7. Four-Gate (Sammun) Hwajaeng and the Four Modes of Correlative Thinking

The four modes of correlative thinking examined in Part I—stereoscopic thinking (Ipche, 立體), cyclical thinking (Sunhwan, 循環), empathy (Gonggam, 共感), and convergence (Yunghap, 融合)—form a remarkable structural correspondence with the historical unfolding of Buddhist Hwajaeng thought. The Hwajaeng (和諍) thought of Wonhyo (元曉, 617–686), beginning from the opposition of two terms (二項) and expanding into three-term (三項) and four-term (四項) relations, exhibits at each stage a philosophical structure that corresponds precisely to the laws of correlative thinking in Part I. (Kim Sang-il 2003)

7.1. The Starting Point of Two-Term (二項) Hwajaeng: The Suchness Gate (Madhyamaka) and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate (Yogācāra) → Linkage with Stereoscopic Thinking (Mimesis)

The two-term structure denotes a configuration of two standing face to face. The Suchness Gate can be understood to point to the dimension of essence, and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate to the dimension of change. Put simply, one sees the deep ground, while the other sees the movement manifest before one's eyes.

Translated into a student's daily life, it resembles the relationship between school rules and the actual scene of the classroom. Looking only at the rules, the principles are visible but the complexity of reality is hard to see; looking only at the real scene, it is easy to lose direction. The Suchness Gate and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate let us see these two dimensions together.

Herein lies the reason two-term Hwajaeng connects with stereoscopic thinking: when two different perspectives are set up simultaneously, the depth of reality becomes visible.

In the system of the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (大乘起信論), the starting point of Wonhyo's Hwajaeng is the two-term (二項) relationship of the Suchness Gate (眞如門) and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate (生滅門). The Suchness Gate, as the essence of the mind, deals with the aspect of empty, quiescent numinous awareness (空寂靈知) and corresponds to Madhyamaka (Middle Way) thought. The Arising-and-Ceasing Gate deals with the changes of the phenomenal world and the workings centered on the ālaya-consciousness (阿賴耶識), and corresponds to Yogācāra thought.

The Master Wonhyo integrated these into the One Mind and Two Gates (一心二門). If the Suchness Gate is essence (體)—the essential aspect—then the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate is function (用)—the phenomenal working.

Linkage with Stereoscopic Thinking (Mimesis) in Chapter 2 of Part I: The two-term Hwajaeng of the Suchness Gate and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate corresponds precisely to the logical structure of Daoist mimesis. The Emptiness (空) of Madhyamaka and the consciousness (識) of Yogācāra negate each other yet are subsumed as one within the One Mind (一心).

7.2. The Deepening of Three-Term (三項) Hwajaeng:

The three-term structure is one in which a single mediation enters between the two. It resembles how, when two friends quarrel, the entry of a third perspective makes the structure of the quarrel appear anew. When there are only two, it is a fight over right and wrong, but when a third perspective enters, the relationship begins to move.

The Three-Natures doctrine does not fix the world all at once but views it by distinguishing the level of discrimination, the level of relation, and the level of completion. It thus functions like a staircase on which thought matures one step at a time.

In this respect, three-term Hwajaeng connects well with cyclical thinking, because a movement toward deeper understanding arises as one goes back and forth between the two extremes.

The developed Three-Natures doctrine (三性說) of Yogācāra thought is a sophisticated philosophical tool that expands the existing two-term Hwajaeng of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra into a three-term (三項) relationship. The Three Natures consist of the imagined nature (遍計所執性), the dependent nature (依他起性), and the perfected nature (圓成實性).

The core insight of the Three-Natures doctrine is the proposition that "when the imagined nature is removed upon the dependent nature, that itself is the perfected nature."

The following table presents the transformation of the two-term relationship of the Suchness Gate and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate into a three-term relationship.

Table 7.1 The Binary Relationship between the Suchness Gate and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate

Table 7.2 Transformation of the Suchness Gate and the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate into a Ternary Relationship

Examining its connection with Part 1, Chapter 2, "Cyclical Thinking (Mythos)," the ternary Hwajaeng structure of the Three-Natures doctrine corresponds to the logic of the Buddhist Mythos. The Dependent Nature cyclically mediates between the Imagined Nature and the Perfected Nature, thereby overcoming both nihilism and substantialism at once.

7.3. The Completion of Four-Gate (Sahang) Hwajaeng:

The four-gate structure is a mode of thinking that views four directions together. It is not merely looking forward and backward but like a map that takes in north, south, east, and west at once. With the addition of the Pure Land Gate, Hwajaeng transcends a mere analytical system and comes to embrace even the sense of salvation on which human beings can actually rely and live.

