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Cultivating Original Enlightenment

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Wŏnhyo (617–686) is the dominant figure in the history of Korean Buddhism and one of the most influential thinkers in the Korean philosophical tradition. Koreans know Wŏnhyo in his various roles as Buddhist mystic, miracle worker, social iconoclast, religious proselytist, and cultural hero. Above all else, Wŏnhyo was an innovative thinker and prolific writer, whose works cover the gamut of Indian and Sinitic Buddhist materials: Some one hundred treatises and commentaries are attributed to him, twenty-three of which are extant today. Wŏnhyo’s importance is not limited to the peninsula, however. His writings were widely read in China and Japan, and his influence on the overall development of East Asian Mahāyāna thought is significant, particularly in relation to the Huayan, Chan, and Pure Land schools.

In Cultivating Original Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies’ Collected Works of Wŏnhyo series, Robert E. Buswell Jr. translates Wŏnhyo’s longest and culminating work, the Exposition of the Vajrasamâdhi-Sûtra (Kŭmgang Sammaegyŏng Non). Wŏnhyo here brings to bear all the tools acquired throughout a lifetime of scholarship and meditation to the explication of a scripture that has a startling connection to the Korean Buddhist tradition. In his treatise, Wŏnhyo examines the crucial question of how enlightenment can be turned from a tantalizing prospect into a palpable reality that manifests itself in all activities. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)

Citation	Buswell, Robert E., Jr. Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wǒnhyo's Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra (Kǔmgang Sammaegyǒng Non). International Association of Wŏnhyo Studies' Collected Works of Wŏnhyo 1. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2007.

Table of Contents About the Book Texts Translated Quotes

• Prefacevii
• Abbreviations and Conventionsxi

Part 1: Study

• I Contemplative Practice in the Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra3
• II The Writing of the Exposition17
• III The Exposition as Commentary28

Part 2: Wŏnhyos Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra: An Annotated Translation

• ROLL ONE47
• Part One: A Statement of Its Main Idea47
• Part Two: An Analysis of the Themes of the Sūtra48
• Part Three: An Explication of the Title50
• Part Four: An Exegesis of the Text57
  • Section One: Prologue57
  • Section Two: Main Body62
    • First Division of Contemplation Practice: Rejecting All Characteristics of Sense-Objects to Reveal the Signless Contemplation65
• ROLL TWO116
  • • Second Division of Contemplation Practice: Extinguishing the Mind
      Subject to Production in Order to Explain the Practice of Nonproduction116

• • • Third Division of Contemplation Practice: The Inspiration of Original Enlightenment137

• • • Fourth Division of Contemplation Practice: Abandoning the Spurious to Access Reality166
• ROLL THREE211
  • • Fifth Division of Contemplation Practice: Sanctified Practices Emerge
      from the Voidness of the True Nature211

• • • Sixth Division of Contemplation Practice: Immeasurable Dharmas
      Access the Tathāgatagarbha243

• • Section Three (A): Dhāraṇī (Codes)271
  • Section Three (B): Dissemination271

• Appendix: A Schematic Outline of Wŏnhyo's Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra309
• Notes335
• Glossary of Sinitic Logographs377
• Bibliography385
• Index411

Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra (Kŭmgang Sammaegyŏng Non)

Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt. महायान Tib. ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ། Ch. 大乘

sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经