Jinul 1158 – 1210

Jinul, called Bojo Guksa, was the most influential Korean Buddhist monk of the medieval period and the principal architect of the Jogye Order, which remains the central tradition of Korean Buddhism. After early training in the Korean Seon (Zen) tradition, he developed a distinctive teaching of sudden awakening followed by gradual cultivation, and a comprehensive integration of Seon meditation with the doctrinal study of the Hwaom and other Buddhist schools. His foundation of the Susonsa monastery on Mount Songgwang in 1200 set the pattern of Korean monastic life for the next eight centuries.

Bojo Jinul was born in 1158 at Tongju in central Korea into a literati family of the Goryeo kingdom. He took monastic ordination in the Sŏn school in his eighth year, passed the Sŏn monastic examination in 1182 at the monastery of Bojesa, and at the same examination convened a small circle of monks to renew the practice of meditation against what he saw as the corruption of Goryeo Buddhism. Reading the Platform Sutra of Huineng, the writings of Li Tongxuan on the Avatamsaka Sutra, and the Records of Dahui Zonggao occasioned three successive awakenings, after which he founded in 1190 the Suseonsa community at Mount Songgwang and rebuilt it into the great Songgwang Temple from 1200.

His Sino-Korean works include the Susimgyeol (Secrets on Cultivating the Mind), the Susŏn Kyŏlsamun (Encouragement to Practice), the Excerpts from the Dharma Collection and Special Practice Record of Master Bojo, the Wŏndon sŏngbullon (Complete and Sudden Attainment of Buddhahood), and the Kanhwa kyŏrŭi-ron (Resolving Doubts about Observing the Hwadu).

Jinul reformed Korean Buddhism by integrating the doctrinal rigour of the Hwaeom school with the meditation practice of Sŏn under the formula of 'sudden awakening followed by gradual cultivation' (don'oh chŏmsu) and made the kanhwa method of meditation on a single critical phrase the heart of Korean Sŏn practice. He is the founding patriarch of the unified Korean Buddhist tradition that survives as the Jogye Order and was honoured by the king as National Preceptor Bojo. He died at Songgwang Temple in 1210.