초록
Pojo Chinul (1158–1210) is considered a great harmonizer of the conflicting Buddhist trends in the late Koryŏ period. Although diverse philosophical and soteriological aspects of his texts have been examined, the Hwaŏmnon chŏryo, a seminal text that demonstrates his effort to mitigate the tension between the Sŏn and Kyo schools, has not been given due scholarly attention. By revealing the drawbacks in previous scholarship on Chinul, this article emphasizes the importance of a correct understanding of Li Tongxuan’s (635–730) Xin huayan jing lun, the primary text that exerted an enormous influence on the formation of Chinul’s thought. Chinul’s text, however, sometimes omits the rich symbolism as represented in Li’s text. Moreover, the Hwaŏmnon chŏryo does not adopt indigenous philosophical frameworks for the explication of the Flower Garland Sūtra as introduced in its source text Xin huayan jing lun. Chinul, instead, faithfully accommodates Li’s fundamental philosophical and soteriological theses in this abridged text. Although Chinul does not accept every detail of Li’s exegesis and his text shows the characteristics of selective abridgement, he has a critical attitude toward the contemporary Buddhists just as Li does. This attitude may explain his adoption of this “unorthodox” text which was written by a layman and disregarded by both of the mainstream Sŏn and Kyo schools.
키워드
Pojo Chinul, Hwaŏmnon chŏryo, Li Tongxuan, Xin huayan jing lun, selective abridgement
CHINUL AND THE HWAŎMNON CHŎRYO
In the East Asian Buddhist tradition, the issue of subitism and gradualism has stimulated many thinkers and practitioners since its first appearance in the domain of Buddhist debates during the early fifth century.
Evaluated as a great systematizer of Korean Buddhism, Pojo Chinul 普照知訥 (1158–1210), a great Sŏn master during the late Koryŏ period, endeavored to mitigate the tension between the abovementioned soteriological polarity which was then embodied into the conflict between the Sŏn (meditative) and Kyo 敎 (scholastic) schools.
With regard to Chinul’s career, his 1211 epigraphy written by Kim Kun-su (d.u.) tells us that his experience of enlightenment inspired by diverse Buddhist texts led him to establish the three soteriological gates or approaches (
Of these three soteriological regimens attributed to Chinul, most studies on the abovementioned second gate have centered around the analysis of the
But
Yet, even if we do not attribute the third gate of
Unfortunately, the
The following pages will investigate how Chinul epitomized Li’s philosophy in his
PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP ON THE HWAŎMNON CHŎRYO
The
For instance,
Of the two studies mentioned above that concern the doctrinal aspects of Chinul’s thought, the former’s rather bold theses merit some comments. According to
Kim Ch’ŏn-hak’s forced explication of Chinul’s thought is also discernible from his statement that Li Tongxuan, due to his notion of nature origination (Ch.
But such a one-sided appraisal of Li Tongxuan’s soteriology does not take note of his strong practical orientation or his deep concern for altruistic activities in the mundane realm. Li’s practice-oriented Huayan exegesis can be seen from his analysis of the Samantabhadra practice (Ch.
It is true that Li Tongxuan regards the
Along with Li’s demand for the practitioners to broaden their minds, his repeated condemnation of those who see the sacred as something beyond the profane is a natural consequence of his concept of the one true dharma realm (Ch.
Here it is to be noted that Li’s emphasis on the one true dharma realm does not mean that practitioners just need to gain such an insight and remain content with it. As he puts it, practitioners in the lower stages ranging from the ten faiths to the ten grounds (Ch.
