Tag Archives: East Mountain School

Wŏnhyo

Our next text for study from our sūtra-series is the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra. Firstly, a thank-you is in order for one of our readers, JB, who recently brought this magnificent text to our attention. We are also indebted to Robert E. Buswell, Jr. for his excellent scholarly texts, The Formation of Ch’an Ideology in China and Korea, The Vajrasamādhi Sūtra—A Buddhist Apocryphon; and his Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wŏnhyo’s Exposition of The Vajrasamādhi Sutra. His first work focuses on the doctrinal and historical position of this uniquely “Korean” Ch’an-Sŏn Sutra. (1) Buswell draws the conclusion that the Sutra’s author (circa 685 C.E.) was the legendary monk, ŏmnang, who is reported to have studied under Daoxin, the primary founder of the East Mountain School. As we shall discover within this series its doctrinal and contemplative/meditative dimensions are highly attuned with the East Mountain School—particularly on the notion of “Keeping the One”—Shou-i: read more