Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume One A -L Robert E. Buswell

C HAN
S CHOOL
of Mazu Daoyi, and a considerable number of Silla
monks, including Toŭi (d. 825), came to study with
Daoyi and his pupils. However, once they returned to
Korea, their teachings met strong resistance from the
established forms of Buddhism.
Therefore, after earlier abortive attempts to introduce
Chan, when Toŭi returned in 821 with Mazu
Chan, he experienced much opposition, and took
Chan into the mountains and away from the court.
Eight lineage founders studied under Daoyi’s heirs;
only one under Caodong. Most had studied teachings
of the HUAYAN SCHOOL (Korean, Hwaŏm), the dominant
doctrinal tradition in Silla Korea, but were
dissatisfied with its abstruse and impractical scholasticism.
These lineages were collectively called kusan (the
NINE MOUNTAINS SCHOOL OF SŎN) from 1084.
The Five Houses were imported early in the Koryŏ
dynasty (918–1392), and King Kwangjong (r. 950–975)
introduced the Fayan house (Korean, Pŏban) by sending
thirty-six monks to study with the Chan monk
Yanshou in China. The monk ŬICH’ŎN (1055–1101)
founded the Tiantai (Korean, Ch’ŏnt’ae) school to
overcome the rivalry of Sŏn and Hwaŏm deeming that
iconoclastic Sŏn needed doctrinal foundations. Many
Pŏban monks joined Ŭich’ŏn, and this, plus corruption
in the saṅgha, weakened Sŏn.
Consequently, CHINUL (1158–1210) was moved to
revitalize Sŏn by combining it with Hwaŏm philosophy
to provide a doctrinal base, inspired by the ideas
of Zongmi. Unable to make a pilgrimage to the mainland
to study with Chinese masters, Chinul was successively
enlightened by his own reading of the
Platform Su tra, a commentary on the Huayan jing by
Li Tongxuan (635–730), and by reading the works of
Zonggao on hwadu (Chinese, huatou). Hwadu was for
able students; lesser lights could adopt Zongmi’s sudden
enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation to
remove residual habits. Subsequently, hwadu practice
predominated, and the Linji style prevailed among the
sixteen generations of successors at Chinul’s monastery
on Chogyesan, something reinforced once the Mongols
forcibly reopened communications with China.
Koryŏ monks, particularly T’aego Pou (1301–1382)
and Naong Hyegŭn (1320–1376), who wanted to improve
hwadu practice, sought confirmation of their enlightenment
within the lineage of Wuzu Fayan (1024–
1104). They attempted to unite the kusan under the
name of the Chogye order. They also tried to enforce
monastic disciple through the state, but the saṅgha’s
corruption and the weakness of Koryŏ allowed the rise
of the anti-Buddhist Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and
a fundamentalist neo-Confucianism.
Initially the new Chosŏn rulers did not persecute
Buddhism, which had several able Sŏn monk defenders.
Restrictions increased, and King Sejong (r.
1419–1450) forcibly combined the Chogye, Ch’ŏnt’ae,
and another school into the Sŏnjong. Under later kings
the repression was so severe that the Sŏn lineage may
have been severed. All current lineages allegedly revert
to Pyŏkkye Chŏngsim (late fifteenth century), who had
been compulsorily laicized. His master is unknown.
The result was controversy over whether later Sŏn was
descended from Pou via Chŏngsim, or went back to
Chinul. The main descendant of Chŏngsim, HYUJŎNG
(1520–1604), revived Sŏn’s fortunes by leading a monk
army against the invading Japanese in 1592.
The revival was temporary, for soon the state herded
the monks into the mountains or conscripted them
into labor service. Zonggao’s ideas provided the best
defense against intolerant neo-Confucianism, allowing
Sŏn practice to dominate elite Chosŏn dynasty Buddhism,
but at the cost of infiltration by Confucian values.
Sŏn practice retreated increasingly into “lettered
Chan” and ritual, or Pure Land devotions. However,
Chinul’s ideas continued to have support, and several
important teachers tried to revive Sŏn.
The Japanese annexation of Korea (1910–1945)
brought clashes between a pro-Japanese Soto Zen
clique and a traditionalist Korean Linji (Imje) faction,
and between modernizers like HAN YONGUN (1879–
1944), who advocated married clergy, and conservative
celibate monks who founded the Sŏn Academy in
1921. The Chogye order, founded in 1941, included
pro-Japanese married clergy, as well as nationalistic
celibates, which led the non-celibates to form the
breakaway T’aego order in 1970. This also invoked the
old dispute over the founding patriarch of Sŏn, Chinul
or Pou, a controversy raised even later by the former
head of the Chogye order, T’oe’ong Sŏngch’ŏl (1912–
1993), who championed Pou and rejected Chinul’s
emblematic soteriology of sudden enlightenment followed
by gradual cultivation. For Sŏngch’ŏl, once one
has seen the nature and become buddha, gradual cultivation
is superfluous. In North Korea, all Sŏn clerics
are married and retired from the regular workforce,
being subservient to the state.
Japan (Zen). The Japanese Hosso (Yogacara) and
Tendai (Tiantai) schools, without understanding the
new meaning of chan, imported Chan cultivation as a
134 E NCYCLOPEDIA OF B UDDHISM