
Cultivating Original Enlightenment
Wonhyo's Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra (Kumgang Sammaegyong Non)
University of Hawai'i Press
Published on 31. December 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
432 pages
978-0-8248-7927-3 (ISBN)
Description
Wonhyo (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 Wonhyo in his various roles as Buddhist mystic, miracle worker, social iconoclast, religious proselytist, and cultural hero. Above all else, Wonhyo 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. Wonhyo'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 Mahayana 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 Wonhyo Studies' Collected Works of Wonhyo series, Robert E. Buswell Jr. translates Wonhyo's longest and culminating work, the Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra (Kumgang Sammaegyong Non). Wonhyo 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, Wonhyo examines the crucial question of how enlightenment can be turned from a tantalizing prospect into a palpable reality that manifests itself in all activities.
Introduction by Robert E. Buswell Jr.
In Cultivating Original Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of Wonhyo Studies' Collected Works of Wonhyo series, Robert E. Buswell Jr. translates Wonhyo's longest and culminating work, the Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra (Kumgang Sammaegyong Non). Wonhyo 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, Wonhyo examines the crucial question of how enlightenment can be turned from a tantalizing prospect into a palpable reality that manifests itself in all activities.
Introduction by Robert E. Buswell Jr.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Honolulu, HI
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
544 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8248-7927-3 (9780824879273)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Robert E. Buswell, Jr holds the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Humanities at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is also Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and founding director of the university's Center for Buddhist Studies and Center for Korean Studies.
Translation