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  Advance Praise for

  A Bird in Flight Leaves No Trace

  “Although not often highlighted in popular Buddhist books, Korean Zen teachers have played a crucial role in the preservation, continuation, and reinterpretation of the Chinese Zen tradition since medieval times. This commentary on the teachings of the great Chan master Huangbo (d. 850) by an eminent contemporary Korean Seon master introduces Western readers and practitioners not only to that vital role but also to the vitality of the contemporary Korean Zen tradition. Seon (Zen) Master Subul is a preeminent teacher of ganhwa Seon, ‘the Zen of examining meditative topics,’ and he orients his approach to Huangbo’s text around this technique, thus combining the best of medieval Chinese Zen and contemporary Korean Zen. This book should be inspiring to serious practitioners of Zen in particular, but also to all Buddhist practitioners.”

  — Mu Soeng, resident scholar at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

  “How wonderful to have a clear new translation of the Zen teachings of Huangbo, one of the greatest masters of Zen’s golden era. Korean Seon Master Subul’s commentary is a marvelous addition to the original text, adding refinement to the meaning. Strongly suggested reading for all practitioners.”

  — Richard Shrobe, guiding teacher, Chogye International Zen Center of New York

  “This meticulous and beautiful translation of a contemporary Korean Zen master’s commentary on a Chinese Buddhist classic will benefit countless readers on their journey to spiritual awakening.”

  — Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies at Yale University

  REALIZE THE NATURE OF MIND WITH THIS CONTEMPORARY KOREAN COMMENTARY ON A CLASSIC OF ZEN LITERATURE.

  The message of the Tang-dynasty Zen text in this volume seems simple: to gain enlightenment, stop thinking there is something you need to practice. For the Chinese master Huangbo Xiyun (d. 850), the mind is enlightenment itself if we can only let go of our usual way of thinking.

  A Bird in Flight Leaves No Trace is a bracing call for the practitioner to let go of thinking and liberate the buddha within.

  “How wonderful to have a clear new translation of the Zen teachings of Huangbo, one of the greatest masters of Zen’s golden era. Korean Seon Master Subul’s commentary is a marvelous addition to the original text, adding refinement to the meaning. Strongly suggested reading for all practitioners.”

  — Richard Shrobe, guiding teacher, Chogye International Zen Center of New York

  “This meticulous and beautiful translation of a contemporary Korean Zen master’s commentary on a Chinese Buddhist classic will benefit countless readers on their journey to spiritual awakening.”

  — Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies at Yale University

  Contents

  Translators’ Introduction

  Preface by Seon Master Subul Sunim

  Part I

  Essentials of Transmitting the Mind-Dharma

  (Chuanxinfayao)

  Pei Xiu’s Preface

  1.Realize the One Mind and You Will Be a Buddha

  2.No-Mind

  3.The Mind That Is Originally Pure

  4.Wise Nourishment

  5.The Dharma Body Is Like Empty Space

  6.The Mind and Sense Objects Are One and the Same

  7.The True Dharma of the One Vehicle

  8.Cultivating the Way

  9.The Mind of the Great Vehicle

  10.Mind Is the Buddha

  11.The Mind-to-Mind Transmission

  12.Mind and Realms

  13.A Person without Concerns

  14.Acting Effortlessly

  15.Huineng Becomes the Sixth Patriarch

  Part II

  The Wanling Record

  (Wanling lu)

  1.The Way Means Awakening to the Mind

  2.No-Mind Is the Way

  3.Put Your Mind to Rest

  4.No Mind and No Dharma

  5.Nothing to Learn

  6.There Is Only the One Mind

  7.The Bodhisattva Boundless Body

  8.The Enlightenment Site of Truth165

  9.Originally There Is Not a Single Thing

  10.Why Did Bodhidharma Come from the West?

