A Place for Questions and Objections
Today is a day for conversation. You are welcome to talk about Buddhism, philosophy, your practice, or whatever problems you are facing. Questions about religion, a Buddhist book or scripture someone has written, or a video you have seen on YouTube are all welcome. I have posted close to 450 videos now. If there is something in them you do not understand, or a point you want to challenge, please ask.
Anyone can talk with me at any time, so please ask your questions.
I describe myself as a twenty-first-century arahant. Some of you may therefore want to put me to the test. “Have you really awakened? Why are you an arahant? Have greed, hatred, and delusion completely disappeared? Don’t you want to have sex? Have all your desires disappeared? Are you in samadhi throughout everyday life?” Anything is welcome. You may have heard elsewhere that someone is awakened and think that, compared with that person, I do not qualify. You can say so. If you want to hear why I call myself an arahant, we can have an open conversation. Anyone can talk with me at any time.
I have waited a little for questions, but today I will begin with something I prepared. It concerns Venerable Myeongjin. I do not automatically address every monk with the respectful title Seunim. In Myeongjin’s case, however, I think I should. I cannot simply let pass what happened at his forty-nine-day memorial, and the conduct of Jinwoo, the Jogye Order’s president, who appeared there.
Myeongjin’s Forty-Nine-Day Memorial and Heojeong’s Article
Myeongjin was a Jogye Order monk whose monastic registration was stripped away, who was expelled, and who had to fight a legal battle. Recently, a memorial was held forty-nine days after his death. I regard this ceremony as a Korean Buddhist observance rather than something that had always existed in Buddhism. In any case, the order posthumously conferred the rank of Daejongsa, or Great Master, on him at that event. They appointed a dead man a Great Master.
Jinwoo appeared at the ceremony and spoke. Having completed his first term, he had stood in another election and become the order’s president for a second term. Heojeong wrote a sharply critical article about this on his blog. I think it is also reasonable to call him Venerable Heojeong. He has spent a long time speaking out about reform of the Jogye Order.
I do not read just anything that comes out of Buddhist circles. From time to time I read articles and news from people who show at least some interest in reform within religious institutions. This time I felt that I had to introduce Heojeong’s article to you. Myeongjin was a well-known figure, yet almost nobody seemed to be discussing what was wrong with this memorial ceremony.
Why I Respect Venerable Myeongjin
Myeongjin was born in 1950. I was born in 1974, so he was born twenty-four years before me. His secular name was Han Gi-jung, and he died in 2026 at the age of seventy-five. It appears that he died while swimming on Jeju Island. He was an active person who enjoyed sports and swimming. There is also a channel called Myeongjin TV. When I checked during the broadcast, it was still there and had 130,000 subscribers. He was far better known than I am, so many of you will already know him.
Does everyone in the world have to awaken?
Of course people can have faults and make mistakes. Such stories have followed Myeongjin too. But I do not respect him because he was a flawless person. I respect him because he took an interest in the problems of our society and participated directly in addressing them. He spent a long time speaking out on labor, vulnerable people, politics, and reunification between North and South Korea.
Myeongjin also became a target of illegal surveillance by the National Intelligence Service after taking a critical stance toward the Lee Myung-bak government. The country’s intelligence agency directly monitored a monk. I think an NIS that does this is a serious problem. Things like the National Security Act should also be abolished. We should not accept as normal the surveillance and intimidation of religious people who speak about society and power.
Is a Temple an Amusement Park? The Temple Toll Controversy
One incident illustrates why I hold Myeongjin in regard: the controversy over lawmaker Jeong Cheong-rae’s remarks about temple tolls in 2021. Some temples were blocking entrances to mountains or hiking trails and demanding payment from anyone who wanted to pass. Jeong criticized this, asking whether they were behaving like someone selling the water of the Daedong River. The point was that they were acting like a gang running a toll road.
Isn’t it strange that you have to pay admission to enter a temple?
The Jogye Order’s explanation was that its temples possessed national cultural properties and needed money to maintain and repair them, so they charged visitors. But the charges were not limited to people going inside a temple to see those properties. Even hikers who had no intention of entering the temple could find their way blocked at a trail entrance far away and be required to pay.
