BUDDHISM IN KOREA AND VIETNAM 2279.4.2 Chinul
Chinul (1158-1210; posthumously named Pojo) was largely responsible for
molding Son into its present form. As a result of his efforts, almost all of Ko-
rean Buddhism is now in a sense Son.
Severe childhood illness provided the occasion for Chinul's entry into the
monkhood. When all attempts at healing failed, his father promised his son to
the Sangha if the Buddha would provide a cure. The cure came, and so Chinul
received tonsure at the tender age of 7, followed by the novice precepts at age
- Bound to no permanent teacher, he began practicing meditation from an
early age based on his own reading of texts. This combination of scholarship
and practice, rare in his day, was to provide the pattern for his life and teachings.
In 1182, the young Chinul traveled to the capital to sit for the Son exami-
nations. Although he passed them easily, he was disgusted with the worldly
climate surrounding them, and so made a pact with a handful of fellow exam-
inees to retreat into the mountains and start a reform-minded religious soci-
ety, the Samadhi and Prajfia Community, for both lay people and monastics.
This was to be the first such society in Korea, although it followed a pattern
popular in China since the fifth century (see Section 8.5.3). Delays in realiz-
ing his plans for the community, however, set him on an itinerant life. In the
course of his wanderings he settled in the extreme southwest, where he expe-
rienced the first of his three major meditative insights. Each insight came as a
result of reading a text, underscoring his conviction that doctrinal knowledge
and meditative experience were meant to go hand in hand. His first insight
came from a passage in the Plaiform Sutra (see Section 8.5.5) that identified the
mind with the self-nature of suchness. The insight this gave him into his own
mind convinced him of the truth of the Plaiform Sutra's teaching on the unity
of samadhi and prajfia, and ofTsung-mi's teachings on sudden Awakening and
gradual cultivation (see Section 8.5.2). His second insight came while reading
a commentary on the Avatal'flsaka Sutra that identified the original mind with
the wisdom of universal brightness that awoke suddenly and completely to the
dharmadhatu, or the true nature of reality. This insight underscored for him
the essential unity ofHwaom doctrine and Son practice.
Soon after this second insight, Chinul's Samadhi and Prajfia Community
finally became a reality in 1188. By 1197 the community had become well
known throughout Korea, attracting large numbers of followers from all walks
oflife. To accommodate the growing numbers, the group chose Songgwang
Mountain as the site for an enlarged temple. Chinul's third and definitive in-
sight came during a short retreat he took en route to the new center. Although
the political situation in Korea had curtailed contacts with China, Chinul had
somehow gained access to the Record ofTa-hui Tsung-kao (see Section 8.6),
whose distinction between live and dead utterances sparked Chinul's final ex-
perience of Awakening. This final Awakening, however, did not erase Chinul's
respect for the texts that had inspired his earlier insights. For him, understand-
ing the meaning of words as dead utterances remained a necessary precursor
to approaching them as live utterances so as to understand the process of ver-
balizing and then reach the radiance of the mind that lay beyond meanings