  11.The Simile of Mercury

  12.The Buddha’s Loving-Kindness and Compassion

  13.The Most Strenuous Practice

  14.The Practice of No-Mind

  15.Transcending the Three Realms of Existence

  16.Ascending the Hall (Shangtang) Sermon

  The Account of Activities (Xingzhuang)

  17.On Mount Tiantai

  18.The Single-Flavor Seon of Guizong

  19.Repeatedly Slapping a Novice

  20.Prior to the King with the Awe-Inspiring Voice

  21.A Bamboo Hat

  22.Do Not Rely on Even a Single Thing

  23.The Role of a Master

  24.Tracking an Antelope

  25.An Encounter Dialogue with Pei Xiu238

  26.The Goose King

  27.Bestowing a Name

  28.Pei Xiu’s Poem Dedicated to the Master

  29.The Pure Seon of the Tathāgata

  30.A Ram’s Horns

  31.Kāśyapa and Ānanda

  32.Cutting through Wisdom with Wisdom

  33.Seeing the Nature

  34.If One Thought Does Not Arise, That Is Bodhi

  35.The Dharma Gate of Nonduality

  36.No Traces

  37.The Sage Kṣāntivādin

  38.Past, Present, and Future Are Unascertainable294

  39.The Dharma Body Is Unascertainable

  40.All Relativity Is Eradicated

  41.It Is Hard to See the Genuine Relics of the Buddha

  42.There Is No Dharma to Be Transmitted

  43.Unobstructed Wisdom

  44.How Not to Fall into Practice Ranks

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  About the Contributors

  Translators’ Introduction

  Robert E. Buswell Jr.

  SEON MASTER SUBUL SUNIM is a renowned contemporary teacher of Seon, the Korean analog of the Chinese Chan 禪 school, what we in the West call Zen, following the Japanese pronunciation. The clarion call of the Seon, or “Meditation,” school of East Asian Buddhism is that it is “a separate transmission distinct from the scriptural teachings of Buddhism, which does not rely on words and letters; instead, it points directly to the human mind, so that we may see the nature and achieve buddhahood.”1 What is this nature that, if seen, enables us to achieve buddhahood? And if all living creatures are endowed with this nature and innately have this capacity to be enlightened, as Seon claims, what role remains for religious practice? In other words, if enlightenment is something inherent to the mind rather than a byproduct of practice, what then must people do to claim their true destiny as buddhas?

  Subul Sunim draws on one of the masterpieces of the classical Chan tradition to answer such questions. Essentials of Transmitting the Mind-Dharma (Chinese Chuanxinfayao, Korean Jeonsimbeopyo 傳心法要) was composed by Huangbo Xiyun 黃檗希運 (d. 850), a Chinese master in an incipient Chan lineage that later evolved into the Linji 臨濟 line. The answer of both Subul Sunim and Huangbo is deceptively simple: just stop thinking there is something we need to practice. Then the enlightenment inherent to the mind manifests itself naturally, and we spontaneously receive the transmission of the mind-dharma. In this way, religious practice is perfected through, and simultaneously with, enlightenment itself. This is the quintessential “sudden awakening accompanied by sudden cultivation” (Chinese dunwu dunxiu, Korean dono donsu 頓悟頓修) approach that has inspired Seon practice throughout m
uch of its history.

  Subul Sunim (b. 1953) is the Seon master at the Anguk Seonwon 安國禪院 in Busan, one of the largest lay centers of Buddhist practice in Korea today; we will give a brief biography of him below. Subul Sunim lectures frequently on the Essentials of Transmitting the Mind-Dharma, for in his experience the text inspires Buddhist practitioners to want to understand the true nature of their minds and to seek a sudden awakening to that nature. But Subul Sunim is especially well known in Korea for his innovations in training both monks and laity in meditation. His meditation teaching focuses on an intensive method of questioning that is known in Korean as ganhwa Seon 看話禪, “the Seon of examining meditative topics.”2 We in the West usually know this technique through its later Japanese analogues in kōan (Chinese gong’an / Korean gongan 公案) training.3 Although this type of meditation developed in the East Asian Seon tradition long after Huangbo’s time, Subul Sunim places Huangbo’s text explicitly in the context of ganhwa Seon practice.

