He continues:

After awakening, you must be constantly on your guard. If deluded thoughts suddenly appear, do not follow after them-reduce them and reduce them again until you reach the unconditioned. Then and only then will your practice reach completion.<sup>41</sup>

Jinul's reservations about the inordinate dependence on sudden enlightenment goes so far even as to confirm the possibility of corruption.

Although the person who has suddenly awakened is the same as the Buddhas, the habitenergies which have built up over many lives as the rooted. The wind ceases, but the waves still surge; the noumenon manifests, but thoughts still invade.<sup>42</sup>

Although Jinul recognizes temptations and the possibility of the degeneration of awakening, he should not mean a qualitative deficiency of the Buddha Nature in the initial awakening. If so, it would undermine the very formative tradition of his Seon Buddhism. As Watson articulates potentiality as "possibility of the actual" rather than of random events,<sup>43</sup> the full capacity of the Buddhahood should be inherent in the person. To be coherent, Jinul had to keep the position that sudden awakening and gradual cultivation were not two di fferent experiences. He would have argued that they occur in phases in the conventional sense of time but concur in the ultimate dimension. This is the point where Aristotle's notion potentiality becomes suitable to logically explain this paradoxical nature. Sudden awakening and gradual cultivation can be understood temporally. They can be also understood as the quantitative and functional expansion or fulfillment of a single unified substance.

If juxtaposed with the pair of Aristotle's hylomorphism, there are three possible candidates, in general, in *Secrets on the Cultivating the Mind*, for the notion of potentiality particularly as passive agents. The active agen<sup>t</sup> in Jinul's discussion would be Buddha. He says:

Although we know that a frozen pond is entirely water, the sun's heat is necessary to melt it. Although we awaken to the fact that an ordinary man is Buddha, the power of dharma is necessary to make it permeate our cultivation. When that pond has melted, the water flows freely and can be used for irrigation and cleaning.<sup>44</sup>

Therefore, the first candidate as passive agen<sup>t</sup> is the awakened monk, who has the potential to successfully keep his Buddha Nature; the second is the awakened monk, who has lost the potential to sustain the Buddha Nature; the third is the ordinary people, who lack the potential to actualize the Buddha Nature. What makes them di fferent is the conditioning; how they are prepared as passive agents for the divine transformation or revelation of the Buddha. They can either ontologically flourish or be locked in Manusyaloka. The three previous quotes of Jinul that I have already made in this section explain the first two candidates. The following quotes describe the ordinary people as potentiality not to become Buddha:

Alas, many have broken their ties with the spiritual family of the Buddha in this manner. Since they neither understand for themselves nor believe that others have had an understanding-awakening, when they see someone without spiritual powers they act insolently, ridiculing the sages and insulting the saints. This is really quite pitiful!<sup>45</sup>

<sup>40</sup> SCM, 147.

<sup>41</sup> SCM, p. 148.

<sup>42</sup> Ibid.

<sup>43</sup> (Watson 1898, p. 338).

<sup>44</sup> SCM, p. 143.

<sup>45</sup> SCM, p. 144.

When the ordinary man is deluded, he assumes that the four grea<sup>t</sup> elements are his body and the false thoughts are his mind. He does not know that his own nature is the true dharma-body.; he does not know that his own numinous awareness is the true Buddha. He looks for the Buddha outside the mind.<sup>46</sup>

One who is deluded and turns his back on it passes between the six destinies, wandering in samsara for vast numbers of kalpas.<sup>47</sup>

My classification of the seeker as potentiality is meant only for convenience. They all belong to the same category of being. The question is whether they are receptive to the Buddha Nature. What is common is that they all remain as potentialities for the actualization or oblivion of the self-nature.

#### **5. Cultivation of Buddhahood as Actualization**

When juxtaposed and compared with Aristotle's hylomorphism, Jinul's eclecticism needs to respond to an important and challenging question. How does the ontological unity work in his framework? Since his position maintains that the awakened monks need to continue to work on wholesome qualities, how can the notion of awakening of the Seon school, which presumes the instantaneous perfection of all meritorious qualities, be logical and meaningful? In responding to this question, Jinul focuses on the presence of the practical obstacles in the phenomenal world and repeats the necessity of further spiritual works. Jinul says:

Although he has awakened to the fact that his original nature is no di fferent from that of the Buddhas, the beginningless habit-energies are extremely di fficult to remove suddenly and so he must continue to cultivate while relying on this awakening ... he constantly nurtures the sacred embryo.<sup>48</sup>

He continues:

After awakening, you must be constantly on your guard. If deluded thoughts suddenly appear, do not follow after them.<sup>49</sup>

His response does not actually answer the question of why, particularly in *Secrets on Cultivating the Mind.* The only possible answer would be his denial of the substance of cultivation. Since the evil that the awakened monk has to face is not a substantial entity coming out of his internal desire or will but the illusion from the internal habits, like a plume of smoke after a fire is put out, there is no deficiency in the initial awakening. Jinul explains:

"Thus you eliminate evil, but you eliminate without actually eliminating anything; you cultivate the wholesome, but you cultivate without really cultivating anything either".<sup>50</sup>

To further strengthen his argumen<sup>t</sup> for unity, a functional interpretation of Aristotle's actualization would be helpful. According to CAO's functional understanding of actualization, there is no substantial and qualitative di fference between potentiality, which is the awakened monk in Jinul's case, and actuality, which is the monk, who has reached the ultimate state of enlightenment. The only di fference is quantitative. It means that there is a spectrum or gradation of the functioning of Buddhahood. CAO articulates his functional unity as follows:

<sup>46</sup> Ibid.

