This episode examines the conflict between the Bulgwang Dharma Assembly and the factions around the monks Jihong and Jijeong at Bulgwangsa. The dispute began in 2018 when messages exchanged between Jihong and a young female employee of the temple became public. Members of the assembly were shocked that a monk who held the position of Dharma teacher and the authority of temple founder had sent such messages to an employee, and they demanded that he step down.
Messages from a man with institutional power
The disclosed messages included lines such as, “Do you go to sleep without thinking of me?” and “You must always think only of me. Thinking of anyone else means death.” Between ordinary lovers, such words might be dismissed as possessiveness. But the sender possessed authority that could affect the woman’s employment and status. He was also head of propagation for the Jogye Order. The unequal power relationship makes it impossible to reduce the exchange to private romance.
When the controversy grew, Jihong said he would withdraw. Yet just before the monastic lineage association selected a successor, he left the association and announced that he would retain the founder’s authority. Although the association selected Hyorim, Jihong refused to release the position and later proposed transferring it to Jijeong. A promise to hand it to Hyorim was not honored, and Jijeong still occupied the position in 2022.
Why did the Jogye Order demand no accountability?
Jihong was then the Order’s head of propagation, a position with major influence over organization, money, and public events. Once serious allegations became public, the Order should have investigated and imposed responsibility. If the allegations were true, resignation and discipline would have been the normal response.
Instead, despite statements from lay Buddhists and civic organizations, Jihong retained office until his term ended in March 2021. Leading monks, including the president of the Order, attended and celebrated his retirement. Rather than clarify the scandal, they treated him as an honored leader who had completed distinguished service. What, then, does the Order mean by the standards of renunciation?
The kindergarten salary and embezzlement judgment
The message scandal was not the only issue. Jihong was prosecuted for receiving a salary as a full-time employee of a kindergarten affiliated with Bulgwangsa despite not actually performing the work. The lecture states that the Supreme Court ultimately confirmed an eight-month prison sentence suspended for two years, involving approximately 180 million won.
Embezzlement means taking property that is not one’s own without a legitimate basis. If a founder assumes that the temple and its kindergarten are his possessions, that assumption itself is the problem. Their assets were formed through donations and communal labor. The founder or abbot cannot treat them as private wealth.
One of Buddhism’s five precepts prohibits taking what is not given. If a prominent monk remains in office after such a judgment, what has the Order protected? Ignoring the allegations, sheltering him through years of litigation, and then celebrating his departure resembles the Korean saying in which the thief turns around and raises a club against the owner.
Did Jijeong resolve the conflict?
Had Jijeong been committed to integrity, he could have accepted demands for financial transparency after receiving the founder’s authority and investigated the issues surrounding Jihong. The dispute might then have ended. The conduct described in the broadcast went in the opposite direction: demands for audits of reconstruction funds and other expenditures were blocked, while Jihong’s vulnerabilities were shielded.
The assembly alleged that doors were locked to prevent services, that the pandemic was used as a pretext to deny space, that lighting and heating were withheld, and that hired security and temple employees obstructed participants. Such actions do not establish legitimacy. They reveal the absence of a persuasive justification.
Temple property is not a monk’s private estate
The broadcast also recalled a controversy from a temple where Jijeong had once served as abbot. Most of its property was allegedly transferred to a woman who had worked there as a cook. When she sued a person who described them as intimate partners, the court proceedings reportedly disclosed overseas trips together and circumstances surrounding the concentration of property in her hands.
The label attached to their relationship is less fundamental than the property question. Why was most of a temple’s estate transferred to a particular individual? Who gave an abbot the right to dispose of communal religious property at will? A renunciant should not grasp anything as personal possession. A temple does not belong to a monk, and neither do its devotees.
The Bulgwang community is the owner of Bulgwangsa
The common problem in the conduct attributed to Jihong and Jijeong is the treatment of the temple, its assets, devotees, and offices as personal possessions. The title of founder is not a license to privatize communal wealth. The office of abbot is not a right to lock doors and expel critics; it is a duty to manage donations transparently and support the community’s practice.
Bulgwangsa was built by members of the Bulgwang Dharma Assembly through donations and shared work. When that community asks for financial transparency and seeks to hold services in the space it created, monks who use organizations and guards to obstruct them reverse owner and servant. It is the thief raising a club to drive away the owner.
Reform of the Jogye Order does not begin with grand slogans. It begins by questioning powerful people when problems appear, enforcing responsibility for criminal judgments and financial allegations, and protecting temple property as communal property. Jihong and Jijeong should recognize their shame, relinquish office, and repent. The Order that sheltered them must also answer for the conflict it allowed to grow.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.