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Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul's Korean Way of Zen
Chinul (1158–1210) was the founder of the Korean tradition of Zen. He provides one of the most lucid and accessible accounts of Zen practice and meditation to be found anywhere in East Asian literature. Tracing Back the Radiance, an abridgment of Buswell’s Korean Approach to The Collected Works of Chinul, combines an extensive introduction to Chinul’s life and thought with translations of three of his most representative works.
246 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 9, 2010
This is really a required book for understanding Korean Son (Zen). Chinul is considered to be the founder of Korean Son even though it preexisted him. He is the one that brought the scholastic (non-Zen) and Son schools together and came up with theory and practice that allowed them to work together. He also introduced hwadu (koan) work into Korea from China and his work on hwadu is still used today.
This is a scholastic book but the author was also a Son monk (and a Theravadan one as well) in Korea before coming back to America to get his doctorate. So he has both an understanding of the intellectual side as well as how it has been used in practice.
This is a scholastic book but the author was also a Son monk (and a Theravadan one as well) in Korea before coming back to America to get his doctorate. So he has both an understanding of the intellectual side as well as how it has been used in practice.
March 23, 2020
It’s hard to know whether a lot of this Buddhist philosophy makes sense. There’s some discussion of karma, rebirth, and miracles, all of which I’m ok with tentatively dismissing. There’s also enough criticism of other schools of thought that I can imagine how Chinul’s ideas could also be criticized by other Buddhists. Since the ultimate goal includes a lack of conceptualisation, it’s understandable that descriptions of it aren’t very easy to get or reconcile. Moreover, in many cases, the content of the philosophy is information about the mind and experience, and it can only be verified through experience; no amount of reading and theorizing will confirm if what I’m reading is accurate.
My main interest in reading this book was to better understand Buddhist goals and methods of meditation. I think I understand the goals well and I understand the methods better than I did before. The methods described here seem a bit unorganized though, as if there should be some kind of sequence or criteria for choosing and incorporating different practices, but they aren’t quite discussed with that level of clarity.
As it’s presented here, you should want to be a Buddha (or bodhisattva) so that you can help other people escape the cycle of birth and death (and escape it for your own sake as well). But if I don’t believe in rebirth, then should I follow the methods outlined here, or would I be giving up the only things that matter — this life and its contents? Knowing where to stop would help, but there are two problems there. 1) The path outlined here must (it’s stressed that it MUST) begin with a sudden awakening, which frames the rest of it in terms that may already go past the limit of my interest. 2) Practices are consistently discussed in terms of getting you toward Buddha-mind, but not so much in terms of other effects, and those other effects are what I may be interested in.
I think the author did a great job at giving context before introducing Chinul’s work and providing notes to fill in the gaps where readers like me may not get certain inferences or references.
My main interest in reading this book was to better understand Buddhist goals and methods of meditation. I think I understand the goals well and I understand the methods better than I did before. The methods described here seem a bit unorganized though, as if there should be some kind of sequence or criteria for choosing and incorporating different practices, but they aren’t quite discussed with that level of clarity.
As it’s presented here, you should want to be a Buddha (or bodhisattva) so that you can help other people escape the cycle of birth and death (and escape it for your own sake as well). But if I don’t believe in rebirth, then should I follow the methods outlined here, or would I be giving up the only things that matter — this life and its contents? Knowing where to stop would help, but there are two problems there. 1) The path outlined here must (it’s stressed that it MUST) begin with a sudden awakening, which frames the rest of it in terms that may already go past the limit of my interest. 2) Practices are consistently discussed in terms of getting you toward Buddha-mind, but not so much in terms of other effects, and those other effects are what I may be interested in.
I think the author did a great job at giving context before introducing Chinul’s work and providing notes to fill in the gaps where readers like me may not get certain inferences or references.
March 12, 2018
An excellent and highly detailed account of Buddhism, meditation, and liberation from Bojo Chinul, a Korean Seon (Zen) master of the 12th century. Drawing most of his inspiration from Huineng, Zongmi, and Dahui, he expresses the Ch'an (Zen) message of the Chinese masters: the necessity of sudden awakening to one's intrinsically undefiled Mind, the importance of gradually cultivating this awakening in daily life, and his various techniques for creating this awakening no matter your experience. While he is known for endorsing Dahui's "hwadu" method, his original contribution is the idea of using any particular phenomena to "trace back the radiance" of your mind until you meet with the original and indescribable Mind-source. This book is not for beginners, but it is truly a gift for anyone interested in the project of Zen liberation.
July 31, 2017
Clearly an enlightened sage. The mediocre review is because a lot of the text concerns pedantic and academic matters.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews