Jin Y Park | American University (original) (raw)
Books by Jin Y Park
The Journal of World Philosophies, 2020
Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these... more Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these questions by examining the life and philosophy of a Korean Zen Buddhist nun, Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971). The daughter of a pastor, Iryŏp began questioning Christian doctrine as a teenager. In a few years, she became increasingly involved in women’s movements in Korea, speaking against society’s control of female sexuality and demanding sexual freedom and free divorce for women. While in her late twenties, an existential turn in her thinking led Iryŏp to Buddhism; she eventually joined a monastery and went on to become a leading figure in the female monastic community until her death.
After taking the tonsure, Iryŏp followed the advice of her teacher and stopped publishing for more than two decades. She returned to the world of letters in her sixties, using her strong, distinctive voice to address fundamental questions on the scope of identity, the meaning of being human, and the value of existence. In her writing, she frequently adopted an autobiographical style that combined her life experiences with Buddhist teachings. Through a close analysis of Iryŏp’s life story, Buddhist philosophy and practice in connection with East Asian new women’s movements, and continental philosophy, this volume offers a creative interpretation of Buddhism as both a philosophy and a religion actively engaged with lives as they are lived. It presents a fascinating narrative on how women connect with the world―whether through social issues such as gender inequality, a Buddhist worldview, or existential debates on human existence. By characterizing women’s philosophy as narrative philosophy―a philosophy of life based on lived experience―this book provides readers with a new way of philosophizing that is transformative and deeply connected with everyday existence.
Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp will be of primary interest to scholars and students of Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative philosophy, and gender and Korean studies.
The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A pr... more The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp was in her sixties, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Ŏnŭ sudoin ŭi hoesang) makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism.
The first book in English devoted exclusively to modern Korean Buddhism, this work provides a com... more The first book in English devoted exclusively to modern Korean Buddhism, this work provides a comprehensive exploration for scholars, students, and serious readers. Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism focuses on three key areas: Buddhist reform, Zen revival, and the interrelationship of religion, history, and politics. In Korea, the modern period in Buddhism begins in earnest in the late nineteenth century, during the closing years of the Choson dynasty, which was characterized by a repressive brand of neo-Confucianism. Buddhist reformers arose to seek change in both Buddhism and Korean society at large. The work begins with a look at five of these reformers and their thought and work. The Zen revival that began at the end of the nineteenth century is covered from that period to contemporary times through an exploration of the life and thought of important Zen masters. The influence of Japanese Buddhist missionaries, the emergence of Korean engaged Buddhism, known as Minjung Buddhism, and the formation of modern Buddhist scholarship in Korea are discussed as well.
Buddhism and Postmodernity is a response to some of the questions that have emerged in the proces... more Buddhism and Postmodernity is a response to some of the questions that have emerged in the process of Buddhism's encounters with modernity and the West. Jin Y. Park broadly outlines these questions as follows: first, why are the interpretations and evaluations of Buddhism so different in Europe (in the nineteenth century), in the United States (in the twentieth century), and in traditional Asia; second, why does Zen Buddhism, which offers a radically egalitarian vision, maintain a strongly authoritarian leadership; and third, what ethical paradigm can be drawn from the Buddhist-postmodern form of philosophy? Park argues that, as unrelated as these questions may seem, the issues that have generated them are related to perennial philosophical themes of identity, institutional power, and ethics, respectively. Each of these themes constitutes one section of Buddhism and Postmodernity. Park discusses the three issues in the book through the exploration of the Buddhist concepts of self and others, language and thinking, and universality and particularities. Most of this discussion is drawn from the East Asian Buddhist traditions of Zen and Huayan Buddhism in connection with the Continental philosophies of postmodernism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Self-critical from both the Buddhist and Western philosophical perspectives, Buddhism and Postmodernity points the reader toward a new understanding of Buddhist philosophy and offers a Buddhist-postmodern ethical paradigm that challenges normative ethics of metaphysical traditions.
Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of M... more Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and philosophies of major Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna, Chinul, Dogen, Shinran, and Nishida Kitaro. Challenging the dualistic paradigm of existing philosophical traditions, Merleau-Ponty proposes a philosophy in which the traditional opposites are encountered through mutual penetration. Likewise, a Buddhist worldview is articulated in the theory of dependent co-arising, or the middle path, which comprehends the world and beings in the third space, where the subject and the object, or eternalism and annihilation, exist independent of one another. The thirteen essays in this volume explore this third space in their discussions of Merleau-Ponty's concepts of the intentional arc, the flesh of the world, and the chiasm of visibility in connection with the Buddhist doctrine of no-self and the five aggregates, the Tiantai Buddhist concept of threefold truth, Zen Buddhist huatou meditation, the invocation of the Amida Buddha in True Pure Land Buddhism, and Nishida's concept of basho.
Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Hwa Yol Jung explo... more Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Hwa Yol Jung explores new forms of philosophizing in the age of globalization by challenging the conventional border between the East and the West, as well as the traditional boundaries among different academic disciplines. The essays in this volume examine diverse issues, encompassing globalization, cosmopolitanism, public philosophy, political ecology, ecocriticism, ethics of encounter, and aesthetics of caring. They examine the philosophical traditions of phenomenology of Hursserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger; the dialogism of Mikhail Bakhtin; the philosophy of mestizaje literature; and Asian philosophical traditions. This rich comparative and cross-cultural investigation of philosophy and political theory demonstrates the importance of cultural and cross-cultural understanding in our reading of philosophical texts, exploring how cross-cultural thinking transforms our understanding of the traditional philosophical paradigm and political theory. This volume honors the scholarship and philosophy of Hwa Yol Jung, who has been a pioneer in the field of comparative political theory, cross-cultural philosophy, and interdisciplinary scholarship. In one of his earliest publications, The Crisis of Political Understanding (1979) Jung described the urgency and necessity of breakthrough in political thinking as a crisis, and he followed up on this issue for his half century of scholarship by introducing Asian philosophy and political thought to Western scholarship, demonstrating the possibility of cross-cultural philosophical thinking. In his most recent publications, Jung refers to this possibility as 'transversality' or 'trans(uni)versality' a concept which should replace the outmoded Eurocentric universality of modernist philosophy.
Review
Hwa-Yol Jung, although he has spent his entire professional career in the United States, is well-known and esteemed by many in his native Korea. With this extraordinary volume in his honor, including essays by distinguished intellectuals from several disciplines, American readers will be able at once to become more aware of his own seminal contributions to so many cutting-edge areas of current concern―globalization, ecology, East/West comparative philosophy, contemporary literature, and much more―and to absorb many new and original insights in these same areas. This is one of the most appealing and successful books of tribute to an author that I have ever read. (William L. McBride, Purdue University)
An amazing set of major Asian and Western thinkers―moved by Hwa Yol Jung's long, broad, and original thinking in politics and beyond―impressively address many positive and negative aspects of the emerging inter-national, inter-cultural, gender-sensitive, and ecologically concerned world of globalization. (Lester Embree, Florida Altantic University)
Hwa Yol Jung's creative term 'glocalization,' which refuses to separate the global from the local and roots the global in the local, reflects a mode of philosophizing typical of the many intriguing essays in this book, which resist neat distinctions, seek to include the valid insights of conflicting perspectives, and strive to recover whatever might have been dismissed or facilely forgotten, including other persons, cultures, and philosophies. The contributors' diverse backgrounds reflect the rich dimensions of Jung's own intellectual life, encompassing comparative philosophy, literature, and religion; ecology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, and political theory; phenomenology in all its varieties; and the East-West dialogue―a richness that will inspire readers to cross boundaries of their own. (Michael Barber, St. Louis University)
Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy is an ambitious volume that should be given credit for the reminder of why a new mode of thinking and doing philosophy is necessary in this globalized world of multiculturalism. (Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy)
Getting Familiar with Death is a translation of 죽음의 길을 어떻게 잘 다녀올 것인가, written in Korean by a Won ... more Getting Familiar with Death is a translation of 죽음의 길을 어떻게 잘 다녀올 것인가, written in Korean by a Won Buddhist nun Yichang Chon. The book discusses how one should prepare oneself for the afterlife, on the deathbed, and for the 49 days after death when one is being judged for the next life. This book is comparable to the Tibetan Book of the Dead in its discussion of the death, and the process of reincarnation.
Interviews, podcast, lecture videos by Jin Y Park
Irish Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 5, 2019
Papers by Jin Y Park
"Action and Praxis", 2022
What does the act of philosophy involve? Is philosophy fundamentally about ideas or does it occur... more What does the act of philosophy involve? Is philosophy fundamentally about
ideas or does it occur through action and praxis? This chapter explores the
meaning of action and praxis in philosophy through an examination of the
work of Pak Ch’iu, a modern Korean philosopher. In that context, we also
consider philosophy’s relation to power as well as the association of logic to
politics.
New Perspectives in Modern Korean Buddhism: Institution, Gender and Securlar Society, 2022
Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively unknown figure within English-... more Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively
unknown figure within English-language scholarship.1 However, among
Korean Buddhists, his rigorous Zen practice has been well recognized.
One-meal-per-day (K. ilchongsik 一種食), no-meal-in-the-afternoon (K.
ohu pulsik 午後不食), and staying-sitting-in-meditation-without-lying-down
(K. changjwa purwa 長坐不臥) are all well-known practices that frequently
appear when describing Hyeam as a Zen master. What is less frequently
asked is what these rigorous Zen practices might mean to us commoners
who live in a secular world or to monastics whose practice might not be
as rigorous as Hyeam’s. Should Zen masters such as Hyeam who appear
to exhibit superhuman capacity for religious practice be only an object
of awe and admiration in our secular modern times? Even if so, what do
the awe and admiration indicate? In this chapter, I try to bridge the gap
between the rigorous practice typically seen in Korean Zen masters’ lives
and its meaning for people living in modern times. What questions does
a Zen master like Hyeam raise for us, and how should scholars address
these issues? These are the inquiries with which I hope to engage.