Does having a temple halfway up a mountain or at its summit entitle you to block the entire hiking trail? How absurd must it feel to have your way blocked when all you want to do is climb the mountain? It is also strange to demand an admission fee from someone who simply wants to enter a temple, bow, and leave. Is a temple an amusement park? Is it normal to keep people out unless they pay? I call that crazy.
Those tolls have probably disappeared now because the state compensates the Jogye Order for costs associated with cultural properties. That does not make its earlier conduct right. When Jeong raised the issue, the order rose up to denounce him and the Democratic Party. It would not accept his apology when he tried to give one, and it eventually held a national monks’ rally. Not every monk in the country took part, but some were mobilized to gather in Seoul and loudly criticize the government and Jeong.
When did this happen? One or two months before a presidential election. I see that monks’ rally as virtually an intervention in the election. Myeongjin was one of the people who strongly criticized it. And that was not the only thing he did. It was part of a long record of concern and action for socially vulnerable people.
Renunciation Does Not Mean Indifference to the World
Someone who belongs to a religious community yet remains detached from social problems is, in my view, not a religious person. Some people may think precisely the opposite. “Why does someone who has renounced the world involve himself in secular politics? Why should he speak out and take action on how other people live?” You may think becoming a monk means severing all ties to your parents, society, and the secular world.
Monks cannot be detached from worldly affairs.
But keeping your distance from worldly desires and taking no interest in the world inhabited by people who have not ordained are separate matters. We live in an interdependent world. How do monks live? Aren’t they supported by state money or offerings from ordinary Buddhists? Do they earn their own living? Blocking the entrance to a temple like gangsters and telling people they cannot climb the mountain unless they pay deserves condemnation.
Ultimately, monks live on what others give them. That is true whether the support comes from the state or Buddhist donors. You have heard the word bigu, haven’t you? Bigu, or bhikkhu, means, in plain English, a beggar: someone who lives on what is given to them. I am saying that the Sanskrit bhikkhu and the English beggar amount to the same thing here. Rather than earning their living through work, they live by receiving what other people provide.
Then what happens if society collapses? If the people who provide the food are hungry and struggling, what will monks live on? Monks cannot be detached from worldly affairs. Nor is this true only of monks. Nobody lives apart from the world. A war between North and South Korea, or a third world war, would immediately affect our lives. The same is true even when Korea itself is not at war.
War between Ukraine and Russia, or between Israel and Iran, affects us too. Oil prices soar, flour becomes more expensive, and all kinds of problems arise. This is especially true in modern society, where trade networks bind us closely together. Living in an interdependent world also means living within relationships like these.
Monks should always take an interest in the world. When something is wrong, they should say it needs to be corrected. When people seek war, they should oppose it; when violence occurs, they should oppose that too. If people facing hardship or social vulnerability are hungry, monks should step forward to help directly. If a problem is beyond what one person can address, they should also work to change society. That is what I believe monks ought to do.
Yet it is hard to find such monks even when you look closely. Myeongjin may not have been the only one, but he was one of the few who did this visibly. That is why I respect and mourn him. I do not intend here to determine whether everything he taught about Buddhism was correct or whether he was awakened. Does everyone in the world have to awaken? Someone like Myeongjin is a person with whom a meaningful conversation is possible, and someone well worth respecting.
What Must Be Said Before Conferring a Great Master’s Title
The immediate reason I raised this today was an article dated October 10, 2026, on The Buddhism website. It reported that the Jogye Order’s highest rank, Daejongsa, had been conferred posthumously on Myeongjin at his forty-nine-day memorial. The ceremony was held at Bongeunsa in Seoul. Myeongjin had once been its abbot. He appears to have been driven out of that position amid conflict with the faction around former order president Jaseung, and eventually lost his monastic registration too.
What does a Great Master title matter after someone has died?
Jaseung was the former president whose death in a fire caused a great commotion about whether it was suicide and so forth. Jinwoo is one of the closest associates of that same Jaseung faction with which Myeongjin was in conflict. While Jaseung was still alive, Jinwoo ran for president as the faction’s sole candidate and took office unopposed. In other words, Jaseung’s influence kept anyone else from running, leaving Jinwoo to stand alone and become president. At least there was an election for his second term.