Although Li Tongxuan’s explication of the chapter “Entering the Dharma Realm” (
As mentioned above, Kim Ch’ŏn-hak ascribes Li Tongxuan’s “disregard of the progressive approach,” which he distinguishes from Chinul’s endorsement of both the consummate interfusion approach and the progressive approach, to Li’s notion of nature origination. But most of the previous studies have pointed out that this concept is also salient in Chinul’s thought. In this way they locate the continuity between Li Tongxuan and Chinul. For instance,
Nevertheless, many Korean scholars still have a propensity to accept the
The abovementioned drawbacks in the previous scholarship on Chinul can be summarized into three points. First, the studies conducted by those scholars have taken for granted an unwarranted assumption that Chinul’s thought consists of the so-called “three gates” without doing in-depth text-critical research. Secondly, as shown above, some of their arguments are contingent upon a hasty comparison between Li Tongxuan and Chinul, which is again predicated upon incorrect understanding of Li’s texts. Thirdly, they tend to overestimate the concept of nature origination. Although this concept occupies a prime position in the
6 A partial English translation of the text was published by
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13 Li Tongxuan repeatedly states that the true faith cannot be obtained with an attitude that seeks it outside one’s mind (Ch.
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18 In the
EXEGETICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE XIN HUAYAN JING LUN
As examined above, although the status of Chinul’s “third” gate is dubious, we can still ascribe the first and second gates to him. Considering the
It is a widely accepted view that the
For instance, he regards the number ten as a perfect one and presents a unique view that the
Moreover, on the basis of his notion of the one true dharma realm, he adopts indigenous Chinese philosophies, as represented in the
In the case of his schemata of doctrinal classification (Ch.
The abovementioned idiosyncratic features in Li Tongxuan’s exegesis may account for one of the reasons why he was ousted from the “orthodox” Huayan lineage. While his exegesis is insightful and intuitive, it sometimes lacks philo-logical precision and consistency.
But his idea of the human mind as being devoid of fixed nature should be considered genuinely Buddhist. His concept of “no nature” (Ch.
19 Robert M. Gimmello (1983) provides a brief overview of Li Tongxuan’s background as a layman and his exegetical characteristics (327, 340, 379).
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26 It is said that a certain monk named Huiming 惠明 considered the Xin lun to be apocryphal and requested it to be burned. This episode illustrates that Li Tongxuan’s thought faced opposition from the established scholastic tradition (Kimura 2001, 371). See
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CHINUL’S SELECTIVE ABRIDGEMENT OF THE XIN LUN
Most of the abovementioned doctrines discussed in the
At this point, it is difficult to determine whether Chinul omitted all of those passages in the
That he has such an aim is also implicit in the preface in which he recalls his 1185 experience of being challenged by a monk from the Hwaŏm school who asserted the superiority of the contemplation of the unobstructed interpenetration between phenomenal objects.
Yet, it might be pointed out that such a strong self-awareness as a Sŏn monk is not germane to Li’s thought. Although Li’s soteriology and schemata of doctrinal classification have an element of sudden enlightenment and he is known to have inspired some of the Chinese Linji Chan 臨濟禪 masters,
We may attribute such a negative depiction of meditative practice to Li’s background as a layman. But a closer reading of the
In the case of the
Here it is intriguing to see that while Chinul omits some of Li’s critiques of meditative practice, he faithfully quotes Li’s discourses on the one true dharma realm.
As examined above, Chinul’s removal of some of the negative comments on meditative practice appearing in the
Concerning Chinul’s appraisal of the
Should we then say that the
As mentioned in the previous section of this paper, Li aims at explicating the profound religious symbolism underlying the
Table 1.. List of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas Appearing in the
When he explicates the chapter “Eulogies in the Palace of the Tuṣita Heaven” in which ten Banner (Ch.
The above defensive statement on behalf of Li Tongxuan, however, does not mean that Chinul approves every detail of Li’s exegesis. Unlike Li who frequently resorts to the yin-yang and five phases theory and the
Moreover, when Chinul accepts Li’s notion of perfect interfusion between the three Buddhist saints (Ch.
Unlike Li Tongxuan who introduces diverse symbolic meanings of the eight directions and their associated trigrams and offers a detailed analysis of their implications in Buddhist soteriology,
In addition to Chinul’s omission of the indigenous references, the
According to Li, ten of the fifty-three spiritual mentors representing the stage of the ten grounds are goddesses, whereas ten symbolizing the stage of the ten dedications are of two sexes and diverse social backgrounds.
