“You must devote yourself wholeheartedly to questioning meditation (Ganhwa Seon) moment after moment… When practice is maintained in this manner, a sudden sound may fling open the gate of truth, and you will see the true nature of reality in all its clarity. In that instant, you will have become a Buddha right where you are standing. That is enlightenment.”

– Great Seon Master Jinje

In Ganhwa Seon practice, students are given a traditional “topic of inquiry” (hwadu) from the Seon tradition and taught to focus all of their attention on examining what the Seon masters of old meant by these seemingly enigmatic sayings. Jinje Sunim often confers on his students the hwadu, “What was your original face before your parents gave birth to you?”

Moving to doubt.

As inquiry into one’s hwadu deepens through intensive meditation, the mind’s inability to understand what the ancient masters meant by the hwadu creates an intense questioning―what the Seon tradition calls the “sense of doubt” (euijeong). This component is vital to shatter defenses and barriers deeply embedded in our psyche, and distinguishes this Korean style of meditation from other forms of Buddhist meditation commonly practiced in the West. In addition to meditation, at the heart of his Ganhwa Seon is a kind of verbal combat between teacher and student also focused on the perplexing hwadu.

Over time, through this meditation and dialogue, doubt is so intensified that the student’s mind is absorbed in the hwadu, questioning flows continuously and effortlessly, and the student enters a single-minded state where he or she is oblivious to everything in one’s life except this questioning.

Eventually there is a breaking point.

And it is at this breaking point that “the self”, which limits our point-of-view, is removed and the mind opens to the boundless perspective of enlightenment. Often this is called “sudden” enlightenment but it may be better described as “whole” or “entire.” With this awakening, the student’s mind becomes identical to the minds of the ancient patriarchs and teachers of Seon and he or she understands intuitively what the Seon masters of old meant by their hwadus. Thus, the mind of the Buddha and patriarchs is passed on to yet another generation.

As Prof. Buswell, Seon expert from UCLA explains, according to the Korean Seon teachings, this is the ultimate paradox of religion—that to truly have certitude one must first have doubt. By challenging our own fundamental beliefs, challenging our own understanding of self, right and wrong, enemy and friend, Korean questioning meditation opens the possibility of a entirely new way of perceiving our world, a new way of thinking in which clinging to our own views alone is not enough.