Today I ask exactly what the title states: does the Jogye Order want to be called the Money Order instead? A major starting point of the present crisis was lawmaker Jeong Cheong-rae’s criticism of temple cultural-property admission charges as a “Bong-i Kim Seon-dal toll.” The Jogye Order responded by demanding his resignation from the National Assembly and expulsion from the Democratic Party.
This was not an impulsive remark by one or two people. Abbots from different temples gathered, held a meeting, and decided to place banners criticizing Jeong at temple entrances. While the entire population struggled desperately through COVID-19, this was the conclusion they reached. Public suffering did not catch their attention, but this phrase provoked outrage.
Did they become angry because the Bong-i Kim Seon-dal comparison was accurate?
Why did it cause such anger? I think it hurt because it was not false. The Order suffered little when ordinary citizens repeatedly called the admission charges unjust. Once a national lawmaker said it publicly, however, leaders panicked: perhaps they would no longer be able to collect the toll, and perhaps people had recognized the Bong-i Kim Seon-dal scheme.
In folklore, Bong-i Kim Seon-dal sold water from the Taedong River. Today, water is actually sold by states and corporations, though earlier generations could hardly imagine paying for it. Likewise, when temples collect money by invoking cultural properties in mountain areas, repetition can make people shrug and accept it. Temple monks themselves appear to have adopted that view.
Mountains, temples, and cultural properties are not the Order’s private assets
Most ancient temples stand in beautiful mountains. The Order claims part of the mountain, the temple, and its cultural artifacts as its own and places collection booths on the route. When passersby must pay, that is functionally a toll. It is now renamed a “cultural-property zone admission fee” rather than a viewing fee, on the theory that entering the zone itself requires payment.
Since when did those cultural properties belong to monks? Mountains, thousand-year-old temples, and artifacts are not monastic private property; they belong to the public. The Order has forcibly privatized a common inheritance and claims that a mountain crossed by everyone is institutional property. Monks, who should understand better than anyone that mountains and fields should not belong absolutely to an individual or organization, have forgotten that meaning.
If they were truly monks, how could they demand money from hikers who do not even enter the temple? Such conduct makes one ask whether they remain monastics at all.
Trying to suppress an accurate criticism made it spread further
A comment appeared beneath my video supporting Jeong. It objected that calling the practice a Bong-i Kim Seon-dal scheme was excessive and added that a religious institution needs money to survive. I replied.
Why is that comparison abusive? It is actually a gentle phrase that does not fully express the conduct. The Order takes a common property, insists it is its own, and operates what resembles a paid roadway by demanding money from people who pass. The description is factual.
Leaders feared that these facts would spread and reacted in alarm. They apparently assumed that a sufficiently fierce response would silence the phrase. The result was the opposite. Their overreaction let the public see the Order’s inner attachment to money more clearly.
Buddhism is a tradition that should not blink before authority
Buddhism carries the fierce saying, “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet the patriarch, kill the patriarch.” It breaks authority in the struggle for awakening. In principle there is no hierarchy of sacred immunity. Practitioners should examine awakening with the intensity of people crossing swords rather than submit to authoritarian rank.
If the concern were genuinely cultural preservation, the phrase “Bong-i Kim Seon-dal” would require no panic. If the national rally demanded extraordinary measures to conserve heritage, the Order could simply hear criticism and explain its evidence. Compared with Buddhism’s severe tradition of debate, the phrase is trivial.
What felt intolerable was the possibility that the toll-taking reality would become widely known. Leaders therefore raised their voices and tried to block it. Now the expression will be remembered for a long time. It was not the critic but the Jogye Order itself that amplified it. Citizens who went hiking and were suddenly required to pay below a temple had already suffered the problem for years.
A genuine religion survives by having less money
I answered the second claim—that religion needs money to live—with its opposite. A genuine religion needs to be without money in order to live. The Buddha recommended the life of a practitioner without possessions. This does not mean that not a single won is required in modern society. Food, temple maintenance, and practice need some resources.
The current Jogye Order, however, has gone far beyond necessity. People speak of enormous sums spent in elections for abbots, the supreme patriarch, and the president of the central administration. I do not know the exact amounts, but reports of expensive money politics never cease. This means candidates need deep pockets and institutional authority becomes tradable through wealth.
Flies gather where filth exists. When money accumulates in the Order, monks addicted to its taste appear. The roots are concentrated money and opaque finance. The flow must be interrupted and a transparent financial policy established. Resources genuinely required for life and practice should be openly managed so that they cannot feed power, elections, and private appetite.
I will keep striking from outside until the Jogye Order ceases to be a Money Order
The institution now resembles not the Jogye Order but a Money Order. Because little will for self-reform is visible inside, I will keep striking it fiercely from outside. I will continue until internal voices break into public view and younger monks unite.
This criticism does not seek to destroy Buddhism. It seeks to end the contradiction in which a tradition teaching non-possession is ruled by money and to return the Jogye Order to practitioners. Mountains and cultural heritage must be restored to the public, and financial flows and elections made transparent. Only then can the Order escape the shameful name of a Money Order.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.