students. In Sung China (tenth century A.D.), this system was perfected and most effectively used by Zen master Ta-hui.

Before Hui-neng, Zen (or Ch'an) had flourished in northern China. Bodhidharma had stayed at Shaolin temple and his successors were monks from the northern part of the country. That's where they had their temples and some patronage from the royal court. In fact, until Hui-neng, Ch'an was just one of the many competing Buddhist sects in northern China. The story of Hui-neng's transmission is quite well-known so it need not be repeated here, but when Hui-neng had to flee his teacher's temple after receiving the secret transmission, he crossed the Yangtze River and traveled as far south as the present-day Canton. When he finally established his temple in this extreme southern part of China, a new kind of Zen appeared: it was rural and centered around a community of farming monks. Northern Ch'an had relied on the sutras, on building temples, and patronage of the royal court, but Southern Ch'an was economically self-reliant and revolved around the work ethic. The monks farmed the monastery land during daytime, didn't read any sutras, didn't even have a meditation hall or practice any formal meditation. They kept their practice alive in the midst of doing physical labor throughout the day.

When Zen appeared in Korea, it was a direct successor of southern Ch'an. During the period from 828 to 935, there appeared the so-called Nine Mountain Schools of Zen. These temples and their ethos were a mirror-reflection of what was happening in Chinese Zen at the same time. The marvelous thing about these nine schools is that seven of these schools were started by Korean monks who were students of Ma-tsu's successors.

Ma-tsu is a very interesting figure in the history of Zen. In a comparison to American history, it would seem that Bodhidharma is like George Washington, and Hui-neng is Zen's Thomas Jefferson. Ma-tsu is more like Theodore Roosevelt, the rider on horseback. He was the greatest Zen teacher of his time and it is said that there were, at times, as many as eight hundred monks in his monastery. He gave transmission to one hundred and thirty-nine dharma successors, and is known to history as the Great Patriarch.

Among these one hundred and thirty-nine successors were some of the most influential teachers in Zen history. One was Pai-chang, who formed the monastic rules that we follow even today, and whose successor, Huang-po, was the teacher of the famous Lin-chi. The second was Nan-chuan (Korean: Nam Cheon), perhaps the most brilliant of Ma-tsu's students, and the teacher of Chao-chou (Korean: Joju). The third of these teachers is not quite so well-remembered in history; his name was Shi-tang Chi-tsang. Three of the founders of the Nine Mountain Schools in Korea were students of Shi-tang Chi-tsang, one was a student of Nam Cheon and three were students of Ma-tsu's immediate successors.

Thus our lineage is from Ma-tsu and from Hui-neng, and this is the tradition of Korean Zen. Korean Zen is also called Chogye Zen, after the name of the temple of Hui-neng in south China. Zen Master Seung Sahn is the seventy-eighth patriarch in his particular line of succession that starts with the Buddha and continues through Hui-neng and Ma-tsu.

When the Nine Mountain Schools of Zen appeared in Korea in the ninth century, they modeled themselves along the same lines as the temples of Ma-tsu's successors, that is temples in the mountains with the monks working the farm land around the monastery and being economically self-reliant. However, the development of Zen in Korea differed in one significant aspect from Zen in China or Japan. In China and Japan, Zen always had a special place of its own; it was autonomous and quite independent of Buddhism. But that never happened in Korea for a number of reasons: Korea is and was a very small country; it had a period of civil war that lasted for about a hundred years in the fifth and sixth centuries; and Buddhism played a very large part in the formation of the United Silla Kingdom in 668 A.D.

Buddhism played the role of a state religion, and was protected and patronized by the rulers. So, when the new branch of Buddhism called Zen appeared in the ninth century, instead of having time to develop its own system and institutions, it was immediately absorbed into mainstream Buddhism and received the same patronage from the royal court as other schools. Thus within a hundred years of the founding of Nine Mountain Schools of Zen, we find that Zen in Korea cannot be distinguished from the other schools - Zen monks wore the same fancy robes, lived in fancy temples, enjoyed all the riches of food, and had access to the power centered at the royal court. The royal court instituted a system of exams for Zen monks corresponding to similar exams for other Buddhist monks. This was one way for the state to have control over the shape and development of Zen. Traditionally, Zen monks were always found sitting in meditation in mountain temples, but now, here were many monks living in the city temples and spending three years memorizing the sutras and other texts. Thus, within a short time, Zen lost all its vitality and drive.