<sup>47</sup> SCM, p. 144.

<sup>48</sup> Ibid. 49

SCM, p. 148.50

Ibid.

The ground for the likeness between potentiality and actuality is that both of them belong to one being; in other words, they share one and the same essence and substance and merely di ffer in degrees.<sup>51</sup>

In other words, actualization is the revelation of two ways of being or di fferent grades of one being rather than an ontological transformation accompanying a substantial and qualitative change. In *Secrets on Cultivating the Mind*, Jinul nuanced this mode of actualization with the idea of functional unity. Like a human embryo containing the same essence as that of an adult, the awakened monk on cultivation, as potentiality, does not lack any of the Buddha Nature. The awakened monk, like a growing child, needs to continue to ge<sup>t</sup> nutrients and strengthen his spiritual muscle with the internal power. Jinul used an example of the growing child:

This (cultivation) process can be compared to the maturation of a child. From the day of its birth, a baby is endowed with all the sense organs just like everyone else, but its strength is not ye<sup>t</sup> fully developed. It is only after many months and years that it will finally become an adult.<sup>52</sup>

If this actualization of Buddhahood is put in CAO's Aristotelian language, the potentiality whose source of change comes within should be free from external hindrances to become actuality because the Buddha Nature is internal. CAO says:

For those things whose source of becoming is internal, if nothing external hinders it and necessarily it will become an actual substance, then this is a potential being.<sup>53</sup>

Jinul says:

If thought moment after thought-moment he continues to train in this manner, does not neglect to maintain his training, and keeps Samadhi and prajna equally balanced, then lust and hatred will naturally fade away and compassion and wisdom will naturally increase in brightness; unwholesome actions will naturally cease and meritorious practices will naturally multiply.<sup>54</sup>

Thus, when Jinul talks about the further cultivation of the awakened monk, he did not think of a change of essence but of a functional growth or fulfillment. Di ffering from the ordinary people, who willfully reject the dharma, the awakened monk has the full capacity of Buddha. However, the capacity remains potential until it is fully revealed to the phenomenal world through both spiritual and moral expressions. Buswell summarizes the full functioning as the realization of "the noumenal essence, which is the perfect, bright, and self-reliant foundation of the dharmadhatu, and the phenomenal function which manifests objects in the sensory realms in all their diversity".<sup>55</sup> In other words, both awakening and cultivation experiences are a single event. They are simply spread in the conventional time. But, in the ultimate sense of time, from the viewpoint of the Buddha as form and actuality, they are not separate but unified. Jinul says, "Sudden awakening and gradual cultivation are like the two wheels of a cart: neither one can be missing".<sup>56</sup>

#### **6. Conclusions: Jinul's Eclecticism as an Enhanced Moral Grounding**

I hope that my utilization of Aristotle's hylomorphism has helped clarify and support the coherence of Jinul's eclecticism on the tension between sudden awakening and gradual cultivation. I have argued

<sup>51</sup> (Cao 2015, p. 469).

<sup>52</sup> SCM, p. 145

<sup>53</sup> (Cao 2015, p. 479).54

SCM, p. 149. 55

(Chinul and Buswell 1983, p. 54) 

<sup>56</sup> SCM, p. 149.

that Aristotle's notion of potentiality and actuality is useful in expounding the logical coherence of the harmony and unity of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation. Although both aspects seem to be separate experiences in the conventional sense of time, they are ontologically united in the ultimate sense of time. The former is the form and essence of the latter. The latter is the revelation of the former in the phenomenal world. They are in sync and unity in the sense that the cultivation is determined for its capacity by the awakening and that the awakening manifests its form through the gradual cultivation leading to the full functioning of the self-nature. The only di fference between the one with the initial awakening and the one with the full enlightenment is not qualitative but quantitative in functionality.

In addition to this philosophical discussion, I want to conclude my discussion by highlighting some moral implications of Jinul's eclecticism, which I believe is particularly related to our conference theme: *Religious Conflict and Coexistence: the Korean Context and Beyond*. Religious tensions and conflicts have been around since the beginning of human history, let alone other types of secular conflicts. The current conflict in Palestine calls to mind the animosity between Israel and Canaan of the old biblical narrative; the history of Islamic Conquest makes many contemporary Christians fear the Muslims as their neighbors; religious extremists armed with fundamentalist theology threaten the modern society based on plurality; and unprecedented Buddhist violence against the Rohingya people in Myanmar challenges our faith in the traditional religion of pacifism.

