Toui

Toui (d. 825) is traditionally regarded as the first master to bring Chan Buddhism from China to the Korean peninsula, earning him a foundational place in the history of Korean Seon. He traveled to Tang China, where he studied under masters in the lineage of Baizhang Huaihai and the broader Hongzhou school of Mazu Daoyi. Having received dharma transmission, he returned to Silla Korea and established himself at Jinjeonsa Temple on Mount Gaji, where he began teaching the direct, experience-based approach to awakening that characterized the Hongzhou tradition.

Toui's efforts to transplant Chan to Korea met with considerable resistance from the established scholastic Buddhist schools, which dominated Silla religious life and viewed the new meditation movement with suspicion. He is said to have attracted only a small number of students during his lifetime, and it was left to his successors — particularly his dharma heir Yeomgeo — to build upon his foundation. Despite the limited immediate impact, Toui's transmission established the Nine Mountain Schools of Seon, the network of meditation lineages that would eventually reshape Korean Buddhism. He is honored as the founding patriarch of the Gaji Mountain school, the first of the Nine Mountains.