In the tenth and eleventh centuries Korea suffered a series of attacks from the north by Mongolian tribes, most especially the Khitans. There was never any peace in Korea during this time, and as a result of these conditions, both the affairs of state and religion fell into disorder. This was the situation of Buddhism in Korea in the latter half of the twelfth century, when Zen Master Chinul appeared on the scene.

Chinul was born in 1158 A.D. This was a very interesting time for Buddhism in East Asia. Zen Master Ta-hui, who was mentioned before and who perfected the system of kong-an practice in China, was only one generation removed from Chinul. As a matter of fact, Ta-hui died in 1163, five years after Chinul was born. Also, at a time when Chinul was trying to sow the seeds of a native tradition in Korea, Zen was brought from China to Japan, where Zen Master Dogen became one of its great exponents. By the year 1200, Zen had largely disappeared in China but there was a new flowering in Korea and Japan.

But, why did Zen die out in China? First of all, there was a severe repression of Buddhism in China in 845. Buddhism had originally appeared in China in the first century A.D. and it supplanted Taoism and Confucianism as the state religion for China's dynasties over many centuries. Buddhism gained a lot of economic and political power at the expense of Taoists and Confucianists, so, all this time, they were conspiring against Buddhism, trying to find ways to bring it down. In 845, Emperor Wu came to power and he called himself a Taoist. For two years from 845 to 847 there was extremely severe persecution of Buddhists. The statistics of this repression are quite remarkable: two hundred and sixty thousand monks and nuns were forced to give up their robes; forty-eight hundred major monasteries and temples were destroyed.

This was a staggering blow to Buddhism in China, one from which it has never quite recovered. One of the ironic effects of this persecution was that while Buddhism was wiped out in northern China, Zen in south China was relatively unaffected. Southern Ch'an was not a player in the power games at the royal court, and they didn't have temples with large statues of the Buddha with gold and precious stones. In northern China, when the temples were destroyed, the statues made out of bronze and copper were melted down and used for making coins. The monks of southern Ch'an didn't even read sutras and lived the simple life of a farming community, so they didn't have any possessions that could be taken away. They didn't have a high profile and so they didn't have much to lose in the persecution.

When the Sung dynasty came to power in 960 in northern China, the only form of Buddhism that was left in the country was the southern Ch'an. The Sung emperors made it their house religion, and as a result, it too became corrupt and lost its vitality. Zen Master Ta-hui was the last major figure to infuse any vitality into the system; once he was gone, there was no teacher of his stature to sustain it.

Returning to Chinul, one finds that he was a sickly child. His parents prayed to the Buddha and vowed that if he recovered they would allow him to become a monk. He did recover, and had his head shaved at the age of six or seven. This is a very graphic example of how Buddhism benefited as a state religion in East Asia - Buddhism was an all-permeating religion with strange beliefs and superstitions far removed from the teachings of the historical Buddha. This happened to many children and Chinul was by no means unique in this respect.

At the age of fifteen, Chinul went to live in a temple and took the formal precepts of a novice monk. One interesting fact about Chinul's life is that he never had a formal teacher, one who may have guided his intellectual or spiritual development. He had a preceptor, like any other Buddhist monk, but he always studied on his own. His self-study program was quite remarkable and innovative for a monk of his time, for he combined his study of sutras with Zen practice.

Ever since the arrival of Zen in Korea with the establishment of the Nine Mountain Schools, there was a fierce rivalry between Zen and the sutra schools and neither wanted to have anything to do with the other. The sutra schools insisted on studying the sutras for twenty or thirty years, and gradually becoming a Buddha. The Zen schools started with the premise that you are already a Buddha and all you have to do is to rediscover that through personal meditation. Thus studying the sutras is quite irrelevant. Chinul became the first thinker in Korean Buddhist history to effectively resolve this conflict between the two approaches, and it was resolved in his own experience.