World Environment and Island Studies , 2022
This essay discusses the importance of nonviolence for the future of our society. In comparing no... more This essay discusses the importance of nonviolence for the future of our society. In comparing nonviolence with violence, the essay identifies the following characteristics of each: Violence emerges from despair, whereas nonviolence fosters a sense of hope. Violence arises from an attachment to the past, whereas nonviolence becomes possible when one has a vision of the future. Violence comes from a desire to dominate others, whereas nonviolence stems from a yearning to live together. Violence dehumanizes people, whereas nonviolence encompasses an effort to rehumanize the world. Violence destroys, but nonviolence enhances the sustainability of the world and life. Nonviolence is not just a principle but should be an ongoing struggle that people practice in everyday life.
Journal of World Philosophies, 2020
These essays engage Jin Y. Park's recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp (1896-1971), a Budd... more These essays engage Jin Y. Park's recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp (1896-1971), a Buddhist nun and public intellectual in early twentieth-century Korea. Park's translation of Iryŏp's Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014) was the subject of two book panels at recent conferences: the first a plenary session at the annual meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (Monterey, California, 2015) and the second at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association on a group program session sponsored by the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy (Washington, D.C., 2016). This exchange also includes a response from Park.
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 2022
Park specializes in East Asian Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative ethics, intercultural philosoph... more Park specializes in East Asian Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative ethics, intercultural philosophy, and modern East Asian philosophy. Her research focuses on gender, violence, politics of discrimination, and narrative philosophy. Marginality has been a consistent theme in her scholarship which deals with the marginalization of non-West and non-Western philosophy, of women's philosophy, and of some forms of philosophizing, revealing the power structure in philosophy and aiming for the voices of the margin to be heard.
American Philosophical Association Newsletter, 2020
Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy, 2019
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Vol 35, 2012
This essay examines a Huayanist understanding of the Lotus Sūtra, focusing on Chinese Huayan thi... more This essay examines a Huayanist understanding of the Lotus
Sūtra, focusing on Chinese Huayan thinker Li Tongxuan’s 李通玄
(635–730) Exposition on the Eighty-Fascicle Version of the Flower
Ornament Scripture (Xin Huayan jing lun 新華嚴經論). The fi rst
section of the essay discusses Li’s doctrinal classifi cation and the
position of the Lotus Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經) in
that structure. The second section explores Li’s interpretation of the
dragon girl’s story in the Lotus Sūtra in comparison with the story
of the youth Sudhana (Shancai tongzi 善財童子) in the Huayan jing
華嚴經. In the third section, I will try to demonstrate why Li was
so occupied with the dragon girl’s story and how it reveals the core
themes of his Huayan Buddhism and the inner contradiction of the
Lotus Sūtra from Li’s point of view.
The Journal of World Philosophies, 2020
Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these... more Why and how do women engage with Buddhism and philosophy? The present volume aims to answer these questions by examining the life and philosophy of a Korean Zen Buddhist nun, Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971). The daughter of a pastor, Iryŏp began questioning Christian doctrine as a teenager. In a few years, she became increasingly involved in women’s movements in Korea, speaking against society’s control of female sexuality and demanding sexual freedom and free divorce for women. While in her late twenties, an existential turn in her thinking led Iryŏp to Buddhism; she eventually joined a monastery and went on to become a leading figure in the female monastic community until her death.
After taking the tonsure, Iryŏp followed the advice of her teacher and stopped publishing for more than two decades. She returned to the world of letters in her sixties, using her strong, distinctive voice to address fundamental questions on the scope of identity, the meaning of being human, and the value of existence. In her writing, she frequently adopted an autobiographical style that combined her life experiences with Buddhist teachings. Through a close analysis of Iryŏp’s life story, Buddhist philosophy and practice in connection with East Asian new women’s movements, and continental philosophy, this volume offers a creative interpretation of Buddhism as both a philosophy and a religion actively engaged with lives as they are lived. It presents a fascinating narrative on how women connect with the world―whether through social issues such as gender inequality, a Buddhist worldview, or existential debates on human existence. By characterizing women’s philosophy as narrative philosophy―a philosophy of life based on lived experience―this book provides readers with a new way of philosophizing that is transformative and deeply connected with everyday existence.
Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp will be of primary interest to scholars and students of Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative philosophy, and gender and Korean studies.
The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A pr... more The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems, short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious world view. Originally published in Korea when Iryŏp was in her sixties, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Ŏnŭ sudoin ŭi hoesang) makes available for the first time in English a rich, intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism.
The first book in English devoted exclusively to modern Korean Buddhism, this work provides a com... more The first book in English devoted exclusively to modern Korean Buddhism, this work provides a comprehensive exploration for scholars, students, and serious readers. Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism focuses on three key areas: Buddhist reform, Zen revival, and the interrelationship of religion, history, and politics. In Korea, the modern period in Buddhism begins in earnest in the late nineteenth century, during the closing years of the Choson dynasty, which was characterized by a repressive brand of neo-Confucianism. Buddhist reformers arose to seek change in both Buddhism and Korean society at large. The work begins with a look at five of these reformers and their thought and work. The Zen revival that began at the end of the nineteenth century is covered from that period to contemporary times through an exploration of the life and thought of important Zen masters. The influence of Japanese Buddhist missionaries, the emergence of Korean engaged Buddhism, known as Minjung Buddhism, and the formation of modern Buddhist scholarship in Korea are discussed as well.
