Study on the Teachings of the Founding Teachers on ‘the Enlightenment of Yogācāra and ‘the Enlightenment of Seon'

Abstract

All Buddhist teachings focus on solving the suffering of all living things, which reincarnate in perpetuity through entrapment in a state of unenlightenment (無明). Bodhidharma, the founder of Chinese Chan Buddhism, brought the teachings of Buddha from India to China and unfolded those teachings in a way that was fitting to the character of the Chinese people. Dharma gained the heart of unbreakable diamond (金剛不壞心) through wall-gazing (壁觀), taught the way of satori by entering one‟s nature through non-attachment to words and writings/special transmission outside the scriptures/mind-to-mind transmission, and established Chan Buddhism in China by this means. Ultimately, Chan is a way to gain sudden enlightenment by eliminating unenlightenment, which is the root of suffering, and considers the core of asceticism to entail learning to „exceed the form (相) of the boundary on the outside, and be silent without confusion on the inside‟ 1 . On the other hand, the path of Yogācāra (唯識) Buddhism comprises achieving nirvana by cleaning one‟s „(afflicted) consciousness (識)‟, which is the source of all suffering, and considers achieving Wisdom (智) of „the level of mere