English > Korean Buddhism

Korean Buddhism

Korean Zen (Son) reconciles Buddhism based on the sutras with the meditative tradition. In the West, the Kwan Um School follow these roots through the Chogye order, the most important Buddhist monastic order in Korea today.

Buddhism was introduced to Korea in the fourth century. From the ninth century on, Zen (Korean : Son), with its emphasis on meditation, was accepted in the royal court and integrated into Korean state Buddhism based on the study of the sutras. The Chogye monastic order is marked by its synthesis of doctrinal teaching and zen meditation. Reflecting this synthesis, we find today in Chogye temples a sutra lecture hall, a ritual offering hall, a chanting hall and a zen meditation hall. Student monks often study the sutras for six months before dedicating themselves to zen practice.

CHINUL (1158−1210) Founder of Korean Zen.
A near contemporary of Dogen (1200−1253), founder of the Soto tradition in Japan, Chinul occupies the corresponding position as the most original religious thinker in the Korean tradition. Both of them became disillusioned by the power struggles in their respective royal courts and went to the mountains to establish their monastic communities. Both dedicated their lives to intensive practice and to living in a simple way. The following teaching is taken from answers given by Chinul to questions posed in open assemblies.

Student : How is it that saints and ordinary people are not the same ?"

Chinul : 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. 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.

Articles de cette rubrique

The Sayings of Zen Master Kyong Ho

# Don’t wish for perfect health. In perfect health there is greed and wanting. So an ancient said, "Make good medicine from the suffering of sickness."

# Don’t hope for a life without problems. An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy mind. So an ancient once said, "Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life."

# Don’t expect your practice to be always clear of obstacles. Without hindrances the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said, "Attain deliverance in disturbances."

# Don’t expect to practice hard and not experience the weird. Hard practice that evades the unknown makes for a weak commitment. So an ancient once said, "Help hard practice by befriending every demon."

# Don’t expect to finish doing something easily. If you happen to acquire something easily the will is made weaker. So an ancient once said, "Try again and again to complete what you are doing."

# Make friends but don’t expect any benefit for yourself. Friendship only for oneself harms trust. So an ancient once said, "Have an enduring friendship with purity in heart."’

# Don’t expect others to follow your direction. When it happens that others go along with you, it results in pride. So an ancient once said, "Use your will to bring peace between people."

# Expect no reward for an act of charity. Expecting something in return leads to a scheming mind. So an ancient once said, "Throw false spirituality away like a pair of old shoes."

# Don’t seek profit over and above what your work is worth. Acquiring false profit makes a fool (of oneself). So an ancient once said, "Be rich in honesty."

# Don’t try to make clarity of mind with severe practice. Every mind comes to hate severity, and where is clarity in mortification ? So an ancient once said, "Clear a passageway through severe practice."

# Be equal to every hindrance. Buddha attained Supreme Enlightenment without hindrance. Seekers after truth are schooled in adversity. When they are confronted by a hindrance, they can’t be over-come. Then, cutting free, their treasure is great.
Roaring of a Mud Cow

All who practice meditation should be careful to realize these things !

First, that impermanence occurs too fast and the matter of birth and death is most important. Thus, an ancient saying says : "although my life is preserved today, it is difficult to preserve tomorrow. So your mind should always should be concentrated and always awakened, without idleness.

Second, you must reduce defilements inwardly and cut off causes and conditions outwardly. If your mind rubs together with sense objects like fire sticks, bursting into flame, this might not only hinder your ability to break through your Hwadu (koan, great lump of doubt), but it will also add heavily to your karma. If you are able to get along without indulging in the sensory pleasures of life and have no interest in preserving your life, then the wisdom of mind becomes clear and bright. As a consequence, mind will accomplish everything. If you engage in good conduct, then you might be reborn in Heaven, engage in bad conduct then you’ll go to hell, atrocious behavior will lead to you becoming a tiger or wolf, possess a stupid mind and become an earthworm or an insect, have a light and busy mind and become a butterfly. Thus, an ancient master says, "one thought of wrong mind puts forth a hundred thousand forms." If your mind becomes pure and tranquil, thoroughly empty, where can you find your birth and death, where can you find good and evil, and where can you find any keeping or violating of the precepts ?

Only when you reach the origin, will you not follow any birth, any destruction, you won’t attain any Buddhahood, and won’t accomplish any patriarchal transmission. On a grand scale, it encloses incalculable universes, on a small scale it enters subtle dust, and it can be both Buddha and sentient beings. Moreover, it is not large or small, not angular or circular, not bright or dark. Thus, it does not exist because it is an enforced truth, but because it is a free and circular truth.

Those who practice this deep and delicate path always reflect mind deliberately, awakened, precisely and continuously, practicing with extremely sincerity, and then arriving at the condition in which mind is exhausted. Suddenly the road of mind comes to an end and they arrive at the basic ground of mind. Because the basic state of mind is originally satisfied and transparent, there is no lack and no surplus. When these conditions manifest, thousands of suns and moons shine brightly. When the wind strikes the ear, the oceanic wind-bell strikes Mt. Sumeru of its own accord.

