Was Sitting on a Lotus-Carved Foundation Stone Really Wrong?
A photograph showed President Moon Jae-in and his wife sitting on a lotus-carved foundation stone at what was believed to be an old temple site on Bugaksan. The mountain had long been closed after an armed infiltration incident and was being inspected before reopening. Buddhist organizations protested, and the Jogye Order issued an official statement. I argue that President Moon did nothing wrong. The responsibility lies with a leadership that confuses Buddhism with cultural property and manufactures conflict.
The Buddhist press quoted Tantan, director of the Central Buddhist Museum, and Seonghaeng, the Jogye Order’s cultural affairs director. Tantan said the picture was appalling and revealed an improper attitude toward a sacred Buddhist treasure. He asked whether the presidential couple would have treated a sacred object of their own religion that way. Seonghaeng said that even if the couple did not know, it was incomprehensible that the head of the Cultural Heritage Administration watched without intervening.
Buddhism Has No Sacred Object of This Kind
I begin by asking whether that carved stone truly is a Buddhist sacred object. A “sacred treasure” is supposed to be inherently holy, yet Buddhism originally has no material object that must be grasped as sacred. Even a Buddha statue, if necessary, should be capable of being cut up and used as firewood. An object can be preserved for historical and cultural value, but that value is not identical to Buddhist holiness.
The Buddha’s final direction was to make oneself and the Dharma one’s lamp. If anything can be called sacred, it is the teaching and the life that follows it, not a stone or ornament that becomes holy by itself. The Buddha did not command people to sacralize every item or symbol associated with him. Buddhism instead asks people to abandon attachment to images and fixed forms.
The lotus was not invented as an exclusively Buddhist symbol. It was already present in the religion and arts of ancient India. Its clean flower rising from mud can be used as an example, but an example does not turn the physical flower into a sacred object. Buddhism blended with Indian, Chinese, Korean, and local cultures in order to communicate its teaching. Cultural assimilation explains the symbol’s presence; it does not transform every inherited motif into an eternal holy relic.
A Foundation Stone Is Not Damaged by Someone Sitting on It
The object was also a foundation stone. Such stones are made to support the immense weight of pillars and buildings. They are deliberately hard enough to bear countless people in the structure above. One person sitting briefly will neither wear it away nor destroy it. If it lets a tired person rest, it has performed a perfectly sound function as a stone.
If the stone were truly sacred, monks would commit an offense every day by climbing onto halls built above foundation stones, bowing, chanting, and striking wooden instruments there. How can placing a building upon the stone be permissible while sitting on the exposed stone becomes desecration? A lotus carving cannot make that contradiction disappear.
Criticizing the heritage administrator was equally mistaken. According to the government’s explanation, the stone was not even designated cultural property. Even if it has historical value, it is a durable architectural stone that suffers no harm from a seated person. The administrator judged the object realistically. The critics either do not understand what a foundation stone is or have attached a sacred image to it because they saw a lotus.
Distinguish Culture from the Buddha’s Teaching
Buddhist culture and the Buddha’s teaching are not identical. Temples, statues, pagodas, and ornaments accumulated historical value over centuries and may deserve preservation. Yet protecting cultural property and awakening as a practitioner are entirely different matters. Once cultural artifacts become objects of worship, the Jogye Order ceases to follow Buddhism and begins to practice a religion of cultural property.
The teaching warns against attachment to every constructed image. Yet monks repeatedly create new statues and declare stones and designs sacred, reversing the instruction not to cling to the Buddha’s form. If an artifact needs protection, explain its historical value and conservation needs accurately. There is no reason to add religious authority and accuse a president of desecration.
The Head of the Order Cannot Speak for an Invented Wound
The Jogye Order then issued a statement reflecting the view of its president, Wonhaeng. It said temple sites carry the character of long ages, many undesignated objects urgently need state protection, and the presidential couple wounded Buddhists by sitting on a stone at the Beopheungsa site. I tell Wonhaeng to step down. Do not sell the name of ordinary Buddhists in order to create an absurd dispute.
How many Buddhists were genuinely wounded because a president sat on an undesignated stone? Is the lotus inherently holy, or has the institution turned cultural property into a source of religious authority? The people who injured Buddhists were not the presidential couple but the leaders who issued this statement in Buddhism’s name. An official religious statement should make sense both as ordinary reasoning and as Buddhist teaching. This one satisfies neither.
Is Attachment to Cultural Property Really About Income?
We should ask why Buddhist organizations become so agitated whenever cultural property is discussed. Such property is tied to institutional income. But monks did not ordain to become heritage managers. They ordained to awaken and live as buddhas. If managing historical artifacts obstructs practice and feeds institutional desire, return them to the state and let the state manage them.
I am not calling for Korean cultural heritage to burn. I am saying that, within Buddhism, producing even one genuinely awakened and compassionate person matters more than possessing every artifact. What do statues, great halls, and lotus patterns have to do with becoming a buddha? People who preach impermanence, non-self, and dependent arising cling to changing objects as sacred. Because they are far from awakening, even statements issued in the order’s name are saturated with greed, anger, and delusion.
An Awakened Order Would Have Invited People to Rest
If the leadership included an awakened person, it would have said: “A foundation stone is a stone. You may sit and rest. Some Buddhists objected, but the president did nothing wrong.” I would have applauded such a statement. A religion would then have reduced needless conflict and offered ease rather than injury.
Instead, the order magnified conflict over a stone that could not be harmed by sitting. The argument fails as heritage common sense, Buddhist teaching, and awakened conduct. Speech and action reveal the inner condition of the leadership. Even before debating monastic rules, the order has publicly displayed attachment unrelated to the Buddha’s teaching.
Buddhism Must Meet Modern People, Not Cling to a Corpse
This is not the time for more construction projects or for clinging only to the corpse of past culture. Buddhism should ask why its population and number of monastics keep declining. Monks should have moved closer to modern people, established urban centers, and shared the teaching amid ordinary life. Instead they block mountain paths in the name of protecting cultural property and insist that artifacts matter most. Buddhism consequently moves farther from contemporary lives.
President Moon, you may sit freely on that lotus-carved foundation stone. Those who turn the stone into a sacred object and scold people must study Buddhism again. Tantan should leave the museum directorship, and Wonhaeng and the entire Jogye leadership should resign. Stop holding cultural property as income and authority. Practice a living Buddhism rooted in impermanence, non-self, dependent arising, and direct engagement with people today.
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