Chinul had three major awakenings or enlightenment experiences in his life. The first one was when he read the Platform Sutra of the sixth patriarch (Hui-neng). The second awakening was when he read the Avatamsaka Sutra and the third was when he read the Records of Zen Master Ta-hui. Two of these documents, the Platform Sutra and the Record of Ta-hui, are classic statements of Zen tradition, whereas the Avatamsaka Sutra is the basic document of the Jua-yen (Korean: Hwa-om) School, which was the most influential sutra school in Korea. Thus, throughout his life, Chinul emphasized simultaneous cultivation of both doctrinal understanding and personal practice.

At the age of twenty-two, Chinul came to the capital city to take his monk's exams, but was dismayed to see all his fellow monks struggling for fame and power. They all wanted to pass the exam and get a position at the royal court with prestige and influence. As a reaction to this jockeying for power, he wrote a manifesto urging his fellow monks to leave this worldly struggle and retreat into the mountains to form a practicing community. He was able to have ten other monks sign this manifesto and they decided to meet together at some time in the future and start the community with they proposed to call Jung Hae Sa or "Samadhi and Prajna Community." Samadhi means meditation practice and prajna means wisdom or intuitive understanding.

It is a tribute to Chinul's influence that today there are at least fifteen temples in Korea that call themselves Jung Hae Sa. Our own lineage comes from Su Dok Sa temple on Duk Sung mountain, where one of the major temples is Jung Hae Sa. This temple was established by Zen Master Man Gong in the early 1930's for the training of his senior students. Zen Master Seung Sahn calls this Jung Hae Sa the primary point of our lineage; so, Jung Hae Sa of our school and the Jung Hae Sa community that Chinul founded have the same focus.

At this point, it is useful to note some remarkable parallels between the lives of Dogen and Chinul. They were near-contemporaries, Chinul being older. They were both dismayed by the struggle for fame and power at the royal court and went into the mountains to establish their communities of monks. They both dedicated their lives to intensive practice and lived very pure and simple lives. There is nothing dramatic in the lives of either Dogen or Chinul. They both had a very strong direction in their life and dedicated their entire energy to following that direction. It is not an accident that Dogen is considered the most original thinker in Japanese religious history and Chinul occupies the same lofty position within the Korean religious tradition. It is interesting to note that Thomas Aquinas appeared in Europe at approximately the same time, roughly after Dogen, and became the fountainhead of all subsequent Christian theological thinking. Thus, within a period of fifty years, these three original religious thinkers appeared in different parts of the world, and shaped their traditions in such a way that their influence is felt even today.

When Chinul did not hear from his fellow monks who had signed the Jung Hae Sa manifesto within the agreed time, he went traveling and lived in a temple in the southwest corner of Korea. There is speculation that he chose to live in this part of the country because this was the only area of Korea to have any maritime contacts with China. As a result of Khitan invasions in the north, Korea did not enjoy any diplomatic or overland trade relations with China. The port towns along the western coasts of Korea were the only places where merchants could carry on any kind of trade with China. It is possible that Chinul may have hoped to get hold of some news of Buddhist activities in China through these merchants. However, he never went to China.

It is also interesting to note that two of the greatest thinkers in Korean Buddhist history, Won Hyo and Chinul, never went to China, although it was quite common, even obligatory for Korean monks to go to China, study under a great teacher, and come back to establish their own temple. Won Hyo and Chinul never made it. But Chinul did come into possession of Ta-hui's writings during his stay in the southwest and these writings were a lifelong influence on his thinking.

Zen Master Chinul became the first Zen teacher in Korea to systematically use hwa-tou (kong-an) practice in the training of monks in his community. This was also an interesting transitional time in Korean Zen. The founders of the Nine Mountain Schools had trained in Ma-tsu's method of shock tactics, but even in China itself, the use of kong-ans as a teaching tool was not adopted until the third generation after Zen Master Lin-chi in the mid-tenth century.