Buddhism and Postmodernity is a response to some of the questions that have emerged in the proces... more Buddhism and Postmodernity is a response to some of the questions that have emerged in the process of Buddhism's encounters with modernity and the West. Jin Y. Park broadly outlines these questions as follows: first, why are the interpretations and evaluations of Buddhism so different in Europe (in the nineteenth century), in the United States (in the twentieth century), and in traditional Asia; second, why does Zen Buddhism, which offers a radically egalitarian vision, maintain a strongly authoritarian leadership; and third, what ethical paradigm can be drawn from the Buddhist-postmodern form of philosophy? Park argues that, as unrelated as these questions may seem, the issues that have generated them are related to perennial philosophical themes of identity, institutional power, and ethics, respectively. Each of these themes constitutes one section of Buddhism and Postmodernity. Park discusses the three issues in the book through the exploration of the Buddhist concepts of self and others, language and thinking, and universality and particularities. Most of this discussion is drawn from the East Asian Buddhist traditions of Zen and Huayan Buddhism in connection with the Continental philosophies of postmodernism, hermeneutics, and deconstruction. Self-critical from both the Buddhist and Western philosophical perspectives, Buddhism and Postmodernity points the reader toward a new understanding of Buddhist philosophy and offers a Buddhist-postmodern ethical paradigm that challenges normative ethics of metaphysical traditions.
Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of M... more Merleau-Ponty and Buddhism explores a new mode of philosophizing through a comparative study of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and philosophies of major Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna, Chinul, Dogen, Shinran, and Nishida Kitaro. Challenging the dualistic paradigm of existing philosophical traditions, Merleau-Ponty proposes a philosophy in which the traditional opposites are encountered through mutual penetration. Likewise, a Buddhist worldview is articulated in the theory of dependent co-arising, or the middle path, which comprehends the world and beings in the third space, where the subject and the object, or eternalism and annihilation, exist independent of one another. The thirteen essays in this volume explore this third space in their discussions of Merleau-Ponty's concepts of the intentional arc, the flesh of the world, and the chiasm of visibility in connection with the Buddhist doctrine of no-self and the five aggregates, the Tiantai Buddhist concept of threefold truth, Zen Buddhist huatou meditation, the invocation of the Amida Buddha in True Pure Land Buddhism, and Nishida's concept of basho.
Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Hwa Yol Jung explo... more Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Hwa Yol Jung explores new forms of philosophizing in the age of globalization by challenging the conventional border between the East and the West, as well as the traditional boundaries among different academic disciplines. The essays in this volume examine diverse issues, encompassing globalization, cosmopolitanism, public philosophy, political ecology, ecocriticism, ethics of encounter, and aesthetics of caring. They examine the philosophical traditions of phenomenology of Hursserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger; the dialogism of Mikhail Bakhtin; the philosophy of mestizaje literature; and Asian philosophical traditions. This rich comparative and cross-cultural investigation of philosophy and political theory demonstrates the importance of cultural and cross-cultural understanding in our reading of philosophical texts, exploring how cross-cultural thinking transforms our understanding of the traditional philosophical paradigm and political theory. This volume honors the scholarship and philosophy of Hwa Yol Jung, who has been a pioneer in the field of comparative political theory, cross-cultural philosophy, and interdisciplinary scholarship. In one of his earliest publications, The Crisis of Political Understanding (1979) Jung described the urgency and necessity of breakthrough in political thinking as a crisis, and he followed up on this issue for his half century of scholarship by introducing Asian philosophy and political thought to Western scholarship, demonstrating the possibility of cross-cultural philosophical thinking. In his most recent publications, Jung refers to this possibility as 'transversality' or 'trans(uni)versality' a concept which should replace the outmoded Eurocentric universality of modernist philosophy.
