Hyech'ŏl
Hyech'ŏl
785 – 861
Hyech'ŏl (慧徹, 785–861) is the founder of the Tongnisan school, the second of the Nine Mountain Schools (Gusan Seonmun) of Korean Seon[1]. He travelled to Tang China in 814, received transmission from Xitang Zhizang at Mazu Daoyi's Hongzhou community — the same teacher as Doui — and returned to Silla in 839 carrying the Southern School's sudden-awakening teaching[1]. Where Doui's lineage matured slowly under suspicion of court Buddhism, Hyech'ŏl was received with royal patronage and established Tongnisa on Mount Tongnisan as one of the great training centres of the late Silla period. His teaching emphasised the inseparability of meditation and the doctrinal study of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra — a foreshadowing of the Sŏn-Hwaŏm synthesis that Pojo Chinul would systematise three centuries later[2].
Names
Teachers and lineage of Hyech'ŏl
Teacher / root master:
Teachings
When Hyecheol returned from China and established his seat at Donam Hermitage on Dongni-san, a monk asked: 'You received the seal from Xitang in Tang China. What did you bring back?' Hyecheol said: 'Xitang did not give me anything.' The monk asked: 'Then where is the teaching?' Hyecheol said: 'Right where you are standing. There has never been a different place.'
After Hyecheol returned from Tang China carrying the Dharma of Xitang Zhizang, the students gathered around him numbered in the hundreds. A court official came and asked on behalf of the king: 'Why do you settle in the mountain wilderness rather than the capital, where your teaching could reach more people?' Hyecheol replied: 'The mountain is not far from anyone. Mind is not far from anyone. When a person comes here with a sincere question, they have already traveled the whole distance. When they leave, they carry the mountain with them.' The official bowed and reported this to the king, who thereafter provided for the maintenance of Donam Hermitage.
Other masters in Seon
Master Record Sources
- biographyThe Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea — Robert E. Buswell