Cultivating Original Enlightenment

I. Contemplative Practice in the Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra

 I. Contemplative Practice in the Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra The original enlightenment of each and every sentient being is constantly enlightening all sentient beings . . . , prompting them all to regain their original enlightenment. —VajrasamŒdhi-sûtra, chapter 4 East Asian Buddhism is founded on the assurance that the prospect of enlightenment is something innate to the mind itself and inherently accessible to all living creatures. This doctrine of “original enlightenment,” along with its related teaching of the “womb (or embryo) of buddhahood,” is basic to most of the indigenous schools of East Asian Buddhism and holds pride of place within the Korean tradition as well. Given, however, the delusion we persistently face in ourselves and the evil we see surrounding us every day, it is obvious that the fact of being enlightened does not mean that we have necessarily learned to act enlightened. How, then, can enlightenment be turned from a tantalizing prospect into a palpable reality that manifests itself in all our activities? How, in other words, can we recover the enlightenment that is said to be innate in our minds and make it a tangible force in our daily lives? These are the crucial questions that the eminent Silla exegete Wõnhyo (617–686) seeks to address in his KÅmgang sammaegyíng non, which I translate here as the Exposition of the VajrasamŒdhiS ûtra (or Book of Adamantine Absorption).1 Wõnhyo is the vaunt-courier of Korean Buddhist scholasticism and arguably the most important monk ever produced within that tradition. Koreans primarily know Wõnhyo in his various roles as mystic, thaumaturge, iconoclast, and proselytist, and more recently even as touchstone of nationalunification ideology. But above all else, Wõnhyo was a commentator, whose religious insights are expressed almost exclusively through scriptural exegesis . In his Exposition of the VajrasamŒdhi-Sûtra, Wõnhyo brings to bear all the tools acquired through a lifetime of scholarship to the explication of a scripture that has a startling, even unique, connection to the Korean Buddhist tradition. I will explore Wõnhyo’s associations with the Vajrasamâdhi-sûtra in the section on the writing of the Exposition, but for now let it suffice to say that it is Wõnhyo who first saw outlined in this sûtra a way of cultivating original enlightenment systematically. Wõnhyo explored the issue of original enlightenment and its recovery elsewhere in his writings, but never in such detailed and thorough a manner as we find in his Exposition of the VajrasamŒdhi-Sûtra. As one of the last— if not the last—of his writings, the commentary presents Wõnhyo’s views on  Part 1: Study enlightenment and practice in their most sustained and mature form. In earlier writings, such as his influential commentary and autocommentary on the Awakening of Faith (Kisillon hoebon),2 Wõnhyo follows that treatise in describing the one mind as having two distinct, but complementary, aspects : an absolute, “true-thusness,” aspect; and a conventional, “production -and-extinction,” aspect. Through this treatment, Wõnhyo could demonstrate that the mind was simultaneously deluded and yet enlightened , explaining how it was that sentient beings could be “originally” enlightened and yet still have to progress through a process of “acquiring” enlightenment. In this Exposition, however, Wõnhyo instead explores the applications in practice of original-enlightenment thought. Specifically, Wõnhyo examines here original enlightenment’s soteriological role: that is, the way in which the enlightenment that is foundational to the mind actively motivates ordinary, deluded sentient beings to aspire to become enlightened buddhas. In Wõnhyo’s presentation, the notion of original enlightenment is transformed from an abstract concept into a practical tool of meditative training. Wõnhyo’s analysis discerns in the VajrasamŒdhis ûtra a map of six sequential types of meditative practice, which culminate in the “contemplation practice that has but a single taste.” In Wõnhyo’s account of this process of contemplation practice, the ordinary affective consciousnesses are transformed into an “immaculate consciousness,” wherein both enlightenment and delusion are rendered ineluctable and all phenomena are perceived to have but the “single taste” of liberation. In his Exposition , therefore, Wõnhyo fuses his ontological outlook with his view toward practice, synthesizing around the “contemplation practice that has but a single taste” the various religious and intellectual currents then prominent in Silla Buddhism. For all these reasons, the Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra has long been viewed within the...