Barobul Buddhism BAROBUL
한국어KR EnglishEN

LECTURE SERIES

Learning About Buddhism Through the History of Civilization

12 lectures to read in sequence.

LECTURE12

2025.01.15

If no one can know even one second of the future with certainty, why do individuals, religions, and rulers believe prophecy, and how should we test both its grounds and the blinders over our own eyes?

Buddhism Through Civilizational History, Episode 12 — Myung Tae-kyun and Kim Keon-hee’s Superstition: Prophecy? No One Can Know Even One Second Ahead

Beginning with stories of geomancy, dreams, and horoscopes around Myung Tae-kyun and Kim Keon-hee, I ask why no one can prophesy even one second ahead. The inquiry moves through prediction versus prophecy, Buddhist authority granted to sarira and divination, and the education and society that sustain superstition before returning to our own blinders and mental constructs.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE11

2025.01.09

How do human beings project their desires and transactional thinking onto other people, gods, and the world, and how can we escape the delusions created by that worldview?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 11 — Kim Keon-hee’s Dior Bag and a Skinned Cow: The Projection of Human Thought and Worldviews

Reading Kim Keon-hee’s acceptance of a Dior bag and a shamanic ritual featuring a skinned cow as structures of transaction and sacrifice, I examine how people project their desires and thinking onto gods, souls, other people, and the world to construct worldviews. Liberation begins by acting through causes and conditions rather than prayer and superstition, and by critically observing one’s own standards and worldview.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE10

2025.01.02

On what grounds and under what conditions did the astrological, religious, and social images I take as facts arise, and how can observation, questioning, and reasoning through dependent arising free me from their delusions?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 10 — Saju and the Belief of Martial-Law Insider Noh Sang-won: Question the Images in Your Mind

Beginning with reports that martial-law insider Noh Sang-won believed in saju and used it to judge compatibility with his driver and possible betrayal by Kim Yong-hyun, I use falsification and thought experiments to criticize the four-pillar system, its sixty-year cycle, its treatment of region and season, and its lunar and time boundaries. Liberation means observing and questioning not only saju but images of rebirth, gods, physiognomy, blood types, personality labels, and politics, then reasoning through causes and conditions.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE09

2024.12.23

How can I question judgments formed by advertising, education, religion, politics, and everyday experience, and enter the path of discussion and liberation with the recognition that I may be wrong?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 9 — Yoon Suk Yeol and the Path of Liberation (Part Two)

I examine how standards accumulated through advertising, education, customs, and law produce desire, suffering, political certainty, and religious belief. Through support for and opposition to Yoon Suk Yeol, rebirth and the afterlife, capitalism, communism, democracy, gold, silver, and stone axes, and Christmas, I argue that the foundational recognition ‘I may be wrong’ and a readiness for discussion are the beginnings of liberation and humility.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE08

2024.12.17

How can I avoid closing the judgments of Yoon Suk Yeol and his supporters with the label of low intelligence, examine the external conditions that formed their standards, and then question my own views in the same way?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 8 — Yoon Suk Yeol and the Path of Liberation (Part One)

Rather than dismissing the eleven percent who still supported Yoon Suk Yeol after emergency martial law as merely unintelligent or foolish, I ask where standards of judgment come from. Through a girlfriend at Christmas, a comic-book shop before midterms, the rule separating boys and girls, and the labels old maid and old bachelor, I examine how Yoon’s justice and political certainty too may have formed within an era, an environment, and prosecutorial power, then return to liberation as the practice of questioning one’s own views.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE07

2024.11.20

What theater am I living in, what do I accept there as fact, and how can I break free from that conditioned framework?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 7 — What Theater Am I Living In?: The Idols of the Theater and Conditioned Things

We live inside overlapping “theaters” made by religion, class, tradition, education, politics, and economics, taking them for reality itself. From Viking mythology and ancient Indian caste to the Catholic Index, Korean education, and capitalism, I ask why doubting conditioned systems and breaking their shells is Buddhist liberation.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE06

2024.11.15

How can we question the names and concepts produced by human lenses and imperfect language, and become free from the desire and suffering they create?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 6 — Question Language and Concepts: The Idol of the Marketplace and Nama-Rupa

Language is not a vessel that carries reality intact but an imperfect human tool made by agreement and convention. From Bacon’s idol of the marketplace and the lenses of tribe and cave to naming, Buddha fantasies, nama-rupa, the three realms, and meditative practice, I ask why questioning language and concepts is central to Buddhism.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE05

2024.11.04

Why do humans reach wrong conclusions, and how can recognizing the idols of the tribe and cave lead to a Buddhist practice of escaping delusion?

Civilizational History Through Buddhism, Episode 5 — Why Do We Reach Wrong Conclusions? Francis Bacon’s Idols of the Tribe and Cave

Following Francis Bacon’s idols of the tribe and cave, this essay examines how species-wide cognitive biases and the tinted glasses of individual bodies and experience tilt human judgment, then connects that inquiry to the Buddhist practice of asking “Why?” of every judgment and emotion.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE04

2024.10.29

If we do not even believe the Buddha, scriptures, or teachers, what guides Buddhist practice, and how can we break out of our own illusions by ourselves?

Civilizational History Through Buddhism, Episode 4 — Do Not Even Believe the Buddha

Following the Kālāma Sutta’s ten points, this essay asks why scripture, inference, meditative images, common sense, authorities, and teachers must all remain open to doubt, presenting Buddhism as the practice of breaking one’s own shell through observation and critical reasoning rather than belief.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE03

2024.10.27

Amid repeatedly heard claims, inherited customs, and rumors repeated by many, what grounds should I use to believe and judge?

Buddhism through the History of Civilization, Episode 3 — Doubt Every Claim

Following the Kālāma Sutta’s instruction not to believe and follow things merely as given, I examine how repetition, tradition, and rumor harden judgment through examples ranging from Pavlov’s dog and advertising to rebirth, Zen practice images, and social custom.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE02

2024.09.07

Why must science and Buddhism admit that what I know may be a delusion and doubt even scripture, authority, and my own thoughts?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 2 — Do Not Believe; Doubt: The Second Common Foundation of Science and Buddhism

Science and Buddhism investigate causes and effects while accepting that present knowledge may be a delusion. Through the Cave Chapter and the cases of Bacon, Copernicus, Luther, and Bruno, this essay examines liberation as the daily practice of refusing to harden belief into truth, doubting even one’s own thoughts and scriptures, and repeatedly escaping delusion.

강의 글 읽기 →
LECTURE01

2024.08.26

How does scientific observation of causes and results converge with Buddhist dependent-origination thinking, and how can we apply it to everyday life and problems of the mind?

Learning Buddhism Through Civilization, Episode 1 — Human Knowledge and Power Meet in One: The First Common Foundation of Science and Buddhism

Using Francis Bacon’s “knowledge is power” as a statement about causes, conditions, and results, I examine where scientific observation meets Buddhist dependent-origination thinking. From classifying mushrooms to observing emotions, the four establishments of mindfulness, the afterlife, and prayer, the discussion explains why observable reality is the starting point of both awakening and problem-solving.

강의 글 읽기 →