By that time, it had become very difficult for Korean monks to travel to China; also, Korean Zen itself had lost its original vigor and was entering a period of decline. For these reasons, it fell to Chinul to introduce this new teaching tool in Korean Zen. His own knowledge of it came through the writings of Zen Master Tai-hui (1089-1163).

Before we go into Chinul's method of investigating the hwa-tou, I want to emphasize Chinul's insistence again and again on "one mind." This is the core of Chinul's teaching: that both the deluded mind and the enlightened mind are part of the same landscape, the one mind. The deluded mind is not separate from the enlightened one and the enlightened mind is not separate from the deluded mind, and they are both within us. Most of us have the idea that there is something outside of us that we must look for. Chinul firmly demolishes this notion again and again in his writings and talks. For a record of Chinul's writings, we have a translation of Chinul's works by Robert Buswell (The Korean Approach to Zen, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu), a premier work of Buddhist scholarship in America.

In Buswell's translation, Chinul's writing is very clear; part of the reason is the writings are answers to questions put to him in open assemblies. Thus his words become live and have a sense of immediacy about them.

At an assembly, someone asked Chinul, "How is it that saints and ordinary people are not the same?" We all have this idea that we are very ordinary and are not saints, that we are inferior, that we don't have the qualities of saints. The questioner is asking Chinul why, if both the ordinary person and the saint have the same one mind, they are not the same? Chinul responded to this question, "The true mind is originally the same in the saint and the ordinary man, but because the ordinary man endorses the reality of material things with the false mind, he loses his pure nature and becomes estranged from it, therefore the true mind cannot appear. It is like the tree's shadow in the darkness, or a spring flowing underground. It exists."

Chinul was asked, "When the true mind is beset by delusion, it becomes an ordinary mind. How then can we escape from delusion and achieve sanctity?" He replied, "When there is no place for the deluded mind, that is bodhi. Samsara and nirvana always remain equal." It becomes a very interesting question: how can we reach this place where the deluded mind has no place?

Chinul describes this place as "luminous awareness." Later on, someone asked him how we approach this place and, in response, we have an interesting exchange:

Chinul: Do you hear the sound of the crow cawing? That magpie calling?

Student: Yes.

Chinul: Trace him back and listen to your hearing nature. Do you hear any sounds?

This is an interesting experiment all of us can do. Anytime we hear a sound, whether it is the sound of a jet plane overhead or a bird singing outside, all we have to do is bring this sound inside and listen one hundred percent. If we listen one hundred percent, there is no idea of "I am listening to the sound." So when Chinul asked the student what happens when you listen to the sound of a crow or the magpie, one hundred percent, the student said, "At that place sounds and discriminations do not obtain." That can be our experience, too. If we really go deep into a sound, the idea of "I am listening to a sound" disappears; then you become the sound.

Sometimes at Zen centers this happens - we are listening to the morning bell chant, being a little sleepy, not completely asleep but just a little bit, and the bell is hit. All of a sudden, there is nothing but the sound of the bell resonating deep within ourselves. Then, there is no sound and no discrimination. "I, my, me" disappears and the whole universe is just one sound. This place of no discrimination is what Chinul calls luminous awareness. This is the whole point of Zen practice. Zen Master Seung Sahn always talks about cutting off I, my, me mind. Our mind is deluded because in every situation we apply I, my, me to everything that appears. When we don't see things through I, my, me, then we can see, hear, taste, and touch everything clearly. It's that simple.

When Chinul is talking about entering into the sound, the same can be applied to tasting, seeing, touching, everything. In "just doing it" one hundred percent, there is no discrimination. So, the student says, at that point the sounds and discrimination do not obtain. Chinul says, "Marvelous! Marvelous! This is Avalokitesvara's method for entering the noumenon. Let me ask you again. You said that sounds and discriminations do not obtain at that place. But since they do not obtain, isn't the hearing-nature just empty space at such a time?" The student says, "Originally, it is not empty, it is always bright and never obscured." Chinul asks again, "What is this essence which is not empty?" The student: "As it has no former shape, words cannot describe it."

