근대 한국 비구니 선수행 양상과 印可에 대한 문제

Abstract

The early modern era was that of confusion and strife when there had been conflicts between the Buddhist system established by the arrival of Japanese Buddhism and that of Korean Buddhism trying to inherit its purity. At that time institutions for Buddhist monk’s education and practice focused mainly on Bhikshu, and there were no separate facilities for Bhikshuni. Bhikshuni’s practice centered on investigating the phrase, and there were some Bhikshunis who got enlightenment through rigorous practice. The purpose of this paper is to ponder on the facets of Bhikshuni’s Seon practice and the form of approval of the enlightenment. Considering the fact that there have been no Bhikshunis who attained enlightenment within the modern educational system of practice, I think it is meaningful to trace the practice process, the spirit for seeking the Dharma of those Bhikshunis who attained enlightenment, and their enlightenment. The fact is that Bhikshuni practitioners in the early modern period had almost no backing of scriptural study and they firmly believed in their masters. Investigating hwadu (key phrase) and checking the study through estimation by question and answer was indispensable conditions for attaining enlightenment. Those Bhikshunis who attained enlightenment showed their spiritual realm relevant to hwadu practice through question and answer with many masters of high virtue in many areas and helped one another. Those masters of high virtue gave Dharma-transmission verses to those Bhikshunis who attained enlightenment or granted them Dharma-names together with sentences in the form of verse as a guidebook for practice. The so-called Dharma-transmission verses that younger disciples handed down were the phrases chosen from Buddhist scriptures or treatises not for Dharma-transmission but for hwadu practice. Bhikshunis who showed their high spiritual realm relevant to hwadu practice taught younger disciples and also gave Dharma-words to them at the beginning of retreat. Comparing the above-mentioned practice form of Bhikshuni practitioners and that of modern practitioners, I think the Jogye Order’s educational system should be reconsidered. The Jogye Order should ponder on first-doctrine-later-Seon 先禪後敎 rather than first-Seon-later-doctrine 先敎後修, estimation by a master of high virtue through question-and-answer for effective genuine hwadu Seon practice and a proper system for the approval of the enlightenment, qualification for a Dharma-transmission verse of an approved practitioner and recipes for using the verse in guiding and teaching practitioners, and discrimination between Dharma-age and spiritual realm relevant to hwadu practice for boosting the heated spirit of seeking the Way. The crux of phrase-observing Seon is self-and-others’ way of checking the enlightenment. The plan of checking the enlightenment lies in a master of high virtue. However, seeing that many eminent masters of high virtue in the early modern period led Bhikshuni practitioners to get the approval of the enlightenment from many masters in many regions to say nothing of one master, the Order also should extra carefully suggest some measures for this. The elaborate steps of Seon study and Seon master’s scrupulous warning staffs should be added to the Seon practice process of practitioners who aim to see one’s own nature and accomplish Buddhahood through phrase-observing Seon. These basic reforms should be made at the Order’s level.