This reason is always nearby, so there is no need to know spontaneously. Those who seek the deep truth can attain the method for reflection, finding the mind’s exact shape. So don’t use mind indifferently ! As Master Taego said : "Let the arrow fly, it penetrates the rock." Master Cheongheo also said "As a mosquito penetrates the back of an iron ox, go desperately through the place where the beak cannot reach." The hwadu practitioner should take these teaching as a guideline.

A Dharma master once said : "the single dharma to see the mind includes all behavior." Nevertheless, you need only pay attention to cultivating the root and the body, don’t worry about the branches and leaves not growing thick. Make efforts only to see the real mind and to attain enlightenment. Don’t worry if there is no mysterious samadhi. People these days do not desperately study and practice the truth. I’m very sad because the mendicant hwadu practitioners don’t discover the truth of Buddhist teaching. They don’t have an eye of wisdom, but spend life uselessly, like a goat wandering drunk and lost at a fork in the road. Master Dong-san said : "it is painful to lose a man’s body under a monk’s robe." If one’s first step on a journey of a thousand miles is not right, it is useless to waste energy, so it does no benefit to go any further.

Thus Master Gyubong said : "Clearly cut off all doubt, awaken to the truth and practice !" Even were someone to build a humble grass house, this task could not be accomplished without without the effort of drawing guide lines and planing the wood ; thus, how much more difficult is it to build a big temple of full enlightenment without following the truth ? For fear of failure, even a small plan requires one to study in order to attain the truth. Those who can’t do as such must ask questions to good teachers and then seek out a master with clear vision, and then they will finally accomplish their task without fail. It’s rare to find those who engage on the path without failing. It’s hard to find those who throw themselves into their study, who can see clearly.

Oh, how sad ! Why don’t you search for the truth ?

If people want to realize impermanence and attain enlightenment, why don’t they seek a bright master ? How else can they ever attain the right way in the future ?
‘I’ and the Necessity of Finding ‘I’

The reason that human beings are the most noble of the myriad things is that they are able to find and attain ‘I.’ The essence of ‘I’ exists in absolute freedom, so one ought to be able to control everything as one pleases. But the reason we human beings do not have any freedom at any specific time or place, and the reason why nothing goes the way we wish, is that we live our lives with our ‘deluded I’ as the master and the ‘true I’ as the slave. The ‘deluded I’ is the child of the ‘true I,’ but the mind that we exercise at present is actually the perverted mind. Although the ‘true I’ is the correct mind that has neither beginning nor end, existence nor extinction, or any form, it nevertheless is ‘I’ that has no deficiency.

Once human beings forget the ‘true I,’ they are no better than dogs or pigs. What difference is there between animals that are lost because of attachment to their instinctive desires for food and sex or human beings who, being ignorant of their true face, are lost because of attachment to their superficial realities ? Even though someone may be regarded as the most superior person in the world, if he does not understand his own face, then he is just a one tiny part of the turning wheel of transmigration within the four modes of birth and the six destinies.

In this Saha World where sentient beings who share their world of karma abide, others and I live similar lives. Hence, people live their lives unconscientiously, by accepting them as they appear to be. Without foreseeing the fearful events that are laid out in front of them, they live their lives heedlessly ; and when death comes suddenly to them, their road ahead becomes unclear. ‘I’ is that which answers “yes” when someone calls out your name. It is free from birth and death ; it does not get burned by fire, get wet in water, or get injured by a knife. Thus, it is the independent ‘I’ that is free from all entanglements. Human lives, being pulled by the chain of karma, are transmigrating repeatedly along the path of the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death, like a screaming prisoner who is being bound and dragged by a horse. Only with the sword of one’s own wisdom will one be able to sever that iron chain. Even for a person who is most respected in society for his extraordinary learning and personal integrity, if he does not understand this matter, then he is definitely a person who has lost the human spirit.

When the World Honored One, Sakyamuni, was born, he pointed to the sky with one hand and pointed to the ground with the other and said, “In heaven above and earth below, only I alone am venerated.” The ‘I’ he mentions here refers to the ‘[true] I.’ Although every person possesses the inherent nature to become a buddha, he is unable to attain this buddhahood because one does not know the ‘I.’ Because all things are ‘I,’ to waste even as insignificant amount of energy as that on the tip of a hair on matters other than finding the ‘I’ would be one’s own loss.

All human beings possess the three bodies of the physical body, karmic body, and dharma body. Only when these three bodies unite as a single substance and function as one can we become righteous people. Though all activities are carried out by the dharma body, because the dharma body is not separate from the physical body or the karmic body, phenomena are just that state which is free from birth and death. That state which is free from birth and death is inherent in all sentient and insentient beings, so even with the whole universe’s armaments the spirit of even a single blade of grass cannot be destroyed.

