This treatise attempts to look into the views of Buddhist emancipation and' life and death of Hanam and Tanhuh who were representadve Seon(Zen) priests and at the same time learned priests of the first and second half of the year of Korean Baddhism of...
This treatise attempts to look into the views of Buddhist emancipation and' life and death of Hanam and Tanhuh who were representadve Seon(Zen) priests and at the same time learned priests of the first and second half of the year of Korean Baddhism of the last century. Buddha could freely choose to live or die by getting out of the transmigration of souls and achieving Buddhist eman챠pation through winning the self-struggles to overcome the suffering of life and death which consists of activitt-consdousness(業譜) caused by delusion. Therefore, the views of Buddhist emandpation and life and death that Buddha suggested can be the views of Buddhism and the world. Hanam believed that based upon the recognition of transience and ecstasy, which is an attribute of existence, what we have to do is to do the Seon(Zen)-Buddhist meditation and only if we become ascetics who can do the Zen-Buddhist meditation well, we can be free from life and death. Han Am's recognition, which made him not to be obsessed with the body that he considered as a corpse, can be found in a passage when Tanhuh insisted to move from Sang wonsa because he thought there would be a war in the 26th year of the sexagenary cycle, which was the year rieht before the Korean War broke out, Hanam himself said 'to live and to live, to live there to live' emphasize that he would not go to the south and would stay with Sangwonsa. Hanam's attitude to 'die while sitting still' and his consideration of life and death as a single entity could finally protect Sangwonsa from its total destruction by fire. In the position that Hanam showed despite of the mortal crisis, it is revealed that he had the clear recognition of 'I am a disciple of Buddha',thorough faith in Buddhism that 'Buddha did this in this kind of situation', and the way of thinking that 'Please set a fire quickly' based upon the consideration of life and death as a single entity. Hanam's dignified behavior in spite of the fatal situation can be found only within those who can incarnation the teachings of Buddhism which suggest the unsubstantial world view throughout the whole body. Tanhuh, as well, said that "there is no life and death in mind and that mind did not come from anywhere and thus there is no death". He calls penertrate of this fact as 'spiritually enlightened'. Also, he said that "there is no life and death for ascetics". This is because it is only taking off the old, shabby clothes, which cannot be considered as death. This and Mahayana Buddhism have a lot in common, since the latter stresses that there is originally no life and death. Hanam and Tanhuh are similar in this way. However, Tanhuh had a premonition of the upcoming war based upon the principle of the science of divination he learned, so he moved the documents he translated to Youngeunsa in Sam-cheok and went down to the south to go to Tong dosa ,Baeklyunam. It would be better to consider the fact that Han Am, of course, was a old preceptor aging to become 80 years old and Tanhuh, who entered the Buddhist priesthood, was only becoming forty and had a longer time to live and a lot of things to do. Despite that, Tanhuh carried out his plan of going to the south for two times. Hanam, who was almost 80 years old, remained, but 37-year-o1d Tan Heo, who had youthful vigor, left Sangwonsa for 'the future of the 23 to 24-year-o1d monks who were first in line to succeed their master'. Tanhuh, who went to the south, moved around many places, but he went back to Sangwonsa after the reclamation of Seoul on September 28, 1950, since he worried about Han Am's health conditions. Nevertheless, he went back to the south because of the retreat of January 4 caused by the intervention of the Communist: Chinese army. As a result, the documents were safe from the conflagration. Not only that, based on what he learned from the principle of the science of divination and in case of the Ul-jin Sam-cheok red guerrillas' infiltration, Tan huh moved his translated together documents of new Avatamsaka sutra(新華嚴經合論) and he himself moved to a different place. The documents were primarily prepared by a reguest of Hanam, but Tanhuh, with all of his undivided attention and efforts, completed them. Afterward, right before the occurrence of the party strife between celibacy monks(獨身憎) and have wife monks(有妻僧) of Odaesan, Tan Heo once again moved his documents to Youngeunsa and he himself moved elsewhere. After the conflict was over, Tanhuh returned to Odaesan. While Tanhuh showed the model of a learned priest who scrived not to leave the letters, Han Am did the one of a Seon(Zen) priest who freed himself from the obsession of them. Consequently, it is not necessary to emphasize the difference between the ways of recognizing the reality of Hanam and Tanhuh in the critical situation as the death given by the war. Although their recognition of the Buddhist emancipation and life and death was the same, there still was adifference of the methods that they used to cope with the situation. That is the similarity and difference between Han am's view of Buddhist fundamental emancipation based upon a Seon tradition of one bowl(一鉢禪風) and Tanhuh's view of life and death based upon emphasizing 'now and here'