The student describes the hearing-nature as being always bright and never obscured. We can find the same thing in our own experience by bringing any sound within ourselves and going deep into our hearing-nature. You will find that there is something there, some kind of radiance; it's not just blankness. This radiance or brightness is our luminous awareness. This brightness does not come from the sun, it's our own original true nature. This experience can be reached through our eye-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, touch-consciousness, and thinking-consciousness.

Chinul further says, "If you believe me to the point where you can suddenly extinguish your doubt, show the will of a great man, and give rise to authentic vision and understanding; if you know its taste for yourself, arrive at the stage of self-affirmation, and gain understanding of your true nature, then this is the understanding awakening achieved by those who have cultivated the mind. Since no further steps are involved, it is called sudden. Therefore, it is said, 'When in the cause of faith, one meshes without the slightest degree of error with all the qualities of the fruition of Buddhahood, faith is achieved.'"

Chinul is asking us to show the will of a great person and have this complete faith. That's all we have to do: apply this resolution and courage to every situation that appears for us. Rather than holding onto our idea and applying I, my, me mind to every situation, we can let go and perceive things as they really are. It's a simple matter of whether a situation controls us or we control the situation. Who is in control? By control, I don't mean in a neurotic sense, but perceiving things with complete clarity and acting clearly. This is the mind of a saint. But if a situation clouds our vision, we act with the mind of a deluded person. The choice is ours; we have the one mind from which comes the action of a saint or an ordinary man.

In his writings, Chinul comes back to this issue again and again. And he gives some interesting examples. One of the examples he is fond of quoting many times is that of a frozen pond. "Although we know that the frozen pond is entirely water, the sun's heat is necessary to melt it. Although we awaken to the fact that an ordinary man is Buddha, the power of dharma is necessary to permeate our cultivation. When the pond is melted, the water flows freely and can be used for irrigation and cleaning. When falsities are extinguished, the mind will be luminous and dynamic, and then its function of penetrating brightness will manifest."

In our day-to-day life, our mind is like a frozen pond, frozen by our conditioning so that we respond in deluded ways and continue to wander around in the samsara of anger, desire, and ignorance. But when we start to practice, it's like the sun's heat; it comes down and melts the ice. The only thing that happens through practice is that the frozen waters of our conditioning melt and start to flow.

At another point, Chinul says, "A person who falls to the ground gets back up by using that ground. To try to get up without relying on that ground would be impossible." We all have the same dilemma: how to let go of the conditioning of anger, desire, and ignorance. Chinul says we have to use our own deluded mind to get out of its delusion, to use our deluded mind to awaken to the fact we are already Buddha. In this way, the deluded mind is not a liability but a necessity. This means we can use our delusions or any bad situation skillfully to understand what the correct situation is.

Chinul goes on to say, "Sentient beings are those who are deluded in regard to the one mind, and give rise to boundless defilements. Buddhas are those who have awakened to the one mind and have given rise to the boundless sublime functions. Although there is a difference between delusion and awakening, essentially both are derived from the one mind. Hence, to seek Buddhahood apart from the (deluded) mind is impossible." It is a remarkable statement for Korean Zen of the twelfth century, because at that time the whole notion of Buddhism was filled with the idea that the Buddhahood is something out there, maybe in the Pure Land, and that you had to do these rituals or read these sutras and then maybe someday you will become Buddha. But Chinul says again and again, that to seek Buddhahood apart from the mind is impossible.

Chinul further talks about the mind of the saint and says: "All the sound of slander and praises, acknowledgment and disapproval that deceptively issue forth from the throat are like an echo in an empty valley or the sound of the wind. If in this manner we investigate the root cause of such deceptive phenomenon in ourselves and others, we will remain unaffected by them." In our own daily life too, whatever appears in front of us, if someone badmouths us or gives us a hard time, says something unpleasant, and our minds don't move, then that's the mind of a saint. It happens to all of us at some point that our center does not move and we remain unaffected by other peoples' slander or bad speech.

Question: You talked about Chinul's impact around the year 1200. What has happened in the 800 years since then?

