Although Yuan Xiao is little known in the West, he is still highly respected in the East, especially in his native South Korea. He has written nearly 90 philosophical works and is obviously a prolific writer. Many of these works still exist in whole or in part, and Buddhist monks and individuals interested in Buddhism and self-awareness all over the world are still studying them. His philosophy continues to be taught in schools all over the Korean peninsula, and his works are still as influential in modern times as they were centuries ago.
He deeply respects these works because they deeply understand the power of perception to define reality. Like all great sages and founders of religious or philosophical traditions, Yuan Xiao did not start to establish a school or become famous, but only lived when some experiences changed his way of thinking, and then he felt it necessary to share his truth with others.
His basic doctrine is that perception shapes and defines the world that a person experiences. One's secular life or religious life is also defined by one's interpretation of experience. The concept of "true spirituality" or rejection of spiritual life is also the result of people's acceptance of "truth" in life, but as Yuan Xiao explained, acceptance or rejection depends entirely on personal interpretation and judgment.
In Yuan Xiao's teaching, life is essentially like a glass of water. Water is water; What you add to water will make it bitter or sweet, but water is just water. Therefore, everyone is responsible for the taste of their own water.
His foresight is comparable to that of parmenides (485 BC), Zhi Nuo (465 BC) and protagoras (490-420 BC), which is particularly interesting in parmenides's works. Zhi Nuo's philosophy is completely opposite to protagoras's. Today, Yuan Xiao's teachings are not only still considered relevant, but also recognized for their transformative power on people's lives.
Early life and enlightenment
Little is known about Yuan Xiao's early life. He was born in a sleeping Buddhist family (present-day Korea), and no one knows anything about them except that they are so-called civilians who follow the Buddhist tradition. Like all his peers, he grew up in traditional Korean Buddhism. At the age of further study, he decided to go to China to learn Buddhism from his masters. It was during this trip that he realized.
Yuan Xiao emphasizes the actual emptiness of the universe, there is no "darkness" or "light", only itself, what it is, and there is no label.
According to Yuan Xiao's famous story, he walked a long way. When night fell, he was tired and thirsty. He found a place he thought was a cave and climbed in. He groped across the ground in the dark, and his hand touched a bowl full of rain. He drinks water before going to bed.
When he woke up the next morning, he found that the "bowl" was a rotten skull filled with old water, rotten leaves and maggots. He slept in a grave. He was very ill and vomited, and began to escape from the grave-it was time for enlightenment.
Yuan Xiao was thirsty, so he drank the water from his skull, thinking that he had found a bowl of water in the cave. When he realized that the "bowl" was a rotting skull and the "cave" was a grave, he was frightened until he stopped to think that the "bowl" was the same as the skull and the "cave" was the same as the grave. He has gone to sleep, and the only thing that has changed is his view on these things.
Skull and grave were always skulls and graves-he was always grateful for them-until his past experience made him judge that a skull and grave were "bad" and a bowl and cave were "good". There is no difference between these things themselves. The only difference is his view on these things.
His explanation of skulls and graves makes them "good" in the dark and "bad" in the light, but these things themselves have not changed. This gave him a great enlightenment, that is, "thinking determines good or bad", which only means that personal perception creates people's so-called "good" or "bad" values, while the object itself may be neither.
Realizing the importance of new understanding, Yuan Xiao gave up his trip to China and returned to his hometown. He became a teacher and devoted himself to inspiring students. At the same time, he has always realized that he is a student and has been studying. Historian John Kohler commented:
Not only did he create a unique Korean Buddhist philosophy, but some of his works also influenced the greatest Buddhist thinkers in China and Japan. He said to his enlightenment that "everything is one, and this is empty" embodies his metaphysical basis, that is, the principle that everything is connected. He called it "thinking about good and evil". .. reflects his view that the mind exists, and delusion and consciousness are only caused by thoughts and feelings. (300)
The only thought of Yuan Xiao's philosophy is the universality of existence. The reality is only "yes". If one admits the universal unity of existence, he can get rid of the restriction on the interpretation of that existence, which will lead one to judge some things as "bad" and others as "good".
Yuan Xiao's idea.
Yuan Xiao's experience of skulls and graves convinced him that the sensory world was an illusion. A person thinks that everything he sees is influenced by how he learns the world, by the experience of others and himself, and by the explanation of that experience within the scope of his own teaching. If a person is afraid of skulls and graves since childhood, stumbling into graves to find skulls will be interpreted as a bad experience; But this is just an explanation, not a reality.
When a person learns to really look at the world without preconceived judgments and these acquired perceptions, he will realize that everything is one, and there is no difference between people and things. Everything comes from a heart, and everything a person experiences is a part of that heart. The trick is to recognize this and realize the existence and full significance of the concept of unity, but to do this, we must first awaken.