That is the man who delivered a eulogy for Myeongjin. I can understand Do-ol Kim Yong-ok giving a eulogy. The two men were friends, appeared on broadcasts together, and shared some political views. Jinwoo is different. He belongs to the side connected with the conflict that drove Myeongjin out of the order. What should such a person do before delivering a eulogy?
He must reflect on and apologize for what the order did wrong to Myeongjin. If he will not say those words, he should not be there. What use is calling someone a Great Master after he is dead? If it were me, I would spit as soon as he arrived. “Why are you here?” That is how outrageous I find it. The photograph of Jinwoo holding a microphone beside Myeongjin’s memorial portrait and reading his tribute was truly absurd. Would Myeongjin have wanted some Great Master title? What does it matter?
Heojeong’s Account of the False Reporting and Expulsion
Heojeong’s blog is called “It Is Direction, Not Speed.” The article I want to introduce is titled “Conferring the Great Master Title Is a Deception. Apologize to Venerable Myeongjin.” I do not agree with every word of it, but I agree with a great deal. To understand why an apology must come first, we need to follow the events Heojeong retraces.
Heojeong begins with an article published by the Buddhist Newspaper on June 5, 2017. Written by reporters Jang Yeong-seop and Hong Da-young, its headline was “Transfer the Development Rights to the KEPCO Site and We Will Give You 50 Billion Won.” As recounted in the blog, that report alleged signs that Myeongjin, while abbot of Bongeunsa, had attempted a backroom deal involving an enormous sum of money over former temple land without the order’s approval.
The allegation was that if the order recovered the KEPCO site, which had formerly belonged to Bongeunsa, and transferred development rights to a Mr. Eun, Myeongjin would receive 50 billion won in return. This was the newspaper’s claim, not a statement that Myeongjin actually received such money. Heojeong explains that the false report suddenly branded him a scoundrel selling off temple land, and that the Jogye Order used it as grounds to expel him in 2017.
I understand that many people loved Myeongjin when he was abbot of Bongeunsa. I did not witness that period myself, but stories about it also appear on Myeongjin TV. A false article was attached to such a person, and then used to strip away his monastic registration. Heojeong calls it a false article, and I say so clearly too: it was false reporting. The names of the reporters who wrote it, Jang Yeong-seop and Hong Da-young, must also be made clear.
An Order That Would Not Apologize Even After Losing in Court
According to Heojeong’s article, Myeongjin had to sue the Buddhist Newspaper to clear his name. He won, but the order’s side appealed; after he won again, the case went to the Supreme Court. Myeongjin won there as well in September 2019. The court ordered the Buddhist Newspaper to pay him 10 million won in damages and publish a correction.
If you published a false article, shouldn’t you go to the person and apologize?
The newspaper then reportedly issued a very dry correction. But there was no apology. If you publish a false article about someone, shouldn’t you go to that person and apologize? Is it enough to publish falsehoods and then issue only the correction a court orders? If the report was the basis for the disciplinary action and was found to be false, shouldn’t his monastic registration have been restored? The order ignored even that.
Here I look at what lies behind the word “order.” Who makes its decisions? In my view, it is Jaseung’s trash-like associates, the rotten power cartel, the gambling cartel and secret-wife cartel—the rotten heads at the top. The Buddhist Newspaper is that order’s mouthpiece, and the cartel expelled someone it did not like. Whether the article was exposed as false or not, they were hardly going to restore his registration voluntarily.
Heojeong writes that it was incomprehensible to refuse to restore his registration when the grounds for the disciplinary action were false. I actually find it comprehensible. The real reason was not the article itself. The article was the stated pretext; what they actually wanted was to expel a person they disliked. Seen in those terms, it is clear why they did not change their attitude even after the judgment.
Another Lawsuit to Recover His Monastic Registration
The sequence Heojeong describes does not end there. In February 2023, Myeongjin sued the Jogye Order for a declaration that its disciplinary action was invalid. In May 2025, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that it was invalid. The order appealed again. Rather than accept the decision, it kept tormenting him.
On January 16, 2026, the appeal reached the same conclusion as the first ruling. The court again found in Myeongjin’s favor. According to Heojeong, the order abandoned a further Supreme Court appeal but still made no effort to restore his registration. It had lost twice, and the disciplinary action had been declared invalid, yet it simply ignored all of that.