Mu Soeng Sunim: Chinul established the temple called Songwang-sa and throughout these eight hundred years it has remained the premier Zen temple in Korea. It's a remote temple, situated in the mountains, and has continued the tradition of Zen teaching which Chinul founded. After Chinul, sixteen of his successors were given the title of "national teachers." Fortunately for Songwang-sa, that does not seem to have caused any permanent damage to them. Chinul's successor, Hae Shim, compiled the collection of seventeen hundred kong-ans, which is now the standard reference in Korean Zen. So, Songwang-sa is the lasting legacy of Chinul and its influence has continued even to this day. When the Yi dynasty came into power in Korea in 1392, they turned to Confucianism and undertook a very open and systematic persecution of Buddhism. So for five hundred years, Buddhism had to go underground. At that time, there were no temples in urban areas and Zen was practiced only in the mountains. Songwang-sa remained the only large temple which had a clear function in Zen training. All other Zen monks had to find caves in the mountains or small temples.

When the Japanese armies invaded Korea in 1592, Sosan Taesa was one of the few well-known Zen monks in Korea. Sosan is the most famous Zen Master between Chinul and this century. His fame came largely because of his role in organizing a monks' militia against the Japanese. Sosan is the prime example of a Zen monk of those dark times; he didn't have a high profile and lived in a succession of temples in the mountains. In those years, the lineage was handed down in a rather obscure manner. Then Zen Master Seung Sahn's great-grand teacher, Zen Master Kyong Ho, appeared at the turn of the last century (he died in 1912) and revived Korean Buddhism. For about two hundred years before him, Korean Buddhism had become almost extinct. Even at temples like Songwang-sa, there was nothing much going on.

Zen Master Kyong Ho and his students revived Korean Buddhism in this century. Zen Master Man Gong, Kyong Ho's best known successor, was a very charismatic teacher and became the first person to really popularize Buddhism, even among lay people. The Japanese occupied Korea from 1910-1945 and tried to abolish Korean Buddhism. In 1945, when the Japanese rule ended, there were only four or five hundred traditional celibate monks in Korea. Of these, about two hundred and fifty were at Zen Master Man Gong's temple, Sudok-sa, and the rest were scattered all over the country. Today, there are about thirteen thousand monks and nuns in Korea. So, we have this dramatic shift from about five hundred to about thirteen thousand monks in only forty years.

Q: Was there any lay support for Buddhism during the years of persecution?

MSSN: The only support for Buddhism during these years came from ladies of the royal household. There was a Queen Regent in the mid-sixteenth century, too, who was able to revive Buddhism for a few years. To some extent, these royal ladies were responsible for Buddhism not dying out. Now, there is tremendous support from lay people, and Mahayana Buddhism in Korea is probably the strongest Buddhist church anywhere in the world. But the focus is very different now. For five hundred years the monks kept alive the flame of intense meditation in mountain caves and temples, just practicing very hard and giving transmission from one generation to the next. Now it is more a popular religion, involved with politics and social action. It's very different from the focus of Chinul and Sosan Taesa. They would hardly recognize it. Chinul's community, when he first founded it at Songwang-sa, was open to lay people; lay people could enter the monastery for a period of time and leave any time they wanted, but while they were there, they had to live the life of a monk. They had to give up all connections with the outside world.

Q: What about Chinul's writings? Are any left?

MSSN: As mentioned earlier, these writings are now available in English translated by Robert Buswell. Though not extensive, these writings had a major impact on the subsequent development of Buddhism in Korea. For example, in Buswell's translation, we have a chapter called "Admonitions to Beginning Students." Today these admonitions serve the function of temple rules in all Zen temples in Korea. Our own temple rules, here in America, are adapted from Chinul's guidelines. His temple rules are to Korean Zen what Pai-chang's temple rules were to Chinese Zen. Also, the chapter on "Secrets of Cultivating the Mind" has been very influential on Korean monks for the last 800 years, obligatory reading for them.

Q: What are the differences between Japanese and Korean Zen, since you have drawn a parallel between Dogen and Chinul?

