228 CHAPTER NINEand words (see also the discussions of language and perception in Sections
1.4.3 and 2.3.1). As a result, Chinul continued to use all three texts that had
inspired his Awakenings as the basis for his instructions to his students. His
combination of Plaiform Sutra and Hwaom doctrine with k'ung-an practice
set the pattern for the Chogye Order he helped spawn.
The name of the order came from the royal decree, promulgated after
Chinul arrived at his new center, that renamed the mountain Chogye, after
Hui-neng's mountain home in southern China. The temple on Chogye/
Songgwang continued to function as Son headquarters for more than three
hundred years; the community continues to thrive today. When Chinul died
in 1210 he was succeeded by his favored disciple, Chin'gak Hyesim
(1178-1234), who consolidated his master's efforts, attracted students from all
the Son schools and the scholastic sects, and assured the acceptance of k'ung-
an meditation as the principal Son practice.
9.4.3 T'aego
A native ofKwangju in southern Korea, T'aego Pou (1301-82), reconciled
Chinul's Chogye sect with the remaining Son practitioners of the Nine Moun-
tains system on the basis of the personal Lin-chi (in Korean, Imje) transmission
he brought back from China. Although Chinul provided the philosophical
basis for the Chogye Order, some Korean monks today regard T'aego as the
order's true founder by virtue of his direct link to Chinese Ch'an.
T'aego was ordained at the age of 13 and experienced a first glimmering
of Awakening in his twenties. At the age of 37 he realized great Awakening
after meditating on the k'ung-an, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?-NO!"
Three years later he began a vastly successful teaching career. During a visit to
China (1346-48), he studied with great Chinese masters both north and south.
Of these, Shih-wu, Eighteenth Patriarch in the Lin-chi lineage, certified
T'aego's Awakening and convinced him to return home to spread the Dharma.
Back in Korea, T' aego lived a quiet life on Mount Sosol. The surrounding
environment was anything but quiet, though, as the Yiian dynasty was com-
ing to an end in China. For the Koryo king, Kongmin (r. 1351-74), this pre-
sented a golden opportunity to reassert Korean independence from the
Mongols and to consolidate his power within his realm. In the very year that
he assumed the throne, he called T' aego to the capital. Whatever the king's
motives for the summons-a desire for Buddhist wisdom or to tap into
T'aego's popularity-T'aego took advantage ofhis new position both to lec-
ture the court on the moral imperatives of power and to petition the king's
help in unifYing the fragmented Son establishment. Impressed with T'aego's
petition, the king appointed T'aego to the position of royal teacher in 1356
for the express purpose of carrying out the proposed unification. T' aego based
his efforts for a unified Son both on personal transmission through k'ung-an
practice and on the monastic ordinances then current in China.
In typical Ch'an-Son fashion, T'aego balanced his concern for proper form
and discipline with iconoclastic rhetoric. The record of one of his lectures to
the royal court depicts him as reverently offering incense to the Buddha and