Abstract

Jinul (1158-1210) is one of the most important scholar monks in Korean history. His view on the awakening in Zen Buddhism, called 'sudden awakening and gradual practice,' has recently been criticized by Seongcheol (1912-1993), one of the representative monks in Modern Korea. Seongcheol's criticism isbased upon the fact that Jinul's argument on sudden awakening and gradual practice cannot be allowed in authentic Zen Buddhism according to his own observation. Instead, Seongcheol argues that real awakening need no further practice. The choice between Jinul and Seongcheol might become a serious concern among Zen practitioners. We should, however, be concerned rather with what their arguments can signify to their own contemporary humanbeings. We should understand their arguments against their historical backgrounds and social contexts. Especially, Seongcheol also argues that we should practice strenuously in order to achieve Zen awakening. This argument does not accord properly with Chinese traditional Zen Buddhism in that Huineng, the founder of Chinese Zen Buddhism, bases his own argument on the thesis that true awakening needs no prior practice. Jinul and Seongcheol, though commonly understanding the power of such thesis, recognized the peril of no practice. So there is their emphasis on practice, though there is the difference of before or after the awakening between them. The two Korean Zen monks can contribute commonly to us in that they caution the perils of easily misunderstanding authentic Zen awakening and wrongly conceiting themselves over their own awakening.