MSSN: Zen came to Japan through Dogen and Eisai, but it was adopted by the samurai who had the base of their political power in Kamakura. In Japan of the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century, there was a clash of two kinds of religious cultures. On the one hand, there was the imperial capital at Kyoto where they patronized the Tendai sect and all the other sects which had dominated Nara Buddhism for five hundred years. On the other hand, the samurai adopted the new religion of Zen as their own; its training and discipline seemed perfectly suited for their purposes. A new form of Zen appeared which had not been seen in China before. In Korea, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Zen was adopted by the royal court and thus became absorbed in the larger Korean Buddhism. In Japan, it remained separate from Buddhism as the culture of the samurai. For the next two hundred years, Zen developed a very distinctive personality in Japan. But, there also, it started to die out. Between Ikkyu (who died at the end of the fourteenth century) and Hakuin there is a period of about three hundred years, and during this period there are no more than three or four notable Zen Masters. Once the Kamakura shogunate fell out of power, the patronage for Zen dried up and Zen had to compete against the Tendai and other sects.

In Korea, during the same period, Zen was not allowed to have any temples in the cities; the monks were not even allowed to enter the city gates. But in Japan, Zen had always flourished in or near urban areas. For all these reasons, there is more continuity and a sense of uniqueness in Japanese Zen than there is in Korean Zen.

Q: Was there ever a warrior class in China who also adopted Zen like the samurai did in Japan?

MSSN: If we look at the history of China, we find that T'ang unified the whole country in the late sixth century. The T'ang was a fierce warrior race but without the same code of conduct which the samurai had. The samurai code was much more codified and their Zen was made to fit into their code. The T'ang didn't have a similar impact on Chinese Ch'an (Zen). In fact, since Ch'an was not patronized by T'ang, it remained unaffected by whatever warrior-ideas they might have had. The contrast and contest in China was more between Zen and Confucianism. In some ways, Ch'an was a reaction to the institutionalized norms of behavior which Confucianism provided for the Chinese people. Even today, Oriental cultures are very much based on hierarchy and how you are supposed to behave in a given situation with given people. So the boundaries of social behavior are well-defined. A child knows what his boundaries are, and when he grows up he knows what his boundaries as an adult are. That's Confucian culture. So, within the context of Confucian culture, a Zen interview with a teacher is probably the only time when you have the freedom to be yourself. You can hit the teacher, shout at him, you can be your authentic self. If we read the exchanges in the Blue Cliff Record or Mu Mun Kwan, they shed some interesting light on the unorthodox behavior of Zen monks.

Q: What was Bodhidharma's practice when he sat at the cave in Shaolin temple?

MSSN: From what we know of the legend of Bodhidharma, it would seem that his practice was Shikantaza. At the same time, his interview with the future second patriarch would suggest a mastery of the techniques which later developed into kong-an practice. But most certainly, he was not reading sutras at that time. The interesting thing about Bodhidharma, though, is that when he gave transmission to the second patriarch, he passed on a copy of the Lankavatara Sutra along with his robe and bowls. These were the items of transmission until the sixth patriarch. For a long time, the Lankavatara Sutra remained a basic text of the Ch'an school in China. Hui-neng himself had his awakening upon hearing a verse from the Diamond Sutra, and this Sutra was also revered by Ch'an students in China. All of this changed in the hands of Ma-tsu when Ch'an became very experimental. Even then, it seems that most of the teachers in Ma-tsu's lineage were well-versed in the sutras, they just didn't refer to them in their teachings.

In closing, we have talked about how Korean Zen became absorbed by the larger Buddhism by the time of Chinul's birth and how Chinul was able to revive it through the elements of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation, using both Zen practice and sutra study for this purpose. His lifelong teaching can be summed up in just one phrase: the self-nature is just your own mind; what other experience do you need? In keeping with this tradition of Korean Zen, Zen Master Seung Sahn travels all over the world and teaches "don't know." When people ask him how to keep this "don't know," he says "only don't know." Thus, there is a very direct connection between Chinul's teaching and Zen Master Seung Sahn's teaching - having faith in your self-nature. And that's enough. In every situation, asking "What is this?" is in itself an expression of our self-nature. And that's our challenge and our practice.

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