In this world, there are such sayings and phrases as ‘knowing I’ or ‘finding I,’ but we only consider ‘I’ through our own activating consciousness. We’re not even able really to imagine what ‘I’ is. ‘I,’ as that which possesses limitless life, has a diamond-like, indestructible spirit that cannot be destroyed even if one tries. Thus, the birth and death of this physical body is only like changing my clothes. If you are a human being, you should be able to put on or take off as you please your own clothes of birth and death.

‘I’ cannot be obtained through the knowledge we acquire by seeing or listening. Even the very thought of ‘I’ is already not ‘I.’ ‘I’ can only be found at the locus of no-thought, because the locus of no-thought already possesses all things. If one reaches that ultimate realm of buddhahood, one will discover that I am in fact a buddha. Ultimately, I have to discover the ‘I’ within myself.

From Man-gong beop-eo
The Buddhadharma

Once you refer to something as the Buddhadharma, it already is not the Buddhadharma.

This means that, because all things, as they are, are the Buddhadharma, as soon as you define something specifically as being the Buddhadharma, it is already lost. Materiality is that which is utilized and spirit is that which serves as the foundation ; hence, the unity of materiality and spirit is referred as the Buddhadharma. The Buddhadharma is apposite in any time period and in any person’s breath. If the core of life does not become stimulated upon hearing the Buddhadharma, then that person is one who has abandoned human life.

‘Buddha’ is the mind ; ‘dharma’ is materiality. Before the creation of the name and characteristics of the Buddhadharma and prior to the manifestation of the Buddha in this world, ‘I’ already existed.

If one discards the ‘I’ that is like unglazed earthenware, then one will obtain the dharmakaya (law body) that is like a vessel decorated with the seven jewels. It is not the mouth that talks nor the hands that labor. By knowing the true essence of that which talks and labors, one will become a ‘correctly made’ human being who creates true speech and labor. The Buddhadharma is the party responsible for the physical body and the numinous spirit. How unsettling must be the life of a person who goes on living without that responsible party ? If one knows this, one has no choice but to return immediately to the Buddhadharma. The dharmas of the mundane world and the Buddhadharma are not two ; the Buddha and sentient beings are one. Hence, by attaining that dharma of nonduality, one becomes a true human being. By knowing the Buddhadharma, even an ordinary person is an ordained monk ; but if one does not know the Buddhadharma, even an ordained monk is nothing more than an ordinary person.

Just as one needs various keys in order to open various bolts, one must obtain 100,000 keys of wisdom to decipher the immeasurable, sublime principles of 100,000 samadhis. Denying the Buddhadharma is intentionally denying oneself ; rejecting the Buddhadharma is intentionally rejecting oneself. This is because one is none other than the Buddha himself. Each and every sound is a Dharma discourse ; each and every phenomenon is the true body of the Buddha. People say that encountering the Buddhadharma is difficult to achieve in even a billion kalpas. What sort of inexplicable reasoning is this ? You just need to realize it !
Zen Mirror
Buddhism

When one advocates Buddhism, one has already transgressed the Buddhist teachings, because the doctrine of Buddhism is a doctrine that leaves behind the attachment to ‘I.’

The tenets of Buddhism do not reprimand evil or encourage good. Due to the fact that both good and evil are the Buddhadharma, the joys of the heavens and the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, as well as by contrast the hellish world of horrendous sufferings, are all the creations of that ‘I.’

It is a universal principle that one gets nothing without first paying the price and success does not come without making effort.

Because everything, as it is, is the Buddha, Buddhism is not taught by establishing fixed regulations and institutions but step by step according to one’s spiritual capacity.

What is referred as ‘mind-only’ in Buddhism- the central philosophy of the Avatamsaka-sutra, meaning that all things that exist in the universe are projections of the mind, that there is nothing that exists apart from the mind, and that the mind is the original essence of the myriads of things-is not the ‘mind-only’ that stands in distinction to ‘materiality only,’ but is instead the ultimate ‘mind-only,’ in which materiality and mentality are nondual.

Emptiness (the self-nature) produces the mind ; mind produces human character ; character produces conduct.

In the ordinary world, we presume that ‘the two aspects of materiality and mentality’ is a comprehensive designation for everything in the universe, but the true essence of the universe in fact exists separately. In Buddhism, we refer to the dharmakaya that transcends the spirit and the ‘True Person’ who surpasses the soul ; hence, our ultimate aim is to realize them. The dharmakaya is the foundation of the physical body, the spirit, and the soul ; but human beings of the Saha world are those who keep moving from life to life while exchanging bodies, spirits, and souls that have lost that foundation.

Buddhism is an educational institution that seeks to perfect the sense of ‘I’ for all of humanity. All the various and sundry religions are bridges and curricula that perfect the ‘true I.’

The profound meaning of the Buddhist teachings is a dharma that cannot be represented with words ; but because each individual already possesses it, each mind can mutually respond to every other mind, allowing the past and future buddhas successively to pass on the dharma that cannot be taught or learned, given or received.