Master Seong-cheol Sunim

Master Song-chol (1912-1993) was one of the most influential Korean Seon masters of his time. He was considered to be the modern embodiment of buddhist knowledge as it has been practised by the Korean people for more than 1,600 years. He was the 7th Patriarch of the Chogye Buddhist Order.

In 1967, Master Seong-cheol Sunim gave teachings offering a new analysis of the core of the Seon school's thought. These teachings can be distilled to three main points:-

First, he asserted that the Buddha's theory of reincarnation was not simply an expedient means, but an established theory that we must believe in. Owing to the fact that samsara, the continuous flow of life and death in accordance with karma, is the most fundamental of Buddhist concepts, he said we must firmly believe in it.

Second, he argued that Buddhism is a scientific religion. Using Einstein's Theory of Relativity and his E=mc2 formula as examples, he explained the Buddhist saying of “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” in a logical manner. He noted that the idea that mass is converted to energy and energy to mass, both neither increasing nor decreasing, is a teaching of the Buddha stated explicitly as the “dharma realm,” and that the continued development of science has proven this to be a precise fact.

Third, he taught that Buddha's teaching lies in the middle path. Like good and evil, mass and energy, flowing into oneness, every contradiction is harmonized into a singularity.”

This skull relic was offered by Hainsa Temple during a relic event in Korea during Spring 2006.