After the Jogye Order held its national monks’ rally, I could not contain my shock. How could such an event occur? It cannot be explained by the mistakes of one or two people, nor only by one institutional defect, because thousands participated.
If monks knew the rally was wrong and voluntarily joined, their conduct was not monastic. If they joined because they feared threats or disadvantage, they failed to practice the perfection of patience: they followed what was wrong because it might otherwise harm them. If they did not understand what was wrong, then they lacked the insight to see the situation. I have continued explaining this terrible rally from several angles. Today I will examine it through the perfection of generosity.
Mahayana means going together with the public
Mahayana Buddhism called earlier Buddhism a lesser vehicle and presented itself as the greater one. It regarded older forms of practice and the Eightfold Path as overly centered on individual liberation, while declaring that it would travel with the public. Its ideal was to become Buddhas together, become happy together, and escape suffering together.
A Mahayana practitioner therefore cultivates the six perfections. One of the foremost is generosity, commonly divided into giving material goods, giving the Dharma, and giving freedom from fear. Giving means offering what is mine to another. At a deeper level, nothing is inherently mine, so one gives without attachment to giver, receiver, or gift.
Material generosity gives one’s own resources to the hungry and unclothed
Material giving shares one’s property. It gives clothes to the unclothed and food to the hungry, offering possessions through compassion. If nothing remains, the aspiration may reach the legendary willingness to cut one’s own flesh to feed another. Such a mind approaches sainthood and represents the bodhisattva’s path; this is why it is taught as a perfection leading toward Buddhahood.
Does giving mean only that laypeople hand their property to monks? Should monks not also share what they have? The perfection is a discipline for becoming a Buddha, so it is required of monastics as well as laypeople. What are temples and the Jogye Order now offering to the hungry?
Look at religious people who stood beside those in pain
I have admired religious people who participated in society. They read the movement of their time and spoke when speech was needed. They stood with the hungry, exhausted, unclothed, and weak. Even when cursed, harmed, and burdened because of their generosity, they endured. They were imprisoned and persecuted yet participated in democratization and modern social struggles. Even today, Catholic groups display this commitment relatively well.
Do Korea’s large temples and the Jogye Order practice material generosity? What are they doing for people who are hungry and desperate? During COVID-19 the entire population experienced enormous pain. Some lost businesses and all their property; others lost jobs and suffered enough to want to die. Did the monks even know this reality?
Separation from public life makes suffering invisible
If they did not know, I can partly understand why. Living apart in mountain temples and meeting ordinary people only when they occasionally visit and leave money can hide who is hungry. News may report that a small-business owner collapsed or a part-time worker lost employment, yet the institution may remain uninterested.
That could explain how monks gathered at a national rally and shouted, “How dare they stop us from collecting our money,” chanting slogans and attacking the president. If they truly had no idea how much the public was suffering, their conduct becomes intelligible. If they knew and acted that way anyway, the problem is far worse.
Had they understood, they should have entered the streets to ask how to help people in pain and what to offer those who were hungry and unclothed. That is a perfection; that is practice. At its deepest, generosity begins naturally without even the thought that “I am giving.” I am not demanding that lofty state here. I am asking the Order at least not to abandon people who suffer.
Giving freedom from fear means removing fear, not producing it
The gift of fearlessness enables another to be without fear. First, it does not frighten anyone; then it seeks to remove whatever fear already afflicts them.
Yet leaders of the enormous religious organization called the Jogye Order used the names of citizens and Buddhists as political weapons during a presidential election. They threatened a party and politicians with electoral defeat unless their demands were accepted. They broadcast fear. This is the opposite of giving fearlessness and cannot be called a Mahayana perfection.
Giving the Dharma means speaking the Buddha’s law, not slogans of power
If monks came to the rally intending to give the Dharma, they should have spoken the Dharma that truly mattered to the public. If even one person on the stage had explained how to save people, reduce suffering, and move toward Buddhahood in that difficult period, it would have been better. Had a speaker used a demand for extraordinary measures to offer such Dharma, I would have respected that person.
Instead, hours of speech had nothing to do with generosity or the Buddha’s law. There was no concern for how citizens lived or what participation in their lives required. Politicians battling fiercely before an election at least know that citizens are in pain, even if they are trying to convert that pain into votes. If a religious institution exercises influence over politicians, it should demand policies that prevent people from going hungry and unclothed. It should deliberate with society and speak through participation.
Did the Order frighten the public to defend cultural-property fees?
Even that political participation should never plant fear. Yet the Order assembled thousands and displayed force, effectively threatening to deprive a lawmaker of office unless its demands were met. The dispute did not begin with a plea to feed hungry monks. It began by treating an ordinary mountain as institutional land and a cultural property within it as institutional possession, then demanding money from anyone who passed through the designated area.
Collection booths took money even when hikers asked why they should pay. When a politician gently compared this conduct to “Bong-i Kim Seon-dal’s toll,” the Order erupted and demanded his expulsion from his party and removal from office. Is this the generosity of a Mahayana practitioner?
Whom do the thousand eyes and hands of Avalokitesvara face?
The division between meditation monks and administrative monks—one side seeking Buddhahood alone in the mountains while the other handles money and institutions—may be one cause. Yet both must cultivate the six perfections. Are they giving material aid? Do they care about the hungry and sick?
Are the Thousand-Armed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokitesvara and the Thousand Hands Sutra teachings only for laypeople? Do monks recite them daily merely to make devotees hand over money faster? If Avalokitesvara promises to pull a drowning person from the water, monks following that bodhisattva practice must share the public’s pain.
This was a time when even four people struggled to gather because COVID-19 had divided and restricted society. Where did the audacity to assemble thousands come from? How could a Mahayana institution become so estranged from the public? Does it see only those with money and power, those who bring wealth to the Order? I ask the monks to examine whether they actually practice generosity and patience.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.