Although there are numerous reasons for the causes of these conflicts, one of the easiest explanations is the disparity between what religions teach and what their followers actually do. None of the major known world religions promotes division and violence. None of them tolerate discrimination, hatred, and closed-mindedness. Thus, the problem is obviously the lack of integrity. According to Oxford Learner's Dictionary, integrity is a state of whole and not divided. It refers to the moral quality that brings honesty and transparency in our moral thought and action. It ultimately leads to the whole person balanced between moral knowledge and practice. Although intended for spirituality, Jinul's eclecticism o ffers a strong moral lesson for the negative experiences, which our religious communities have created and su ffered. In the last part of *Secrets on Cultivating the Mind*, Jinul articulates the balance between samadhi and prajña.<sup>57</sup> Although he talks about the spiritual qualities of calmness and alertness in both the absolute and the relative dimension, a desire for the whole person is nuanced. This thought confirms that sudden awakening and gradual cultivation should be in sync. Both experiences represent the entirety of what it means to be a Buddha. In Buddhist metaphysics and soteriology, being a Buddha is not di fferent in nature from being a whole person particularly in the moral context.

To be more specific, Jinul's emphasis on harmony between the capacities of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation is intended to cultivate the qualities of the two opposite poles of our moral attitude. The former represents calm inner reflection, non-doctrinal spirituality, and the growth of personal spirituality and the latter represents the outer manifestation of the inner qualities, alertness, inquisitive attitude, and engagemen<sup>t</sup> in collective e ffort for the common good. The former is deconstructive in nature and the latter is constructive. To become a Buddha or to fully realize Buddha, one has to ge<sup>t</sup> both elements finely tuned. If the former gets extreme, it would fall to self-indulgence. If the latter gets too extreme, it would fall to self-denial. The solution should be to let these two experiences happen simultaneously in practical situations, which I believe is the characteristic of the whole person.

Let me articulate further this moral teaching of Jinul's eclecticism, developed out of my Aristotelian interpretation, with a metaphor of the house. There are two di fferent modes of having moral consciousness. One is to build the house of moral consciousness and the other to deconstruct the house of moral consciousness. The former as the metaphor for gradual cultivation is our capacity, desire, and duty to continue to investigate, expand, and sustain our wisdom to build good moral relations and community and create a divine sense of order and establish norms. We need to constantly experience

<sup>57</sup> (Kim 2014, p. 95).

and engage in the phenomenal world to manifest our true nature by attaining the wisdom of the Buddha whose countless forms need to be discovered and cultivated. It is our active exploration of the truth. In the meantime, the latter as the metaphor for sudden awakening is our capacity to shut down the gate of the outer world and hear the inner voice. It brings things together to absorb the illusory world and ultimately concentrate on the Buddha Nature. It seeks the self-nature within the mind.

Therefore, Jinul's version of hylomorphism of sudden awakening and gradual cultivation naturally leads to the cultivation of the whole person based on three specific virtues: authenticity, transparency, and unity. First, those who have successfully harmonized the initial spiritual enlightenment with the ensuing cultivation should be more authentic than those remaining in either pole in manifesting the wholesome qualities of the Buddha Nature. Since their moral practices come from a deep inner realization of the truth, they are more than followers of moral rules. They themselves feel, learn, and awaken to the dharma penetrating all dimensions of life, including the moral dimension. They themselves become the author of morality by doing what they sincerely believe is true and right. Just as their spiritual work is guided and empowered directly by the self-nature, their action to benefit humanity and the world is genuine and authentic. Their bodhisattva acts are natural and spontaneous. Second, the harmonizer's moral act is consistent and persistent because of the transparency between the inner and outer self. It means that the Buddhist practitioner has a firm foundation for his moral will. He would not be easily swayed by unwholesome internal desires and external pressures and coercion. His moral principles anchored in the spiritual enlightenment of Bodhisattva would not be compromised by any threat or temptation. Third, the unity of awakening and cultivation would perpetuate the positive cycle of the inspiration of the Buddha Mind and its translations into a variety of forms and shapes of compassion; it would ultimately help the seeker with the whole person character be versatile in engaging wisely the constantly changing phenomenal world and its moral contexts. The deconstructive spirit from sudden awakening would help the seeker transcend any type of barrier to make karuna prevail in life. The constructive energy from cultivation would help the seeker find a strong sense of order and direction and constantly engage in new ways to express and explore the endless possibility of the dharma. This whole person character inspired by Jinul's eclecticism should be considered valuable for not only intra-religious but also inter-religious interactions. All religions are on the same journey of finding the Truth but taking di fferent paths and having di fferent experiences. Di fferences should not be impediments to mutual dialogue but be catalysts to spark intellectual and spiritual curiosity to expand and deepen the understanding of each. I believe that while the idea of gradual cultivation/sanctification would play the role, for any religion, in constructing and sustaining a tradition, sudden awakening/enlightenment/faith would provide a power to transcend any conceptual, spiritual, and geographical barrier. Both elements would bring mature spirituality and developed skills and they would enrich the tradition of each. In particular, when they are harmonized in a spiritual life, a better interaction across di fferent religious communities can be anticipated.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding. **ConflictsofInterest:**Theauthordeclaresnoconflictofinterest.

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