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3. Buddhism Simulating Buddhist Studies: 21St-Century Monastic Educational Reforms

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Buddhism Simulating Buddhist Studies: 21St-Century Monastic Educational Reforms Transforming Orthodoxies: Buddhist Curriculums and Educational Institutions in Contemporary South Korea by Uri Kaplan Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Richard Jaffe, Supervisor ___________________________ Hwansoo Ilmee Kim ___________________________ David Morgan ___________________________ Robert Buswell Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 i v ABSTRACT Transforming Orthodoxies: Buddhist Curriculums and Educational Institutions in Contemporary South Korea by Uri Kaplan Graduate Program in Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Richard Jaffe, Supervisor ___________________________ Hwansoo Ilmee Kim ___________________________ David Morgan ___________________________ Robert Buswell An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate program in Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 i v Copyright by Uri Kaplan 2015 Abstract What do Buddhist monks really know about Buddhism? How do they imagine their religion, and more importantly, how does their understanding of their tradition differ from the one found in our typical introduction to Buddhism textbooks? In order to address these fundamental questions, this dissertation concentrates on the educational programs and curricular canons of Korean Buddhism. It aims to find out which part of their enormous canonical and non-canonical literature do Korean Buddhist professionals choose to focus on as the required curriculum in their training (and what do they leave out), why is it chosen and by whom, and how does this specific education shape their understanding of their own religion and their roles within it. It tracks down the 20th-century invention of the so-called ‘traditional’ Korean monastic curriculum and delineates the current 21st-century curricular reforms and the heated debates surrounding them. Ultimately, it illustrates how instead of Buddhist academics learning from the Buddhists about Buddhism, it is actually often the Buddhists in their monasteries who end up simulating the educational agendas of Buddhist studies. Research for this work involved diverse methodologies. Multiple-sited ethnographic fieldwork in monasteries was supplemented by archival digging in the Chogye Order’s headquarters in Seoul and textual analysis of historical records, Buddhist media reports, and online blogs. I have visited the current official 17 monastic seminaries in Korea, as well as many of the new specialized monastic graduate institutes and lay schools, interviewed teachers and students on site, and inspected classrooms and schedules. During winter 2013-4 I have conducted a full-scale participant observation attending the Buddhist lay school of Hwagyesa, during which I engaged some of my classmates with in-depth interviews, and distributed a written attitude survey among the class. iv Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Buddhist Education in Contemporary East Asia ....................................................................... 4 Doing Fieldwork in Korean Buddhist Monasteries ................................................................... 7 Chapter Summary .................................................................................................................... 10 Editor’s Note ........................................................................................................................... 13 1. The Traditional Curriculum ....................................................................................................... 14 The First Stage: Admonitions Literature ................................................................................. 16 The Second Stage: Chan Treatises .......................................................................................... 26 The Third Stage: The Four Sutras .......................................................................................... 35 The Fourth Stage: Huayan ....................................................................................................... 39 Intertextuality .......................................................................................................................... 41 Historical Construction and Deconstruction ........................................................................... 45 Supplement to Chapter 1: Full Translation of Ch’ŏnghak’s (淸學, 1570-1654) Curriculum Poem: ....................................................................................................................................... 53 2. Modernizing Buddhist Education in 20th-Century Korea .......................................................... 61 Monastic Seminary Education in Colonial Korea ................................................................... 64 Early Initiatives of Higher Buddhist Education ...................................................................... 74 v From Buddhist Schools to Buddhist-affiliated Universities .................................................... 80 Monastic Seminaries in Post-Colonial Korea .......................................................................... 84 Modern Sudden and Gradual Debates ..................................................................................... 91 Stepping Down from the Hermitages: Nun Seminaries .......................................................... 93 Communal Life at the Seminaries ........................................................................................... 98 Compulsory Monastic Education .......................................................................................... 106 3. Buddhism Simulating Buddhist Studies: 21st-Century Monastic Educational Reforms .......... 111 The ‘Traditional Curriculum’ Under Attack ......................................................................... 113 The New Curriculum ............................................................................................................. 123 Buddhism Simulating Buddhist Studies ................................................................................ 134 The Education Department vs. Seminary Teachers............................................................... 139 From Seminaries to Monastic Graduate Schools .................................................................. 145 The Basic Chan Hall (Kich’o sŏnwŏn, 基礎禪院) ............................................................... 156 The Seminaries of Other Buddhist Organizations ................................................................. 159 Foreign Students .................................................................................................................... 166 4. Re-creating the Sangha Rank-Examination System ................................................................ 170 A Brief History of Sangha Examinations .............................................................................. 172 Reviving the Monastic Rank-Exam System in Korea ........................................................... 178 Creating a Postulant Canon and the 5th-Level Exams ........................................................... 184 The Seminary Curriculums and the 4th-Level Exams ............................................................ 191 The Higher Rank Examinations and the ‘Continuing Education’ Programs ......................... 195 The T’aego Order Rank-Exam System ................................................................................. 201 vi Supplement to Chapter 4: From the Tea to the Coffee Ceremony ........................................ 204 5. From Preachers to Teachers: The Creation of an Orthodox Lay Education System ............... 209 Early Individual Initiatives .................................................................................................... 212 The Chogye Order System .................................................................................................... 218 Mandatory Basic Lay Education ........................................................................................... 223 Other Korean Buddhist Orders .............................................................................................. 229 Who are the Students? ........................................................................................................... 232 Social Efflorescence .............................................................................................................. 237 A New Lay Canon ................................................................................................................
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