  Ganhwa Seon involves examining one of these enigmatic Seon questions, or “topics” (huatou/hwadu 話頭), such as “what was your original face before your parents conceived you?” or “who is dragging around this corpse?” You put all of your effort into examining this question until a deep sense of inquiry or questioning arises. This questioning is what the Seon tradition technically calls “doubt” (yixin/uisim 疑心). Once it arises, you are to focus exclusively on this doubt until it utterly suffuses your mind. Eventually the pressure created in your mind by this doubt becomes so intense that conscious thought will seem as if blocked, no matter which avenue of inquiry you pursue. Subul Sunim explains that these ingeniously contrived topics push meditators “into a dead end, where they are forced to solve the fundamental problem for themselves” (part I, chap. 3). In this dead end, such topics can no longer be confronted according to your usual ways of thinking but only from a new, nonreferential perspective. This experience initiates the transformation from the deluded persons we ordinarily perceive ourselves to be to our inherent status as enlightened buddhas. The reader will see Seon Master Subul referring frequently to the term experience (tiyan/cheheom 體驗) in the course of his commentary; by “experience,” he is referring specifically to this distinctive breakthrough or release that is generated through questioning meditation.

  Ganhwa Seon is widely practiced in Korea today and remains the primary focus of contemplation for most monks and nuns meditating full-time in Seon training halls around the country. Typically in Korea, monks and nuns would take up one of these hwadu, or meditative topics, for the entire three months of a summer or winter retreat, working on their hwadu for ten and often many more hours every day during that period. Most meditators continue their practice during the three-month free seasons of spring and autumn as well, and the most ardent and committed adepts expect to spend many years in such practice before having a breakthrough into awakening.

  After Subul Sunim’s own awakening, earnest laypeople began to ask him to teach ganhwa Seon to them so that they too would have the opportunity for such an experience. Since very few laypeople had the time to devote to three-month retreats, Master Subul fashioned a one-week intensive for them during which he taught them in the traditional Korean fashion, having them repeat the meditative topic over and over in an attempt to raise a sense of questioning. But despite their dedicated practice, these laypeople were not progressing as he hoped. Subul Sunim ultimately recognized that they were not generating a sufficient depth of inquiry, or doubt, over a week’s time to make much progress. Monks or nuns with their whole lives ahead of them to practice might not have a particular urgency about generating this doubt; for them, repeating the question continually until the doubt finally arises might be an appropriate approach. But laypeople did not have the luxury of time; this one-week retreat might be their only chance to gain such an experience. Subul Sunim therefore began to develop an expedient style of ganhwa Seon that dispensed with the preliminary recitation of one of the traditional meditative topics. Instead, he performs a simple gesture and then asks, “What makes me do this?” This is Subul Sunim’s variation on the most basic of all Korean hwadus: “What is it?” (imwotko).4 Seon Master Subul alludes to this same question at the very end of his commentary: “If you know what makes your mouth chew, you will be able to digest the meaning of these words ‘to chew without chewing anything.’ But if you don’t, you will face a sheer precipice. It is not the mouth that chews; it is not I that chews; it is not that there is no chewing. You must directly awaken to this matter for yourself. But if you approach it intellectually, you will never be able to escape the endless cycle of birth and death” (part II, chap. 44).

  Once students have heard his question “What makes me do this?” Seon Master Subul tells them to set the question itself aside and just search for the answer to the hwadu, thus moving directly to the stage of intense inquiry. To discourage thinking about the question, Subul Sunim advises students to examine the hwadu with their “whole body” (onmon euro); he sometimes describes this technique as meditating from the neck down. In this way, rather than just thinking about the question in their heads, meditators feel the doubt as a palpable physical sensation that pervades their entire bodies. Because this inquiry can generate intense sensations and emotions, there can be strong physiological reactions to the inquiry, as if they were blocked on all fronts by a “silver mountain and iron wall that are right before their eyes” (part I, chap. 1), or choking on the “spiky burr of a chestnut” that they can’t spit out or swallow.5 At this point, the sensation of doubt becomes so stifling that it coalesces into the “mass, or ball, of doubt” (yituan/uidan

  疑團), which completely entraps the student. Because these strong physiological reactions may accompany his style of ganhwa Seon, Seon Master Subul strongly discourages laypeople from attempting this practice on their own; he recommends that they try it only in a formal retreat and under the guidance of an experienced teacher.

