Gāolí guó Pǔzhào chánshī Xiū xīn jué 高麗國普照禪師修心訣
Secret of Cultivating the Mind by the Koryŏ-State Chán Master Pojo
“The Secret of Cultivating the Mind” (Korean Susim gyŏl 修心訣) by Pojo Chinul 普照知訥 (1158–1210), the Koryŏ Sŏn master and founder of the Korean Chogye-order 曹溪宗 — the most widely-studied and influential of Chinul’s short doctrinal treatises, articulating the dùnwù jiànxiū 頓悟漸修 (“sudden awakening, gradual cultivation”) doctrinal position that is foundational to Korean Sŏn identity
About the work
A one-juan short doctrinal-pastoral treatise in Q-and-A format, articulating Chinul’s signature dùnwù jiànxiū 頓悟漸修 doctrinal position: sudden awakening to the buddha-nature must be followed by sustained gradual cultivation to actualise what awakening has revealed. Taishō T48 n2020. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The most-read of the three Taishō-preserved Chinul treatises and the single short text most diagnostic of Korean Sŏn distinctive doctrinal identity.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. No preface; the text opens directly on the san jiè rè nǎo 三界熱惱 passage — “The three worlds [of saṃsāra] are hot with torment, like a burning house. How could one bear to linger there and willingly receive long suffering? If one wishes to escape saṃsāra there is nothing like seeking the Buddha. If one seeks the Buddha, the Buddha is simply the mind. Where would one seek the mind far-off? It is never separate from the body itself…” The text is structured around a series of hypothetical student-questions, each answered by Chinul with extensive scriptural citation.
Abstract
The text’s central doctrinal move — dùnwù jiànxiū 頓悟漸修 (“sudden awakening, gradual cultivation”) — inherits directly from Guīfēng Zōngmì’s position (see KR6q0091) and through Zōngmì from the earlier Chán doctrinal debate on sudden-vs-gradual. Chinul’s innovation is to integrate this position with the kànhuà 看話 method of Dàhuì Zōnggǎo, producing a Korean synthesis in which: (a) the practitioner first awakens suddenly to the reality of his or her own buddha-nature through direct-pointing Chán teaching; (b) having so awakened, the practitioner then engages in sustained gradual cultivation of the awakened state, using the kànhuà practice as the primary method; (c) the gradual cultivation eventually brings the awakened state into fully actualised manifestation. This three-stage position distinguishes Chinul from the “pure sudden” position that would dispense with cultivation entirely, and from the “pure gradual” position that would deny the authenticity of the initial awakening.
The text proceeds through successive Q-and-A on the following topics: the identity of the buddha-nature with the ordinary mind; the meaning of the zhī 知 (“knowing”) that recognises the buddha-nature; the nature and function of jiànxiū 漸修 cultivation after awakening; the coordination of dìng 定 (samādhi) and huì 慧 (prajñā) in post-awakening cultivation; the role of niànfó 念佛 (Pure Land invocation) in the integrated path; the pitfalls of misreading sudden awakening as rendering subsequent cultivation unnecessary; and the correct relationship between doctrinal study (jiào) and Chán practice (chán).
Dating bracket: notBefore 1190 (beginning of Chinul’s Chŏnghyesa community), notAfter 1210 (his death). Compositional date is often assigned to the early years of the Susŏn-sa community (c. 1205); some scholars prefer a slightly earlier date (1198–1205).
Translations and research
- Robert E. Buswell, Jr. 1983. The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Hawai’i. Standard English translation of the Susim gyŏl as Secrets on Cultivating the Mind; includes extensive contextual apparatus.
- Robert E. Buswell, Jr. 1991. Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean Way of Zen. Hawai’i. Revised / reorganised Chinul anthology including the Susim gyŏl.
- Keel Hee-sung 1984. Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Sŏn Tradition. Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series. Monograph treatment with extended analysis of the Susim gyŏl.
- Park, Sung-bae. 1983. Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. SUNY. Background on the dùnwù jiànxiū position.
- 李智冠 (Yi Chi-gwan) 1989. 《韓國禪學史》.
- 吉津宜英 1986. 《華厳禅の思想史的研究》.
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. 1992. The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea. Princeton. Background on the continuing use of Chinul’s texts in modern Korean training.
- Buswell, Robert E., Jr. 2016. Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark: The Korean Buddhist Master Chinul’s Excerpts on Zen Practice. Hawai’i.
Other points of interest
The Susim gyŏl is the single most influential short Buddhist text in the Korean tradition, and is traditionally memorised by Korean Chogye-order monks during their monastic training. It circulates in numerous vernacular-Korean editions and modern paraphrases, and has the status in Korean Buddhism comparable to the Tánjīng or the Bìyán lù in Chinese — a foundational canonical text with a continuous live interpretive tradition.
The dùnwù jiànxiū formulation that Chinul makes his signature doctrinal position has a long later-history in Korean intellectual debate. In the twentieth century the Korean Chogye-order itself experienced internal controversy over whether Chinul’s dùnwù jiànxiū (which allows for “gradual cultivation” after initial awakening) or the rival dùnwù dùnxiū 頓悟頓修 (“sudden awakening, sudden cultivation”) position (associated with 休靜 Hyujŏng and the Kusŏp’ata line) is the correct Korean Sŏn teaching. The 性徹 Sŏngch’ŏl position (Haein-sa, late 20th century) reopened this debate as a live controversy, producing a substantial modern Korean-language polemical literature on the Susim gyŏl specifically.