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Master Uisang(625-702) introduced the Avatamska philosophy on his return from China where
he had studied for ten years. He taught the philosophy at ten temples and made Haein-sa the
center of the new movement. Thus Haein-sa became the most important place for studying
the Avatamsaka philosophy.
The Avatamsaka School (Hwaom-jong in Korean; Hua-yen in Chinese; Flower Garland in
English) is a synthesis of Mahayana buddhist teachiings, written down in Chinese in a sutra
of the same name in the 5th century. in this sutra there is a description of the Haein
(Ocean-seal) Samadhi(meditative state), and it is from this that the temple derived its name.
This samadhi is a stage in which an enlightened person sees everything as it is.
For, when all desires and fancies cease, the world can be seen as it really is, peaceful, like
the surface of a calm sea. This total tranquility, unpetturbed by the vicissitudes of life, is the
stage of the Buddhas and it is also our Real Nature; Haein Samadhi teaches us to be as we
are , and find our Ture Nature.
On the basis of this ideology, Haein-sa was founded by Master Sunung and his disciple,
Ijong, on the 16th of the 10th month, 802 C.E. in the 3rd year of the reign of the 40th Shilla
king, Aejang (r. 800-809). These two monks were decendants of Master Uisang and at first
they built a small hermitage on the place where the Main Hall is located today. The
hermitage was greatly enlarged by the king out of gratitude to the two monks for curing
the queen of a pernicious illness (see Wandang-am). The queen was suffering from a terrible
tumor. No-one could cure her and she was close to death. The king, in desperation, sought
out the two masters and begged for their help. The master lay the queen on a bed in the
hermitage and tied one end of a long string around the tumor and the other end around a
large tree just outside the hermitage. Then they chanted all night.
In the morning the queen's tumor had disappeared and the tree had withered. From that
day to this, Haein-sa has produced many great masters of rhe Hawam-jong, like masters
Huirang, Kyunyo ,and Uich'on.
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