  Once the doubt becomes so intense that the meditator can no longer bear the pressure it creates, the “silver mountain and iron wall” collapse, and the meditator has an “experience” of breakthrough and release, when “the body feels lighter than a feather, and the mind is completely empty, as if there were no beginning or end. All is cool and refreshing.”6 This is the moment of sudden awakening, the goal of ganhwa Seon training.

  So that students will focus all their energies on their personal practice during the short period of the retreat, Master Subul Sunim also dispenses with much of the formality of the traditional Korean meditation hall. He is not concerned with whether his retreatants maintain correct meditative posture or move occasionally during their sitting practice; he only asks that they keep searching for the answer to the hwadu “What makes me do this?” His retreats are thus noted for their freestyle practice, where meditators are encouraged to practice in whatever way best suits them. The only expectation is that his retreatants devote themselves wholeheartedly to their inquiry for the entire week of the retreat. In similar fashion, Subul Sunim discourages his meditators from spending their brief time during the retreat trying to control their distracted thoughts before focusing on the hwadu, as many Seon masters teach. Instead, if they will just keep returning to the sensation of doubt, such distractions will fade away on their own.

  Deploying this approach to practice, Master Subul Sunim found that laypeople were gaining an authentic experience of ganwha Seon and this was profoundly transformative for them. Throughout his subsequent career, Subul Sunim has especially targeted laypeople for his retreats, and over twenty-five thousand laypeople and monks around Korea and elsewhere around the world have responded enthusiastically to his teachings and found success in his retreats. They have helped support Master Subul Sunim’s continuing efforts to bring ganhwa Seon out of the monastic meditation hall and into the lives of ordinary people. The support he received led to the establishment of the Anguk Seonwon in the southern Korean city of Busan, which has subsequently grown
into a worldwide organization. His success in helping ganhwa Seon students quickly raise what he considers an authentic sense of doubt has become so widely known in Korea that scores of monks and nuns have also now attended his retreats in order to gain a solid foundation going forward for their lifelong practice of this form of meditation. Subul Sunim has gone on to serve as abbot of Beomeo Monastery 梵魚寺 and to become an influential monk in the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism (Daehan Bulgyo Jogyejong 大韓佛敎曹溪宗), but he continues to focus much of his energies on propagating the practice of ganhwa Seon among laypeople and younger monks and nuns.

  GANHWA SEON AND HUANGBO’S TEXT

  Based on his own experience in teaching ganhwa Seon, as we have described above, Master Subul Sunim advocates that this technique is best suited for short bursts of intensive meditation under the guidance of an experienced teacher. In his rendition, this practice is not intended to calm the mind and reduce stress. Just the opposite often occurs, in fact: faced with the realization that we don’t know the most fundamental thing about our existence — how we are able to make even the simplest of gestures — meditators are left frustrated and obsessed with “seeking the answer.” The reactions to ganhwa Seon are intended to be cathartic, shaking students out of their complacency so they are forced to look for their true natures.

  After catalyzing such a breakthrough, however, Subul Sunim’s view is that the hwadu has served its purpose. There is no need to go back to his question or to try another topic. As he often says, after putting yourself through such an intense, and even traumatic, experience, why would you want to start over and do it all again? Ganhwa Seon practice, as he envisions it, is specifically intended for a short-term, intensive period of meditation and is not suitable for intermittent use during an active life in the world. At the end of the retreat, those who have not had a breakthrough are firmly warned to stop the inquiry and not to try to continue with it on their own during daily life; if they wish to try it again, they should enter another retreat later. But even for those who have had a breakthrough or release experience, there is no need to examine other hwadus. All hwadu are designed to generate questioning, and the doubt generated by one hwadu is the same as the doubt generated by all; it would be redundant to restart the process of inquiry.