The order reportedly also labeled the civil society elders who came forward to help restore Myeongjin’s registration “outside forces” and “forces harming the order.” What does that last label mean? Bad people trying to harm our order—enemies of the institution. It is an ugly term. It turns people trying to correct a wrong into enemies.
Heojeong also writes that while Myeongjin endured NIS surveillance and malicious rumors under the Lee Myung-bak government, the order helped those responsible. It further demanded that he apply for a special retrial if he wanted his registration restored. A court had declared the discipline invalid, yet he was supposed to ask the order to review it again. They subjected him to false news and long lawsuits for ten years, and then, after he died, proposed to restore his honor with the name of Great Master.
Whose Interests Does Honor Without an Apology Serve?
The source of Heojeong’s anger is clear. People who had tormented an innocent person through the press and through lawsuits, and had not offered a single apology in ten years, were now going to confer a Great Master title. How can people who claim to study the Buddha’s teachings be so shameless? How can they treat a fellow practitioner wearing the same robes so cruelly and viciously?
How can saying that all is well settle this?
Heojeong says that conferring the title without an apology gives the perpetrators absolution and amounts to a deception that kills the deceased, his family, and his supporters a second time. I agree with that criticism. How can it be respectful for those who treated someone as an enemy, tormented him, and stripped his registration to turn up and recite a memorial tribute without a word of apology?
His article identifies what must be acknowledged and apologized for before any title is conferred: branding an innocent monk a criminal, preventing him from studying at the Bongamsa meditation hall he loved, and wasting his time and money through litigation. I agree completely about that order of things. This is not something to close by saying that all is well and everyone should get along. How could that settle it?
We Can Remember the Dead Without Agreeing With Every Claim
I am a materialist, so in one sense I find the forty-nine-day rite itself rather ridiculous. But I can understand holding it out of a wish to remember Myeongjin again. Even if you do not believe your parents’ spirits return to eat the food on an ancestral offering table, you can follow an old tradition, set the table, and remember them. Whether it is a forty-nine-day ceremony or an ancestral rite, it can provide an occasion to honor the deceased. I do not reject that feeling.
There would have to be a spirit before you could send it off. We can certainly commemorate the dead.
There are, however, passages in Heojeong’s article with which I have difficulty agreeing. One suggests that if the order had not tormented Myeongjin for ten years, he would not have gone to Jeju, so they had effectively killed him. We cannot know that. There may have been any number of reasons for going to Jeju. Criticizing the order’s wrongdoing is different from declaring the cause of his death in that way. I find that part questionable.
Heojeong even expressed the fury of saying that he would smash the stage at the following day’s memorial if there was no genuine apology. Apparently he did not actually do so. I too might have raised an uproar there and probably been thrown out by the others. That is how outrageous it is to conclude the ceremony without a single word of apology.
The article demands that the president apologize formally on behalf of the order and that Jang Yeong-seop and Hong Da-young, who wrote the false report, come and apologize too. It says the anger and pursuit of accountability will not stop. Restoring honor without repentance is an empty lie; they should stop trying to cover the sky with a hand and kneel before the deceased to ask forgiveness. The point is that the event must be an occasion for an apology, not merely for offerings of fruit and chanting.
But I do not agree with describing the ceremony as a rite to send off the departed spirit. Where is this spirit? It would have to exist before you could send it anywhere. We can commemorate the dead. That does not mean I accept the existence of a spirit. Introducing Heojeong’s article does not mean endorsing every religious premise and every expression in it.
The Note Asking for an Apology That Went Unanswered
Heojeong posted another article after attending the memorial. According to that account, he asked lay Buddhist Lee Sun-gi to pass a note to President Jinwoo. It asked the order to offer an apology that day, pointing out that even the NIS had apologized to Myeongjin. Of course the NIS apologized because it had conducted illegal surveillance, and even that apology came only after a court had identified its wrongdoing.
The note said: “Venerable President, this is Heojeong. Even the NIS apologized to Venerable Myeongjin in 2021. At today’s forty-nine-day memorial, please offer a word of apology to him on behalf of the order. I believe it is the last courtesy owed by an order that tormented him for ten years. Heojeong, with palms joined.” Was that some extravagant demand? It was a request for one word of apology as a final courtesy.