Review
Hwa-Yol Jung, although he has spent his entire professional career in the United States, is well-known and esteemed by many in his native Korea. With this extraordinary volume in his honor, including essays by distinguished intellectuals from several disciplines, American readers will be able at once to become more aware of his own seminal contributions to so many cutting-edge areas of current concern―globalization, ecology, East/West comparative philosophy, contemporary literature, and much more―and to absorb many new and original insights in these same areas. This is one of the most appealing and successful books of tribute to an author that I have ever read. (William L. McBride, Purdue University)
An amazing set of major Asian and Western thinkers―moved by Hwa Yol Jung's long, broad, and original thinking in politics and beyond―impressively address many positive and negative aspects of the emerging inter-national, inter-cultural, gender-sensitive, and ecologically concerned world of globalization. (Lester Embree, Florida Altantic University)
Hwa Yol Jung's creative term 'glocalization,' which refuses to separate the global from the local and roots the global in the local, reflects a mode of philosophizing typical of the many intriguing essays in this book, which resist neat distinctions, seek to include the valid insights of conflicting perspectives, and strive to recover whatever might have been dismissed or facilely forgotten, including other persons, cultures, and philosophies. The contributors' diverse backgrounds reflect the rich dimensions of Jung's own intellectual life, encompassing comparative philosophy, literature, and religion; ecology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, and political theory; phenomenology in all its varieties; and the East-West dialogue―a richness that will inspire readers to cross boundaries of their own. (Michael Barber, St. Louis University)
Comparative Political Theory and Cross-Cultural Philosophy is an ambitious volume that should be given credit for the reminder of why a new mode of thinking and doing philosophy is necessary in this globalized world of multiculturalism. (Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy)
Getting Familiar with Death is a translation of 죽음의 길을 어떻게 잘 다녀올 것인가, written in Korean by a Won ... more Getting Familiar with Death is a translation of 죽음의 길을 어떻게 잘 다녀올 것인가, written in Korean by a Won Buddhist nun Yichang Chon. The book discusses how one should prepare oneself for the afterlife, on the deathbed, and for the 49 days after death when one is being judged for the next life. This book is comparable to the Tibetan Book of the Dead in its discussion of the death, and the process of reincarnation.
Irish Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 5, 2019
"Action and Praxis", 2022
What does the act of philosophy involve? Is philosophy fundamentally about ideas or does it occur... more What does the act of philosophy involve? Is philosophy fundamentally about
ideas or does it occur through action and praxis? This chapter explores the
meaning of action and praxis in philosophy through an examination of the
work of Pak Ch’iu, a modern Korean philosopher. In that context, we also
consider philosophy’s relation to power as well as the association of logic to
politics.
New Perspectives in Modern Korean Buddhism: Institution, Gender and Securlar Society, 2022
Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively unknown figure within English-... more Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively
unknown figure within English-language scholarship.1 However, among
Korean Buddhists, his rigorous Zen practice has been well recognized.
One-meal-per-day (K. ilchongsik 一種食), no-meal-in-the-afternoon (K.
ohu pulsik 午後不食), and staying-sitting-in-meditation-without-lying-down
(K. changjwa purwa 長坐不臥) are all well-known practices that frequently
appear when describing Hyeam as a Zen master. What is less frequently
asked is what these rigorous Zen practices might mean to us commoners
who live in a secular world or to monastics whose practice might not be
as rigorous as Hyeam’s. Should Zen masters such as Hyeam who appear
to exhibit superhuman capacity for religious practice be only an object
of awe and admiration in our secular modern times? Even if so, what do
the awe and admiration indicate? In this chapter, I try to bridge the gap
between the rigorous practice typically seen in Korean Zen masters’ lives
and its meaning for people living in modern times. What questions does
a Zen master like Hyeam raise for us, and how should scholars address
these issues? These are the inquiries with which I hope to engage.
World Environment and Island Studies , 2022
This essay discusses the importance of nonviolence for the future of our society. In comparing no... more This essay discusses the importance of nonviolence for the future of our society. In comparing nonviolence with violence, the essay identifies the following characteristics of each: Violence emerges from despair, whereas nonviolence fosters a sense of hope. Violence arises from an attachment to the past, whereas nonviolence becomes possible when one has a vision of the future. Violence comes from a desire to dominate others, whereas nonviolence stems from a yearning to live together. Violence dehumanizes people, whereas nonviolence encompasses an effort to rehumanize the world. Violence destroys, but nonviolence enhances the sustainability of the world and life. Nonviolence is not just a principle but should be an ongoing struggle that people practice in everyday life.
Journal of World Philosophies, 2020
These essays engage Jin Y. Park's recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp (1896-1971), a Budd... more These essays engage Jin Y. Park's recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp (1896-1971), a Buddhist nun and public intellectual in early twentieth-century Korea. Park's translation of Iryŏp's Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014) was the subject of two book panels at recent conferences: the first a plenary session at the annual meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (Monterey, California, 2015) and the second at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association on a group program session sponsored by the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy (Washington, D.C., 2016). This exchange also includes a response from Park.
International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture, 2022
Park specializes in East Asian Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative ethics, intercultural philosoph... more Park specializes in East Asian Buddhism, Buddhist and comparative ethics, intercultural philosophy, and modern East Asian philosophy. Her research focuses on gender, violence, politics of discrimination, and narrative philosophy. Marginality has been a consistent theme in her scholarship which deals with the marginalization of non-West and non-Western philosophy, of women's philosophy, and of some forms of philosophizing, revealing the power structure in philosophy and aiming for the voices of the margin to be heard.
