Kim Seong-Uk

10.18399/acta.2016.19.1.008

Korean Buddhism Chosŏn Buddhism SON Ch’oŭi Ŭisun Confucianization

This article explores the distinctive transformation of Korean Sŏn Buddhism through the vigorous interactions that took place between Buddhism and Confucianism in late Chosŏn. Many literati during this period supported Buddhism financially and ideologically. They made large donations to monasteries and temples and advocated harmony between Buddhism and Confucianism. Some of them even developed their own insights into Buddhism by reading Buddhist texts, studying doctrines, and denouncing kanhwa Sŏn technique, the major practice of the Korean Sŏn tradition of the time. This yanban approach challenged the traditional Sŏn Buddhist notion that intellectual activities would hinder the goal to which only Sŏn could lead. The nineteenth-century Sŏn master Ch’oŭi Ŭisun embraced the yangban intellectual approach to Buddhism. In doing so, he not only removed the distinction between Sŏn meditation and Kyo doctrinal studies but also unified Buddhism and Confucianism in the Confucian dominant society of late Chosŏn by interpreting Confucian practices from a Buddhist perspective.