Yet Jinwoo reportedly read only his prepared text and stepped down. Even after receiving the note, he said only what he had intended to say. Heojeong wrote that he had retained a small hope for renewal and reform but was now abandoning it. He also sent a note to Do-ol Kim Yong-ok, who remained silent. Perhaps Kim thought that raising and arguing over such matters was inappropriate on that occasion. Whatever the reason, the request for an apology received no answer there.
I Like This Kind of Pettiness
Heojeong is very petty, isn’t he? But I like this kind of pettiness. I am petty too. Some people may say we should be generous, laugh it off, and move on. Then I suppose we should also laugh it off when descendants of independence fighters live in poverty while collaborators with Japanese colonial rule live in splendor. If North Korea shoots and kills a South Korean, should we laugh that off too?
At the very least, shouldn’t you apologize for what you did wrong?
If Israel fires missiles at Hamas in disputed Palestinian territory and says, “Get out, you bastard. This is our land,” are we supposed to laugh and move on? I give these examples because challenging wrongdoing cannot always be dismissed as small-mindedness. Laughing things off is not always the right response.
Of course we cannot settle everything in the world neatly and conclusively. Sometimes we must accept an apology and move on. Sometimes we may endure something for the sake of peace rather than argue every point. But in my view, allowing a president who had not apologized to turn up at Myeongjin’s memorial and deliver a eulogy insulted the deceased. I do not know who organized the event, but that is how I see it.
I do not know what Myeongjin himself would have thought. He has already died. Perhaps he would have laughed and let it pass, deciding it was best to get along; perhaps he would have reconciled and turned a blind eye. But I share Heojeong’s pettiness. At the very least, shouldn’t you apologize for what you have done wrong? Of course, if they had possessed that much decency and a sense of right and wrong, they would not have expelled someone over a false article in the first place.
I Am Not Demanding a Flawless Person
I once saw Myeongjin from a distance at a rally in Seoul calling for Yoon Suk Yeol to step down. I was below the stage, and he was speaking on it. I did not go up to greet him in person. I am not telling this story to imply that we were personally close.
I do not expect people to have no faults at all.
Some people condemn Myeongjin over the story that he went to a room salon with Jaseung and drank with women. I do not regard that as some enormous failing. Acknowledge what is true, apologize for what was wrong, and deny what you did not do. I do not expect people to have no faults at all. They should acknowledge what needs acknowledging.
What I respect is the record of his life. He spoke for vulnerable people rather than living by attaching himself to power. He addressed social problems and appeared on broadcasts to discuss them. That is what I respect. We do not have to endorse every action a person takes and every interpretation of Buddhism he offers in order to respect his social commitment.
A Cartel Does Not Disappear Because One Man Dies
Seen from that perspective, the Jogye Order today is as rotten as it was before. Jaseung’s death changed nothing. His associates and their cartel still form the order’s power structure. I call it a cartel of corruption. Unlike Heojeong, who is a monk of the Jogye Order, I am an outsider. And I have given up hope in the order.
For someone who has not awakened to claim awakening is one of the gravest wrongs in Buddhism.
There may be decent and admirable people within it, people who practice hard and strive to awaken. I am not saying there is not a single such person. But when rotten people hold power at the top for decades, the whole organization rots. I do not know whether the proportion is 70 percent, 80 percent, or 50 percent. I am not claiming to know a number. But events such as the national monks’ rally reveal the state of the institution.
In that sense, perhaps it is unsurprising that they do not apologize. Then, if you will not ask forgiveness, at least do not shamelessly turn up to show your face. Conferring a Great Master title—where among your Great Masters is a real Great Master? What changes when a bunch of rotten bastards exchange titles like that?
You say Jinje is awakened? I call Jinje a fraud, a lying bastard. For someone who has not awakened to claim awakening is one of the gravest wrongs in Buddhism, something above all not to do. Yet he occupied the position of the Jogye Order’s supreme patriarch for ten years. This is my criticism from the standpoint of how I judge awakening. High office and the title of Great Master do not guarantee it.