American Philosophical Association Newsletter, 2020
Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy, 2019
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, Vol 35, 2012
This essay examines a Huayanist understanding of the Lotus Sūtra, focusing on Chinese Huayan thi... more This essay examines a Huayanist understanding of the Lotus
Sūtra, focusing on Chinese Huayan thinker Li Tongxuan’s 李通玄
(635–730) Exposition on the Eighty-Fascicle Version of the Flower
Ornament Scripture (Xin Huayan jing lun 新華嚴經論). The fi rst
section of the essay discusses Li’s doctrinal classifi cation and the
position of the Lotus Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經) in
that structure. The second section explores Li’s interpretation of the
dragon girl’s story in the Lotus Sūtra in comparison with the story
of the youth Sudhana (Shancai tongzi 善財童子) in the Huayan jing
華嚴經. In the third section, I will try to demonstrate why Li was
so occupied with the dragon girl’s story and how it reveals the core
themes of his Huayan Buddhism and the inner contradiction of the
Lotus Sūtra from Li’s point of view.
In A Mirror is For Reflection: Understanding Buddhist Ethics, edited by Jake Davis. , 2017
This article discusses Buddhist ethics from Zen and Hauayn Buddhist perspective. I propose that Z... more This article discusses Buddhist ethics from Zen and Hauayn Buddhist perspective. I propose that Zen Buddhist ethics underlines the importance of the ethical agent’s awareness of the fundamental gap between the reality of the world and the agent’s capacity to fully understand the total reality, and this gap inevitably creates a tension in the ethical agent’s mind. This tension is a positive guideline that demands the ethical agent a constant and consistent self-reflection when making ethical decisions. Moral norms can offer a contour of our ethical life, but, from the Zen and Huayan perspective, crucial to ethical reasoning is one’s capacity to be aware of multi-faceted causes and conditions that generate an event and the venerability of the ethical agent’s hermeneutic capacity to fully grape the total realty. Ethics emerges in the space of this tension when the tension is positively channelled through the moral agent’s self-cultivation.
Key words:
Zen Buddhism, Huayan Buddhism, ethics, tension, self-cultivation
Buddhism and postmodernism have been subject to the criticism that they fail to provide appropria... more Buddhism and postmodernism have been subject to the criticism that they fail to provide appropriate ethical paradigm. This article challenges such a criticism against Buddhism and postmodernism and proposes an ethical paradigm that can be drawn from a comparative philosophical perspective.
Naturalism, Human Flourishing, and Asian Philosophy: Owen Flanagan and Beyond, 2019
What makes our life meaningful? Philosophers have long pursued this question. Different philosoph... more What makes our life meaningful? Philosophers have long pursued this question. Different philosophical approaches propose different ways to gauge issues, including: why something is meaningful in our life; how that meaning is produced; and why it is valuable to follow the meaning generated through a certain pipeline. In this article, I examine some major tenets of Flanagan’s naturalism and consider how they share some insights with Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction in his deconstruction of metaphysics regarding how meaning is produced in our existence. In so doing, I also propose that Zen Buddhist ethics share ideas with Flanagan’s naturalist ethics and Derrida’s deconstructive approach to ethics. In conclusion, I claim that transcendence or metaphysics is not a necessary condition for finding the meaning of existence, and the three traditions—Flanagan’s naturalism, Derrida’s deconstruction, and Zen Buddhism—tell us how we produce meaning of existence without relying on a transcendental power and without being pessimistic.
Value and Values: Economics and Justice in an Age of Global Interdependence, eds Roger T. Ames and Peter D. Hershock (University of Hawaii Press, 2015), 109-124., 2015
What do we see in our daily existence and how accurately do the "visible" aspects of our existenc... more What do we see in our daily existence and how accurately do the "visible" aspects of our existence reveal what we want to know about our existence and how we want to live our life? Entrapped by the visible appearance we encounter in daily life, we might have become blind to what the glitzy appearance of our society has failed to reveal. Among the concerns I discuss in this paper in this context are: the nature of humanism, poverty, justice, and possibility of responsibility. The paper discusses these issues in the context of East Asian Buddhism--especially Son/Chan and Huayan Buddhism-- Jean-François Lyotard's postmodernism, and Jacques Derrida's deconstruction.
Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2019
What is an inter-cultural philosophy? How should we do it? What kind of philosophical issues inte... more What is an inter-cultural philosophy? How should we do it? What kind of philosophical issues inter-cultural philosophy brings to us? What is the position of Asian philosophy in that context? These are some of the questions that I discussed in this book-review essay.
Philosophy East & West 67:3, Jul 2017
Philosophy claims its goal is to search for truth. The history of philosophy, however, demonstrat... more Philosophy claims its goal is to search for truth. The history of philosophy, however, demonstrates that, in most cases, this search for truth is not free from the power structures of the time. The formation of modern philosophy in East Asia is no exception. This essay will demonstrate how the East-West power imbalance at the beginning of the modern period is implicitly and explicitly imbedded in the formation of modern Buddhist philosophy in East Asia. By examining the life and thoughts of two East Asian Buddhist thinkers, Paek Sŏnguk (白性郁1897-1981) and Inoue Enryō (井上円了1858-1919), this essay will demonstrate two seemingly unrelated aspects of the East-West encounter in the philosophizing of the East. On the one hand, Paek’s and Enryō’s Buddhist philosophy tells us that the beginning of philosophy in modern East Asia is inevitably related to the power imbalance between the East and the West. On the other hand, however, the forced encounter of Eastern “thought” tradition with the Western genre called philosophy generated a new mode of philosophizing, which is also shared by some contemporary Western philosophers in their criticism of institutionalized philosophy.
