Wonhyo
All Buddhist teachings are different views of the One Mind, so their disputes can be reconciled rather than fought out.
Placement
Silla monk and the most prolific Buddhist author of Korea: all doctrines are aspects of the One Mind, and their disputes can be harmonised.
Key ideas
- One Mind
- Harmonising disputes (hwajaeng)
- Commentary on the Awakening of Faith
Influence
Influenced by 2
Nagarjuna
influenced by
In his commentary on the Awakening of Faith Wonhyo held that Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka negates without affirming, Yogacara affirms without negating, and the Awakening of Faith does both. Wonhyo, Daeseung gisillon so; Daeseung gisillon byeolgi; A. C. Muller (ed.), Wonhyo: Selected Works (Collected Works of Korean Buddhism 1, 2012)
Evidence: AI draft
Nagarjuna › c. 150–250
Vasubandhu
influenced by
Wonhyo used the Yogacara of Vasubandhu’s line, above all its storehouse consciousness, to explain how the one mind of the Awakening of Faith both awakens and errs. Wonhyo, Daeseung gisillon so; S. Lee, “On the Ālayavijñāna in the Awakening of Faith: Comparing and Contrasting Wŏnhyo and Fazang’s Views”, Religions 10 (2019)
Evidence: AI draft
Vasubandhu › c. 350–430
Influenced 1
Fazang
influenced
Fazang’s commentary on the Awakening of Faith drew on Wonhyo’s earlier commentaries, though the two read the treatise’s storehouse consciousness and buddha-nature differently. Fazang, Dasheng qixin lun yiji; S. Lee, “On the Ālayavijñāna in the Awakening of Faith: Comparing and Contrasting Wŏnhyo and Fazang’s Views”, Religions 10 (2019)
Evidence: AI draft
Fazang › 643–712
Works
Wonhyo’s reading of the Awakening of Faith as a key that unites all Mahayana teachings in the One Mind; it shaped Fazang and East Asian Buddhism.
Position
Wonhyo read the conflicting doctrines of Chinese Buddhism – the emptiness teaching in Nagarjuna’s line, the Yogacara of Vasubandhu and the teaching of buddha-nature – as partial perspectives on one truth. His key was the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana and its One Mind with two aspects: unchanging suchness, and the mind as arising and ceasing. In his commentaries and his treatise on harmonising disputes (hwajaeng) he argued that each position is right from its own angle and false only when made absolute. His commentaries shaped Fazang; modern Korea sees him as a founder of a unified Korean Buddhism. Of some eighty works ascribed to him, about twenty survive.
Life & context
Wonhyo was born in 617 in the Korean kingdom of Silla and became a monk. Twice he set out with his friend Uisang for Tang China; according to a famous legend, a night in an old tomb convinced him that all things arise from the mind, and he turned back. Later he broke his vows, fathered the scholar Seol Chong and preached among ordinary people. He died in 686.
Further main works
- Ten Approaches to Harmonising Doctrinal Disputes (Simmun hwajaeng non, 7th century, fragments)
- Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi Sutra (Geumgang sammaegyeong ron, late 7th century)
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