Cultural Properties and State Support
The Jogye Order’s corruption has a long history, beginning with things such as money-driven elections. Even so, some people are trying to correct and change it. Voices are heard through Yadan Beopseok TV and Myeongjin TV, and there are media outlets such as The Buddhism. Some lay organizations also identify and speak out about the order’s problems. I know that those voices exist.
But this practice of the state stuffing money into the Buddhist establishment simply because it possesses cultural properties must change. I believe the national cultural properties held by the Jogye Order should be transferred to the state and managed by it. Aren’t they national cultural properties, after all? Why must the order hold on to them? Let the state manage them.
Doesn’t receiving large sums from the state make them even more corrupt? They were already rotten. People who blocked roads outside temples and refused entry without payment sit there calling themselves monks. You would prevent someone from even entering your temple unless they paid? Are you mad? I call such people sham-monk bastards. I cannot respect that conduct just because it bears the name of religion.
What We Can Let Pass and What We Must Examine Clearly
Today I am a petty person who has read Heojeong’s petty article. I like this attitude. We must distinguish clearly between right and wrong. On that basis, we can forgive what should be forgiven and, for the sake of peace, turn a blind eye to what can be allowed to pass. Abandoning judgment altogether is different from judging something and then deciding how to respond.
If history is not set right, our descendants will experience the same things.
Even though I believe there is no soul, I do not overturn the offering table when someone holds an ancestral rite to remember their father. I say publicly that there is no soul, but I do not force someone to stop believing or forcibly prevent them from performing a ceremony. That is something I can leave alone.
Some matters, however, must be examined clearly. If history is not set right, our descendants will experience the same things. We must regret, record, and reflect on past wrongs if we do not want them repeated. Demanding an apology should not be dismissed as mere pettiness for the sake of venting feelings. The problem is imagining that we can move forward while leaving wrongdoing covered up.
Seeing Your Own Mistakes Is Part of Practice
When Myeongjin died, I considered making a special program about him. But he was far better known than I am, familiar to people involved in social movements, and often appeared on broadcasts. I did not make a separate special. What I wanted to discuss today was what was wrong with Jinwoo shamelessly appearing at the memorial and conferring a Great Master title. My point is that we must not simply cover up past wrongs and move on.
How can I awaken if I am not honest with myself? I cannot.
This applies equally to individual practice. We must see exactly what we did wrong in the past. If I said something, I must take responsibility for it. “I spoke wrongly then. I was wrong. I did not know at the time.” We must be able to say those words. Do not simply cover it up.
Buddhism requires honesty with yourself. Can you claim to be honest with yourself while being dishonest with others? You must be honest with them too. Buddhism deals with the mind and mental life. How can I awaken if I am not honest with myself? I cannot. To see what I have done wrong, what I cling to, and what has bound my life, I must be honest with myself. Otherwise I cannot move forward.
There are sham monks who put on an impressive appearance, pretend to be awakened, and sit there declaring themselves Great Masters. They are not honest. If you want other people to look up to you, being honest about that desire is fine. But lying and deceiving people by claiming to be awakened when you are not is another matter. You cannot hide what you are behind an impressive title.
The Jogye Order Must Apologize to Venerable Myeongjin
You too need to understand the reality I am criticizing. You need to recognize the rot in the Jogye Order and South Korea’s Buddhist establishment so that you do not go to a temple, latch on to a monk, and waste your time on nonsense. Today’s program has turned into a critical broadcast. Heojeong’s article conveys his anger honestly, as it is. I have tried to pass on its content without leaving anything out because it deserves to be known and its subject needs to be brought clearly to light.
The Jogye Order must apologize to Venerable Myeongjin. Repent of your wrongdoing.
The Jogye Order must apologize to Venerable Myeongjin. Repent of your wrongdoing, you rotten bastards. What I demand is not a grand title attached to someone after death. Acknowledge and apologize for the wrongs you inflicted while he was alive.
I do not endorse Heojeong’s awakening or every one of his actions. But he says many right things about social problems and reform of the Jogye Order, and I agree with almost 80 to 90 percent of this article. That is why I wanted to share it. My channel may be smaller than his, so I do not know how far it will spread, but I still had to tell this story. Thank you to everyone who joined me today, and to Venerable Dao. I will see you next time. May you attain Buddhahood.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.