In this contribution, I examine the notion of “philosophy” and the role of East-West encounters i... more In this contribution, I examine the notion of “philosophy” and the role of East-West encounters in the formation of modern Korean philosophy by examining the case of Paek Seonguk (白性郁1897-1981), a Korean Buddhist philosopher. The words, philosophy and religion, were introduced to the East Asian intellectual world during the mid-nineteenth century. What are the implications of this historical “beginning” of modern philosophy in the context of Korean philosophy in particular and Asian philosophy in general? How does this context of modernity influence the way philosophy has shaped itself in modern Korea? And what does the shaping of modern Korean philosophy—in the case of Baek Seonguk—tell us about the relationship between philosophizing, historical context, and the power dynamic of the time? These are some of the questions that I would like to address in this article. By doing so, this article claims that socio-political ecology is the context of our philosophizing, and no philosophy takes place in a vacuum state to reveal a universal truth.
Journal of Korean Religions, 2019
Kyŏnghŏ Sǒngu (鏡虛惺牛1849-1912) has been recognized as the founder of modern Korean Zen/Sǒn Buddhis... more Kyŏnghŏ Sǒngu (鏡虛惺牛1849-1912) has been recognized as the founder of modern Korean Zen/Sǒn Buddhism. With this recognition, Korean Buddhism has claimed that Hwadu (話頭) meditation or Kanhwa Sǒn (看話禪), which Kyŏnghŏ revived, is the core of the Korean Buddhist tradition. Kyŏnghŏ’s life story has also been employed as evidence that the identity of Korean Buddhism is Sǒn tradition, as opposed to doctrinal schools. In this contribution, I reexamine Kyŏnghŏ’s life and his Buddhism and propose to understand them as suggesting more fundamental dimensions of human existence. Kyŏnghŏ’s Buddhism points not only to cultural changes that occurred in modern times, but also to the existential dimensions of Buddhist practice.
What does a religious practice entail? How is it related to our understanding of the absolute bei... more What does a religious practice entail? How is it related to our understanding of the absolute being, the religious agent, and the role of religion in life? I hope to address these questions by examining the religious thoughts of two modern East Asian thinkers—Kim Iryŏp (金一葉 1896–1971) and Tanabe Hajime (田辺 元 1885–1962)—and also engage their philosophy with Jacques Derrida’s discussion on religion. In that context, I will pay attention to the role of nothingness as religious practice.
Nothingness is a major concept in the religious and philosophical discourse of East Asia. Twentieth-century East Asian religious thinkers fully utilized the tradition of nothingness in their discussion of religious practice, asking questions related to what it means to think about nothing and even practice it. Furthermore, nothingness is one of the most contentious philosophical topics in both the East and the West. Why are there such differences in approaching the idea of nothingness between the East and the West? By exploring Iryŏp’s and Tanabe’s use of nothingness and further engaging with Jacques Derrida’s discussion of religion in that context, I will consider the different faces of nothingness that appear in the act of religion.
A rationalist approach to religion marked the beginning of the field of the philosophy of religio... more A rationalist approach to religion marked the beginning of the field of the philosophy of religion. Rene Descartes (1596–1650) claimed that it is the work of philosophers rather than theologians to prove the existence of God. Hegel (1770–1831) began lecturing on the philosophy of religion in 1821 and did so again in 1824, 1827, and 1831. He offered a grand scheme of the evolution of religions, assigning Asian religions to a primitive stage and Christianity to the culminating stage of that evolution. Regarding religious phenomena as " homogeneous, " he did not consider the possibility that different notions of the ultimate being or of humanity's relationship to it are an expression, not of a religion's relative primitiveness or maturity, but of different perspectives of the world and existence. This history of the philosophy of religion tells us what the study of the philosophy of religion can offer to the modern university. Diversity and inclusion are a mantra of contemporary American universities. Frequently, though, this mantra fails to bring real change to college campuses, instead remaining as just rhetoric. By definition, the philosophy of religion investigates the act of religion. As I discussed in my earlier blog post " What is philosophy of religion?, " however, the widely accepted definitions of both " philosophy " and " religion " can be contested. In the East Asian traditions, these two terms might be understood in a very different way from how they are understood within the familiar Judeo-Christian religions. Hegel's marginalization and depreciation of Asian religions clearly shows the limitations of the West-centered worldview. Likewise, studying the history of the philosophy of religion itself can help the modern university to challenge closed perspectives regarding diversity and inclusion by introducing different ways of viewing religions.
