Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark: The Korean Buddhist Master Chinul’s Excerpts on Zen Practice (Korean Classics Library: Philosophy and Religion)

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual—that is, something intrinsic to the mind that is achieved in a sudden flash of insight or something extrinsic to it that must be developed through a sequential series of practices. This “sudden/gradual issue” was one of the crucial debates that helped forge the Zen school in East Asia, and the Korean Zen master Chinul’s (1158–1210) magnum opus, Excerpts, offers one of the most thorough treatments of it in all of premodern Buddhist literature. According to Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is both sudden and gradual. Zen practice must begin with a sudden awakening to the “numinous awareness”—the “sentience,” or buddha-nature—that is inherent in all “sentient” beings. Such an awareness does not need to be developed but must simply be recognized (or better “re-cognized”), through the unmediated experience of insight. Even after this initial awakening, however, deeply engrained proclivities of thought and conduct may continue to disturb the practitioner; these can only be removed gradually as his or her practice matures. Chinul’s “sudden awakening/gradual cultivation” soteriology became emblematic of the Buddhist tradition in Korea. Excerpts, translated here in its entirety by the preeminent Western specialist in the Korean Buddhist tradition, goes on to examine Chinul’s treatments of many of the quintessential practices of Zen Buddhism, including nonconceptualization, or no-thought, and the concurrent development of meditation and wisdom, as well as, for the first time in Korean Zen, “examining meditative topics” (kanhwa Sŏn)—what we in the West know better as kōans, after its later Japanese analogues. Fitting this new technique into his preferred soteriological schema of sudden awakening/gradual cultivation was no simple task for Chinul. Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark offers an extensive study of the contours of the sudden/gradual debate in Buddhist thought and practice and traces the influence of Chinul’s analysis of this issue throughout the history of the Korean tradition. Copiously annotated, the work contains extensive selections from the two traditional Korean commentaries to the text. In Buswell’s treatment, Chinul’s Excerpts emerges as the single most influential work written by a Korean Buddhist author. __Numinous Awareness is Never Dark__ examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual: that is, something achieved in a sudden flash of insight, or through the gradual development of a sequential series of practices. In __Excerpts__, the Korean Zen master Chinul (1158-1210) offers one of the most thorough treatments of this “sudden/gradual issue” in all of premodern East Asian Buddhist literature, including extensive quotations from a wide range of his predecessors in Chinese and Korean Buddhism on the sudden/gradual issue. In Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is actually both sudden and gradual: an initial sudden awakening to the numinous awareness, the buddha-nature, that is inherent in all sentient beings, followed by gradual cultivation that removes the deep-seated habitual proclivities of thought and conduct that continue to appear even after awakening. Chinul’s preferred approach of “sudden awakening/gradual cultivation” becomes emblematic of the subsequent Korean Buddhist tradition. In addition to an extensive study of the contours of the sudden/gradual debate in Buddhist thought and practice, the book also includes a complete, copiously annotated translation of Chinul’s magnum opus. In Buswell’s treatment, Chinul’s __Excerpts__ emerges as the single most influential work ever written by a Korean Buddhist author. Half-title Page -- Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Conventions -- Part I.: Translator's Introduction -- Chinul's Excerpts and the Sudden/Gradual Debate in East Asian Buddhism -- Excerpts as Chinul's Religious Autobiography -- The Title of the Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record -- Zongmi's and Chinul's Treatments of the Four Chan/Sŏn Schools -- Numinous Awareness and Tracing Back the Radiance -- Excerpts and the Debates Concerning Sudden vs. Gradual Enlightenment Sudden Awakening/Gradual Cultivation: Chinul's Preferred Soteriology of Moderate Subitism -- Different Soteriological Schemata -- Problems with Radical Subitism -- Radical Subitism and the Kanhwa Technique -- Contemporary Critiques of Chinul's Moderate Subitism -- Must Kanhwa Sŏn Entail Radical Subitism? -- Excerpts' Legacy in Korean Buddhism -- Excerpts and the Fourfold Collection of the Monastic Curriculum -- Excerpts' Pivotal Place in the Korean Buddhist Tradition -- Part II.: Translation Chinul's Excerpts from the "Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record" with Inserted Personal Notes: An Annotated Translation -- Translator's Note -- I Chinul's Preface [741a] -- II Excerpts from the Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record -- III Chinul's Exposition -- Appendix: Complete Table of Contents of Chinul's Excerpts -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Translator Examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual - that is, something intrinsic to the mind that is achieved in a sudden flash of insight or something extrinsic to it that must be developed through a sequential series of practices. According to Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is both sudden and gradual. Translated, Annotated, And With An Introduction By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.