Ven. Daehaeng founded the Hanmaum temple choir in the first year of her public mission. It was an unusual move at a time when most Buddhists gave little or no thought to music. The main purpose of the choir was so that more people could easily underst...
Ven. Daehaeng founded the Hanmaum temple choir in the first year of her public mission. It was an unusual move at a time when most Buddhists gave little or no thought to music. The main purpose of the choir was so that more people could easily understand her teachings and pursue the attainment of “Juingong” (主人公 One's own pristine inner-self or self-nature; a master, or the governor of self). She called the choir’s hymns/songs “seonbeop-ga” (禪法歌) meaning “songs to meditate by.” At that time most Buddhist hymns were called “chanbul-ga” (讚佛歌), meaning “praise Buddha songs,” and were sung to praise buddhas and bodhisattvas. No matter how good a painting or sermon is, it is difficult to sing or listen to a song dozens or hundreds of times. In this respect, Ven. Daehaeng’s choir was an excellent means to propagate her teaching of Hanmaum through music.
Except for the two hymns “Hanmaum Seonwon-ga” and “Formless Verse of Impermanence (無相偈頌), all of the lyrics for the 68 Seonbeop-ga are based on Daehaeng's verses. “Formless Verse of Impermanence” was written by a prison inmate and is based on Huineng’s verse explaining that all things are in essence empty and formless). For the music, there were a total of 15 composers, including Seo Chang-up, and Kim Dong-hwan; Kim Dong-hwan wrote the most with 12 songs.
These hymns promoted the practice of Daehaeng Seon meditation, and their spirituality and beauty conveyed the purpose and essence of Daehaeng Seon. However, as a musical genre, they are limited in terms of Western musical standards. I hope the album of chants with the recording of Hanmaum Yojeon (“the essence of Hanmaum”) may some day be welcomed into the religious community of traditional Korean Buddhism to be enjoyed by all. I look forward to seonbeop-ga being diversified into other genres (children's songs, hip-hop, rap, fusion, etc.) suitable for the music sensibilities of future generations and spreading beyond the Hanmaum Buddhist community to the world at large to become another form of world music.
[Key Words]
Seonbeop-ga, Hanmaum choir, Hanmaum chants, Daehaeng Seonbeop-ga, Buddhist chants.