Editing Korea (section)

== Radical Buddhism in Korea ==

The first sustained encounters between Korean Buddhism and left-wing politics occurred in the 1920s, as a small number of monks — most from comfortable backgrounds and educated in Japan — were drawn to anarchism and Communism; a handful became prominent activists in exile, such as the anarchist Kim Sŏngsuk and the Japan-based Communist organizer Kim Ch'ŏnhae, though most such conversions came at the cost of severing all institutional ties to Buddhism.<ref>Tikhonov, Vladimir (2006). "Han Yongun's Buddhist Socialism in the 1920s-1930s". ''International Journal of Buddhist Thought & Culture'' 6: 207–228, pp. 208–209.</ref> Deeper cooperation between institutional Buddhism and the organized left was complicated throughout the decade by the militant anti-religious propaganda of Comintern-aligned Communist and anarchist youth organizations, which viewed all religion as an "opiate" incompatible with class struggle, even as Buddhist youth leagues participated in nationalist-left coalition politics such as the 1923 All-Korean Youth Party Congress and the 1927–1931 Sin'ganhoe united front. Within this fraught landscape, the monk and poet Han Yongun developed the era's most systematic and enduring synthesis of Buddhist doctrine and radical politics, moving from an early Social-Darwinist reformism to an explicit proposal for a Buddhist economic "socialism" grounded in early monastic communalism, while remaining consistently opposed to Communist anti-religious orthodoxy.

=== Han Yongun ===
{{Main|Han Yongun}}

Han Yongun (1879–1944), pen name Manhae, was a Sŏn Buddhist monk, poet, and independence activist. In his 1913 treatise ''Chosŏn Pulgyo yusillon'' (Treatise on the Reformation of Korean Buddhism), he broke with the gradualist reformer Kwŏn Sangno to argue for a radical, centralized reorganization of the sangha, and later, in his 1931 ''Chosŏn Pulgyo kaehyŏk an'', called on Buddhist institutions to fund welfare for laborers and farmers.<ref>Park, Pori (2010). "A Korean Buddhist Response to Modernity: Manhae Han Yongun's Doctrinal Reinterpretation of His Reformist Thought". In: Park, Jin Y. (Ed.), ''Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism'': 41–48. State University of New York Press.</ref> From 1920 he explicitly advocated ''minjung Pulgyo'' ("Buddhism for the masses") — decades before the term's better-known 1980s revival — defining it as Buddhism practiced in and for the lives of ordinary people rather than confined to clerics and canon.<ref>Park, Pori (2010), "A Korean Buddhist Response to Modernity", pp. 47–49.</ref> A signatory of the 1919 Declaration of Independence, he was imprisoned until 1922, was later elected director of the Buddhist Youth Association (1924), and as editor of the journal ''Pulgyo'' (1931–1933) published sustained criticism of both the colonial regime and "bureaucratic Buddhism."<ref>Park, Pori (2010), "A Korean Buddhist Response to Modernity", pp. 46–48.</ref> Though sympathetic to Socialism's goal of economic equality, he rejected Marxist atheism, insisting religion alone could comfort the suffering proletariat, and his own "Buddhist Socialism" remained programmatic rather than organized.<ref>Park, Pori (2010), "A Korean Buddhist Response to Modernity", p. 47; Tikhonov (2006), "Han Yongun's Buddhist Socialism", pp. 215–218.</ref>

=== Minjung (liberation) Buddhism (1970s–1990s) ===
{{main|Minjung Buddhism}}

A considerably more explicitly Marxist-influenced wave of radical Buddhism emerged in South Korea from the mid-1970s, catalyzed above all by the Chun Doo-hwan military regime's violent October 1980 raid on Buddhist monasteries nationwide (the "10.27 Persecution").<ref>Jorgensen, John (2010). "Minjung Buddhism: A Buddhist Critique of the Status Quo — Its History, Philosophy, and Critique". In: Park, Jin Y. (Ed.), ''Makers of Modern Korean Buddhism'': 275–314. State University of New York Press, p. 275.</ref> Though the term ''Minjung Pulgyo'' itself echoed Han Yongun's own 1920s usage (see above), the 1980s movement's organizational lineage ran instead through the University Buddhist Association, the Central Sangha College, and, from May 1985, the Minjung Buddhist Movement Federation, whose lay theorist Yŏ Ikku supplied its fullest synthesis of dependent origination with dialectical materialism in ''Minjung Pulgyo Ch'ŏrhak'' (1988).<ref>Jorgensen (2010), "Minjung Buddhism", pp. 280–282, 297–304.</ref> Its three stated aims were the democratization of Korean Buddhism and South Korean politics, the rejection of American military and political influence, and Korean reunification.<ref>Mun (2014), "A Historical Introduction", pp. 264–266.</ref> The movement peaked with the national monastic conference at Haein Sa in September 1986 and the June 1987 pro-democracy demonstrations, then fractured over its endorsement of revolutionary violence and declined rapidly after democratization, the collapse of Soviet-bloc communism, and the Jogye Order's own 1994 internal reform removed its principal grievances.<ref>Jorgensen (2010), "Minjung Buddhism", pp. 290–293, 304–307; Mun (2014), "A Historical Introduction", p. 264.</ref>

=== Socially engaged and eco-Buddhist activism (1990s–present) ===

From the 1990s, a less explicitly Marxist but still avowedly activist current of "engaged Buddhism" emerged in South Korea, carrying forward the basic spirit, though not the terminology, of Minjung Buddhism into new domains, particularly environmentalism.<ref>Yoon, Young-Hae, & Sherwin Jones (2014). "Ecology, Dharma and Direct Action: A Brief Survey of Contemporary Eco-Buddhist Activism in Korea". ''Buddhist Studies Review'' 31.2: 293–311, pp. 296–297.</ref> Lay-led organizations such as the Jungto Society (founded 1988 by the former Minjung activist Pŏmnyun) and the Indra's Net Life Community (founded 1999) combined Buddhist-inspired eco-idealism with grassroots organic farming and cooperative living, while the Sŏn master Sukyŏng, drawing on a Tibetan Buddhist prostration practice, led a widely publicized 2003 samboilbae ("three steps, one bow") march against the Saemangeum Reclamation Project. The nun Jiyul conducted a series of hunger strikes between 2001 and 2006 against a high-speed rail tunnel through Mt. Chŏnsŏng, and the monk Munsu self-immolated in 2010 in protest against the Four Rivers Project. These campaigns achieved considerable public visibility and, in Sukyŏng's case, briefly repositioned Buddhist clergy as leaders of a broader social movement, but none of the underlying development projects was ultimately halted.