People are so comfortable with their dreams that when they are threatened, they are unwilling to let go and cling to their dreams. Wonhyo tried to alleviate people's fears by writing a paper about the philosopher Ashvaghosa's book The Awakening of Desire. Ashvaghosa felt sorry for people because they were so blind and confused, and he tried to encourage them to seek something higher than the pursuit of eating, drinking and physical happiness. Wonhyo's comments on Ashvaghosa's works simplify teaching. It emphasizes the actual emptiness of the universe. There is no "darkness", no "light", no "life" and no "death", only itself, what it is, no label.
People tend to label things. Once labeled, they claim to know what those things are and what they mean, but those labeled things will never be what people think. Just because a person thinks he is right on his own label and then finds others who agree with his own label and subsequent worldview does not mean that these labels are right.
Once a person wakes up from obsession and self-satisfaction, they can realize the fact that one heart and everything are one. Humans came to this world to achieve this goal, because only here will they face so many misguided temptations, so once they are recognized, the bright light will shine more clearly.
The connection with Greek philosophy
Wonhyo is compared to two distinct Greek philosophical traditions: monism-claiming that reality is one-and relativism, which holds that what anyone thinks is true is true. The philosopher parmenides founded the Eleatic School, which teaches monism-reality is unified in essence, but different because of sensory perception. For example, a tree may look different from people, but its appearance is different and its essence is different. Zhi Nuo, a student of Elijah in parmenides, tried to prove his tutor's point of view through a series of logical paradoxes, which are still being discussed and confused.
Compared with Yuan Xiao's point of view, monism claims that existence is the same, which makes one thing "bad" and another "good" only through sensory perception. People have learned how to define the existence of these things and how to treat one thing more important than another. Interestingly, Yuan Xiao's vision is also related to the relativist protagoras, who claimed that "man is the measure of everything", which means that everyone's perception of reality is true for that person. If one person thinks a drink is too hot and another person thinks the same drink is too cold, according to their previous understanding of "hot" and "cold", both are correct.
Yuan Xiao's idea is completely consistent with these two philosophical views, and there is no contradiction, because he also believes that existence is one, but he also believes that what one claims is true-at least until one understands the real truth. According to Yuan Xiao, true spirituality-understood as an understanding of truth-can be used by anyone who abandons appearance. At this point, he completely conforms to the philosophy of parmenides and Zhi Nuo.
At the same time, before a person is ready to accept the real spiritual and enlightenment road, a person's interpretation of reality will remain a person's truth-as protagoras said-a person claims that the skull is a terrible object or that it is correct. A useful bowl depends on how a person grows up and what he accepts as truth.
Just as Yuan Xiao's viewpoint bridged the gap between monism and relativism philosophy in ancient Greece, it solved the doctrinal differences of Korean Buddhist schools. Kohler wrote:
In order to understand the logical basis that Yuan Xiao used to reconcile the doctrinal differences between different sects and doctrines, we need to look at his Ten Methodologies for Reconciliation of Doctrinal Disputes, which aims to achieve the coordination of differences related to Buddhist teachings. There, he used interpenetrating metaphysics to prove that there were no obstacles between arbitrarily imposed conceptual structures, which triggered a fierce debate among various sects of Buddhism in East Asia. Based on his insight into the unity of all things, because they all started from "one heart", Yuan Xiao was able to reconcile the different interpretations of Buddhism into a unified theory, because they were all manifestations of a real primitive theory. (300-30 1)
Yuan Xiao's "one heart"-his philosophical vision of existence-is the unity of everything, and there is no difference. Everything that distinguishes one person from another, one race from another, one social stratum from another, one philosophy or religious belief from another is perception. And explanation. Reality itself is unified, and everyone shares this unity with everything else; Only failure to realize this will lead to differences and interference.
heritage
Yuan Xiao's vision initially only influenced Korean Buddhism, and later his influence spread all over China and Japan, which further aroused repercussions. Yuan Xiao can make the concept of enlightenment easier to understand by emphasizing the Buddha's ideal of unity, how he failed to grasp the truth of objective reality and how he explained it so clearly. Enlightenment is no longer the lofty goal of ascetic monks, or even an ideal, but just a way to live a better and more peaceful life. By realizing that everything is one, one will be freed from the illusion of the senses and can stop wrong behavior and reaction to the environment.
In his philosophy, Yuan Xiao's point of view is also very close to Plato, another Greek philosopher. Plato tells how one must get rid of the belief in the shadow reality on the cave wall in order to see the real objects that project these shadows in the cave fable in the seventh volume of the Republic. Yuan Xiao's teachings touched many people, but interestingly, many religious institutions with different views on Buddhism refused to cooperate or compromise with each other, even though Yuan Xiao skillfully coordinated them.
Yuan Xiao himself said that if they knew the reality of "One", they would realize that religious differences were just another misleading label that led to conflicts and hindered understanding. From the past to the present, what resonates so strongly among readers is Yuan Xiao's overall view of the human family.