In Chinul’s summary of the
Chinul’s omission of the negative depictions of a monk is also reflected in his restricted references to the female characters in the
Besides Li’s unique interpretation of directional references and female symbolism, his intuitive explication of numerical references in the
In Li’s interpretation of the term
From the above analysis, it becomes clear that Chinul accommodates Li Tongxuan’s exegesis of the
Besides Chinul’s reserved accommodation of the indigenous symbolism, his emphasis on particular chapters of the
As mentioned in the previous section of this paper, Kim Ch’ŏn-hak has conducted a statistical research on the
Another important point to be noted concerning the structure of the
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32 Here it is to be noted that although both Sŏn and Kyo practitioners use the same term “contemplation” (
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37 Of the four passages listed in note 35, the
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42 Li Tongxuan defines the purport of the
43 In Li Tongxuan’s explication of this chapter, the east (i.e., the abode of the Buddha Immovable Wisdom) is given the utmost significance. For Li’s correlative explanation of the east and the initial faith of a practitioner, see
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47 In the
48 For Li Tongxuan’s correlation of these appellations with the two bodhisattvas, see
49 See
50 For instance, Li Tongxuan associates the trigram
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68 Here the
CONCLUSION
As we have seen above, the
We have seen that Chinul omits some of Li Tongxuan’s negative depictions of meditative practice and male practitioners in his text. We may ascribe this omission to the different social status of the two exegetes. It may seem that Li Tongxuan’s social status as a layman enabled him to direct open criticisms toward the professional meditative practitioners, most of whom are male and intent on meditative perfection, whereas Chinul’s position as a leading Sŏn monk prevented him from emphasizing the futility of meditation.
As noted above, however, we do not have sufficient philological evidence that corroborates the assumption that Chinul intentionally omitted Li’s negative comments on meditative practice. But in the case of the rich symbolism of the
Yet, our comparative analysis of the two texts has shown that they have more features in common than in opposition. Li’s thesis of the one true dharma realm and his emphasis on the faith of ordinary practitioners are faithfully integrated into Chinul’s summary of the
Moreover, although Li’s critiques of practitioners who have an escapist spirit and are intent on transcendental meditation are not fully accommodated in Chinul’s text, the former’s critical attitude toward the contemporary religious circle is also shared by the latter.
69 See
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1 Daosheng 道生 (ca. 360–434) is considered the first thinker who proposed the thesis of sudden enlightenment along with that of universal buddha-nature(Lai 1987, 169) . In this respect it can be said that the sudden-gradual debate in Chinese Buddhism originated within the scholastic tradition. Later on, application of the designation “sudden” became a serious issue again within the Huayan school as the meditative (Ch. Chan) school emerged. Whereas Chengguan 澄觀 (737–838) explicitly applied the term “sudden teaching” to the Chan school, Zongmi 宗密 (780–841) noticed the subtle differences in the branches of the Chan school and presented a different system of doctrinal classification (Gregory 1983, 41–44) .
2 Edward J. Schultz appraises Chinul as “one of the great harmonizers of Korean Buddhism” and claims that Chinul’s “syncretism” was welcomed by the military rulers of the Ch’oe house (2000, 134–41).
3 Concerning Chinul’s bibliophilistic attitude, Robert E. Buswell, Jr. has pointed out that he did not form an “orthodox” dharma lineage either by receiving instructions from a Korean master or by securing recognition from a Chinese patriarch (1983, 201).
4Kanhwa kyŏrŭiron , HPC 4.737b18–20.
5 In this paper Kwŏn attributes to Chinul the following works: theKwŏnsu chŏnghye kyŏlsa mun 勸修定慧結社文, the Moguja susim kyŏl 牧牛子修心訣, the Kye ch’osim hagin mun 誡初心學人文, the Hwaŏmnon chŏryo , and the Pŏpchip pyŏrhaengnok chŏryo pyŏngip sagi (2009, 16–17). In his earlier paper, too, he locates Hyesim’s voice in the two texts in question (1993, 25).