The Whole World is My Home; Carefree, I Sing a Song of Peace
Ascending the high Dharma seat, Great Seon Master Jinje raised his Seon staff over the assembly and said:
IN THE COURTYARD of the buddhas and patriarchs, there is never a need to point spears at each other.
Future generations made mistake after mistake without end,
When Truth is supreme, there is no need to transmit orders from the Son of Heaven,
So in times of tranquillity, who needs to sing a song of peace?
Seon is the essence of the Buddhadharma. All the buddhas and patriarchs achieved enlightenment through Seon meditation. But the world of enlightenment is beyond language itself. After Sakyamuni Buddha achieved awakening, he remained sitting in the pure bliss of his meditation for three weeks, before finally saying to himself, "All dharmas are characterized by tranquil extinction and cannot be taught or transmitted with words. It would be better for me simply to enter into Nirvana right now, rather than attempt to give such a teaching." This means that Seon cannot be expounded in words and letters. The moment you open your mouth to describe it, you have already made a mistake. For this reason, an ancient patriarch said that all the sutras of the Buddha’s lifelong teaching—as well as the teaching of all the ancient masters—are like “selling dog meat as mutton.”
Therefore, the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye and the sublime mind of Nirvana to which Sakyamuni Buddha became enlightened were transmitted from mind to mind, separately from the scriptural teachings. In the same way, this continuous inheritance is the vitality of the Seon family and the life thread of the Buddha and the patriarchs.
From Sakyamuni Buddha to Mahakasyapa, Mahakasyapa to Ananda, Ananda to Sanavasin, and so forth, in this way the transmission has been passed on from generation to generation. And this orthodox transmitted lineage of the Buddha and patriarchs was handed down to Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism and the First Patriarch of Chinese Seon.
The Seon Dharma in China flourished greatly after the appearance of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. Since Seon Master Huineng, the tradition branched out successively into the famed Five Schools of Chan or Seon: Linji (J. Rinzai), Guiyang, Caodong (J. Sōtō), Yunmen, and Fayan. Of these five, the schools of Guiyang, Yunmen, and Fayan slowly diminished in power and influence, and eventually died out. The two schools of Linji and Caodong prospered more and more in later generations.
The present Seon Dharma lineages in Korea derive from the Linji school. The Seon Dharma was introduced for the first time in Korea during the Unified Silla kingdom. Following the Korean Patriarch Beomnang (fl. ca. 632-646) being entrusted with the Dharma Lamp by the Fourth Patriarch Daoxin (580-651), a number of monks who received Dharma transmission before the Five Chan Schools formed in China founded the Nine Mountain Seon Schools (Gusan Seonmun). But the Dharma lineage of the Nine Mountain Seon Schools thrived only for a short period during the Silla Kingdom, and slowly declined in the Goryeo Dynasty.
By the end of the Goryeo Dynasty, the Seon lineage was in decline. Fortunately, at that time Seon Master Taego Bou (1301-1382) aroused the essence of Seon in Korea after many years of persistent teaching and hard practice. He eventually travelled abroad to train in Yuan Dynasty China. There he was confirmed and entrusted with the Seon transmission by Seon Master Shiwu Qinggong (1272-1352), who was a Dharma heir in the Chinese Linji lineage. Taego Bou was eventually acknowledged as the fifty-seventh patriarch of the Buddha and Patriarchs’ transmission lineage. Through that transmission, he became the first patriarch of the Korean Seon School, forever grounding it in the Linji lineage.
Early in the Joseon Dynasty, Seon Master Taego transmitted his Dharma to Hwanam Honsu (1320-1392). Since that time, Korean Seon has carried on this authentic lineage. But the Joseon Dynasty period was perhaps the darkest era in the history of Korean Buddhism: it was the official policy of successive ruling Confucian governments to promote Confucianism and suppress Buddhism. Monasteries were disestablished and monks forced to secede from the order. The authentic education lineages in Korean Buddhism were stamped out. The populace’s capacity to support monks and monasteries were harshly suppressed. As a result, the Seon lineages withered substantially in the middle and latter periods of the dynasty. It is sometimes said that, for the last one hundred years of the Joseon Dynasty, into the early 1900’s, Korean Buddhism was in a state of hibernation.
At that time, there fortunately appeared a great spiritual hero who revived the Seon Dharma in Korea. He opened a vast new horizon for the Seon school, whose very existence as a teaching tradition hung by a thread. This monk was the Seon Master Gyeongheo (1849-1912). Many excellent practitioners were produced under his guidance. He transmitted the Seon dharma to four successors: Hyewol, Man-gong, Chimun, and Hanam. Of these four, Seon Master Hyewol’s lineage was passed down to me. So I, this mountain monk, am the seventy-ninth Dharma heir of the Seon lineage of the Buddha and patriarchs.