The following table shows the transformation of Hwajaeng, fused with the Pure Land Gate, into a quaternary relationship.

Table 8: Transformation of Hwajaeng Fused with the Pure Land Gate into a Quaternary Relationship

What matters is that the four gates are not separate rooms warring with one another. Each is a different door through which human beings understand the world, and whichever door one enters, all ultimately meet within a larger house.

The connection with empathic thinking also becomes apparent here. Empathy (Gonggam) is not simply imitating the other; it is the attitude of acknowledging that beyond the door one has entered, other doors also exist.

Establishing the Pure Land school (淨土宗) as an independent gate (門) and thereby expanding the structure of Hwajaeng into four gates (四門) is a highly warranted endeavor in reinterpreting the thought of Master Wonhyo for the modern age.

The oppositional structure of the four gates consists of two axes facing each other. The vertical opposition: the Suchness Gate and the Pure Land Gate face each other. The horizontal opposition: the Arising-and-Ceasing Gate and the Three-Natures Gate face each other. Wonhyo resolves this through the logic of opening and merging (gaehap, 開合)—unfolded they are four, yet merged they are one.

7.4. Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter:

The analogy of the four seasons makes Hwajaeng easiest to understand. Just as one cannot say that spring alone is a good season while winter is useless, the four gates of thought each assume a different role. Only when the functions of beginning, growth, reflection, and storage are all present does the whole of life continue.

Our society tends to cling to and live within one particular season. For example, if only growth and speed are emphasized, it becomes a society of perpetual summer, and as a result people grow exhausted and the community withers. Hwajaeng compels us to ask, "In which season is our society now confined?"

Convergent thinking (Yunghap) reads these four seasons as a single grand rhythm. When we understand that the different stages do not collide but revolve in sequence, conflict becomes a matter not of destruction but of rearrangement. The following table shows the relationship between spring, summer, autumn, and winter and the Four-Gate Hwajaeng.

Table 9: The Relationship between Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter and the Four-Gate Hwajaeng

The dynamic meaning of the Four-Gate (四門) Hwajaeng becomes all the more vivid when it is arranged in the cyclical order of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

[Spring (春) — Arising-and-Ceasing Gate] The beginning of life, in which the myriad dharmas sprout from the ālaya-consciousness according to conditions. "When the mind arises, all manner of dharmas arise (心生卽種種法生)."

[Summer (夏) — Three-Natures Gate] The period of practicing intensely in accordance with the law of conditions (the Dependent Nature), discerning the fruit (the Perfected) from the weeds (the Imagined).

[Autumn (秋) — Suchness Gate] The stage of quiet convergence, in which one sets down all phenomena (arising-and-ceasing) and all discrimination (the three natures) and returns to emptiness (śūnyatā, 空), the empty essence.

[Winter (冬) — Pure Land Gate] The rest and vow in which one acknowledges that one's own power is exhausted, immerses oneself completely in the vow-power of Amitābha Buddha, and prepares to be reborn.

The arising of spring (arising-and-ceasing) faces the vanishing of autumn (suchness), and the intense analysis of summer (three natures) faces the unconditional acceptance of winter (Pure Land).

7.5. The Grand Integration of Tathāgatagarbha, Pure Land, Huayan, and Seon:

This section is difficult because it involves so many names, but its core is single: different traditions ultimately employ different vocabularies to address how they understand the potential within the human being and the affirmativeness of the world.

Some traditions emphasize an original luminosity, some emphasize a world of salvation, and still others emphasize a vast web of relations in which everything is interconnected. Though their expressions differ, together they affirm that the human being is not a being cast solely toward despair.

Hwajaeng is precisely the work of reading this common ground. It is a philosophy that reveals that difference of name does not mean utter severance, and that even within difference there is a continuing center.

Tathāgatagarbha (如來藏), Pure Land (淨土), Huayan (華嚴), and Seon (禪宗) share the radiant world of affirmation reached at the end of the analyses of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. The greatest commonality among these four schools of thought is the logic of original enlightenment (bongak, 本覺, being originally enlightened).

Tathāgatagarbha and Pure Land are like two sides of the same coin. Wonhyo said, "The Pure Land is none other than the pure mind (Tathāgatagarbha)," yet he did not deny the actual Western Pure Land. The reason they meet is that they share the logic of Hwajaeng: the movement from negation to affirmation, the unity of self-power and other-power, and the dissolution of the boundary between the ordinary person and the sage.