Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

Gyeongheo was the great Sŏn master estimated as the restorer of modern Korean Sŏn. After he attained enlightenment, he restored and founded Sŏn centers traveling the Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Chungcheong Provinces. In 1899, he launched a Retreat Society (結社). Gyeongheo’s Retreat Society conducted a significant role in the history of Korean Buddhism, especially Sŏn Buddhism. In this article, I reexamine Gyeongheo’s Retreat Society relating his life and thinking. Gyeongheo was concerned with two matters of the idea of practice; one is to show the right way of practicing Sŏn criticizing heterodoxies, the other is to reason about the hope of the Rebirth in the Tusita Heaven (兜率上生) as the vow (願). Why does a Sŏn practitioner hope to reborn in the Tusita Heaven? Gyeongheo preferred Maitreya faith to Pure Land faith, because Tusita Heaven is easier to go to than Pure Land. Gyeongheo’s Maitreya faith was the faith of going to Tusita Heaven, not the faith of coming from Tusita Heaven. Gyeongheo’s Tusita Heaven was not the practice, but the mere vow. Gyeongheo considered practice as the practice of Sŏn. Lastly, I indicate the problems in Gyeongheo’s view on Pure Land. He revealed two problems, because he understood that Pure Land referred to Yogacara Buddhism. One problem is that he criticized Pure Land faith from the perspective of non-Pure Land Buddhism, so he did not properly understand the idea of Pure Land Buddhism. Unlike the previous Sŏn masters, he did not say “recite Amitabha’s name with Sŏn.” In other words, Gyeongheo’s idea of the practice was not a co-practice. In conclusion, this was Gyeongheo’s idea of the practice of Retreat Society in Gyesamun .