Seon Master Gyeongheo renounced the world at the age of nine to join the Sangha. He taught in the Buddhist seminary of Donghaksa when he was as young as 22. He was renowned for being an excellent lecturer.
One day, while on the road to visit the master who had sponsored his ordination into the order, he was caught in a ferocious downpour. He ran door to door through a local village asking to take cover, but no one would let him in. The village had been struck by a cholera epidemic and the villagers were afraid to let him in their homes lest he transmit the disease to them. He finally had to pass the night under a big tree just outside the village.
Seeing the villagers dying of cholera brought a sense of urgency home to him. He went straight back to Donghaksa, sent his students away, and locked himself in his room at the monastery to devote himself solely to his hwadu meditation.
Now, Gyeongheo Seunim’s academic prowess allowed him to understand most gongans intellectually, but this was with the so-called “dry wisdom” (ganhye) that did not generate the sense of questioning. Only one gongan really stopped his mind in its tracks: “Before the donkey has left, the horse has already arrived.” This was a famous gongan from the teachings of Chinese Seon Master Lingyun (771-853). But, as with all the great gongans, its meaning could not be unlocked through a merely intellectual approach. As a result, Gyeongheo Seunim felt, at times, as if he were facing a silver mountain or pressed against an iron wall. This gongan became his practice.
Confining himself in his bare room, Gyeongheo Seunim sat constantly. He pricked his thigh with a sharp awl when he felt sleepy. He wrapped a sharp knife to the end of a bamboo stick, and placed it directly under his chin to keep himself from nodding off. He practiced very, very hard.
His Seon practice proceeded in this manner for some three months. His spiritual condition deepened, as his six senses no longer confused him; his single-minded concentration on the hwadu continued lucidly in his mind, without interruption. One day, he heard the phrase, “Even though I be reborn as a cow, I would be a cow with no nostrils” and he instantly attained enlightenment. (A cow’s nostrils would be pierced and the cow shackled to a leash, so Gyeongheo is saying he will be forever unshackled.) This event occurred in 1879, when he was thirty-one.
After experiencing enlightenment, he composed a verse:
Hearing someone mention “a cow with no nostrils,”
In an instant I awakened to the fact that the trichiliocosm is my home.
In June, on a country road below this Yeonam mountain,
A carefree, rustic man sings a song of peace.
So, Gyeongheo Seunim made clear the origin of the Dharma transmission he had nherited. He was a successor in the lineage of Yongam Hyeeon (b. 1783). This made him the twelfth heir of Seon Master Cheongheo Hyujeong (1520-1604), and the eighth of Hwanseong Jian (1664-1729). Enlightened Seon masters are always looking forward to meeting good disciples to whom to transmit the Dharma. Successive Dharma transmission from a master to his disciples is crucially important to preserving the right Dharma.
After enlightenment, Gyeongheo Seunim sighed greatly, because it was difficult to find a disciple of sufficient capacity and insight to inherit his robe and begging bowls, which represent the Dharma transmission.
But Hyewol Hyemyeong (1855-1928) was just such a student. After Seon Master Gyeongheo formally transmitted the lamp of Dharma to his top disciple Hyewol Seunim, he wandered from monastery to monastery, re-igniting Korean monks’ ardor for enlightenment through Seon meditation. As a result, many Seon centers were opened and outstanding Seon pilgrims and itinerant practitioners appeared. Thus Seon Buddhism—which had fallen into almost total decline under the pressure of five-hundred years of Joseon-era repression—flowered once again.
Seon Master Gyeongheo became renowned all over the country. One day, he realized, "I see my fame rise while I know nothing. The world is still troubled and dangerous. I don’t know where I can possibly hide myself. If I leave the monastery and stay in town, eating meat and drinking liquor, I might be able to hide. But it seems like the more I hide, the more my fame grows. That’s what concerns me." One day he just disappeared, without a word. Nobody knew where he went. A long time passed without any sightings of Gyeongheo Seunim. Many believe that he taught local children in a village school, letting his hair grow long and wearing the common clothes of a local teacher. One day in April in 1912, he is said to have left a single stanza scribbled on the wall in brush-ink.
The mind’s moon is solitary and round,
Its light swallows the myriad forms,
When light and objects are both forgotten,
What then is that thing?
At the end of stanza he drew a circle, and passed into Nirvana while lying on his right side. How sad that such a great man passed away unnoticed!
Seon Master Gyeongheo was a totally free man who championed the Seon tradition. At the same time, he was a great master who produced a galaxy of Dharma heirs during this difficult time of government suppression, when the Dharma lineage itself was on the verge of destruction.
So, assembly: Do you fully grasp the deep meaning of Seon Master Gyeongheo? What is it? What is it? Please give me an answer!
After a long period of silence, Seon Master Jinje responded:
Don’t think it weird if I push several more drinks on you,
Because once we part, when shall we meet again?
Hitting his Seon staff on the Dharma seat, he descended.
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