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2020
The dominant discourses on modern Korean Buddhism tend to rely on a dualistic paradigm that place... more The dominant discourses on modern Korean Buddhism tend to rely on a dualistic paradigm that places nationalists on one side and collaborators on the other. In this understanding, Korean Buddhism is identified as pure Buddhism, which requires monastics to maintain celibacy and a vegetarian diet, whereas Japanese Buddhism is contaminated, since Japanese monastics may marry and eat meat. Problems of such a paradigm have been pointed out by scholars, especially in the Englishspeaking world. Hwansoo Ilmee Kim, the author of Korean Buddhist Empire: A Transnational History (1910-1945), is one of the major voices whose scholarship challenges the dualistic evaluation and gives attention to the complex reality of Korean Buddhism in modern times. Kim's first book, Empire of the Dharma, covers the development of Korean Buddhism from 1877, when the first Japanese Buddhist temple opened in Korea, until 1912, the year after the Temple Ordinance was promulgated by the Japanese colonial government to control Korean Buddhism.1 In that book, Kim offers a nuanced discussion of the interactions between Korean and Japanese Buddhism and problematizes the claim that Korean Buddhism was a mere victim of Japanese Buddhism's missionary invasion during this period. Kim's second monograph further reveals the intricate relationship among East Asian Buddhisms during the time from 1910, when Japan annexed Korea, until 1945, the year of Korea's liberation from colonial rule. The author's tool for understanding Korean Buddhism in this book is transnationality. Applying the concept to Buddhism, Kim states that "transnational Buddhism. .. points to a larger Buddhist geography and consciousness in which East Asian Buddhists came together as representatives of their national Buddhisms to work toward common goals" (p. 6). Transnational Buddhism for the author "captures the kind of shared community that Buddhist leaders from different countries envisioned" and
Review of Hwansoo Ilmee Kim's Empire of the Dharma: Korean and Japanese Buddhism, 1877-1912
Richard McBride's review of Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism
![Research paper thumbnail of 흔적 (痕迹) [The Trace, a short story]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/46673732/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](1995년 새대문학 신인문학상에 당선된 중편소설. 한 개인의 기억을 통해 보는 사회, 가족, 그리고 상실과 희망의 이야기.
According to a survey on the religious landscape in Korea, about half of the total population of ... more According to a survey on the religious landscape in Korea, about half of the total population of Korea (53.4%) declared practicing religion. This number has shown a steady increase since the Gallup Korea conducted a survey in this field in 1984. 1 In understanding religion, religious phenomena, and religious practices in Korea, we should consider that the concept and expression of religion is relatively new in Korean culture. In this context, at least two preliminary remarks need to be made before we begin our discussion on the religions in Korea. The first is about the term religion. The expression religion did not exist in the vocabulary of East Asian languages until the late 19 th century. One origin of the modern term religion (Kor, chonggyo; Jan. shūkyō) can be traced to a trade document between Japan and Germany signed in 1869, in which the European term religion was translated into Japanese language, which was adopted by Koreans. 2 This does not mean that what is denoted by the term religion in English language did not exist in East Asia before the adoption of the expression. Instead of religion, traditional Korean religions such as Confucianism and Buddhism (which we will discuss in this chapter) were called teachings (Kor. kyo) or school (Kor. ga). This also indicates that the commonly known distinction between philosophy and religion in Western tradition does not strictly apply to Korean religious and philosophical traditions. The second issue to consider is the scope of religious phenomena. Religion is frequently and sometimes uncritically identified with religion as an institution. Institutionalized (or organized) religion features religious texts (sacred books), religious structure (church or temples), religious group (priesthood and believers), and moral and ethical codes (precepts). Religion is also often considered to be about God. Most of the major religions in the world share these components of religion, but religious phenomena are not limited to them, nor is what we denote by each of the above categories as clear as we might think. Several suggestions have been made for a comprehensive understanding of religious phenomena. One such example is to expand our concept of religion, from a singular-form religion to its plural form, religions. The pluralization of religious tradition enables us to further expand the scope of religions so that we can consider what constitutes the religious. 3 This paradigm can be applied to other concepts that are associated with religion. For example, we can expand our investigation from the concept of God to plural gods and then to the concept of the sacred (or the holy); from churches/temples to the place of worship and to the concept of the sacred space; and from examining precepts of a particular religion to the relationship between the finite and the infinite, and then to the issue of construction of value systems in human life. This is a process of creating a generic form (e.g., the sacred) from the collection of particular phenomenon (e.g., God). This process is necessary in order to have a comprehensive understanding of different religious traditions without privileging one religious tradition. This is especially relevant to our attempt to understand and evaluate Korean religious traditions. More often than not, students in the West ask how either Buddhism or Confucianism can be called a religion when these traditions do not have concepts that match what they find in Western religious traditions. Before we attempt to answer these questions, we should understand that such questions arise because we set a specific religious tradition as a standard for other religious traditions. In our discussion of Korean religions, we will divide them into three groups for the sake of convenience: the first is indigenous religions (Shamanism); the second is foreign-origin religions that became Koreanized (Buddhism and Confucianism); and the third is new religions that emerged during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries (Tonghak and Won Buddhism).
