Debating Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Korea: Reform, Doctrinal Authority, and the « Fortune-Seeking Buddhism Controversy » / 當代韓國居士佛教：改革、教義權威與「祈福佛敎論爭」
En langue anglaise.
Conférencier / Lecturer : Florence Galmiche (Paris Cité University – Institut Universitaire de France)
Discutant / Discussant : Yannick Bruneton (EPHE – Paris Cité University)
Modérateur / Host : Ji Zhe (Inalco)
Financement / Funding : Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation
Lien de connexion / link : Livestream
Organisation : Voir l'e-mail
Résumé :
Korean Buddhism frequently appears as a religion dominated by monasteries and the monastic community. Yet the vast majority of its practitioners are laypeople, most of them women who regularly attend urban temples. Their place within Buddhism has been the subject of sometimes intense debate for several decades.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in urban temples and the analysis of contemporary primary sources, this presentation will show that the category of “lay Buddhist” encompasses highly diverse positions. In contemporary Korean Buddhism, ordinary temple devotees are often engaged in prayers, donations, ritual participation, volunteer work, and various forms of Buddhist education. While they may be praised within the Buddhist community for their devotion and generosity, they are also frequently portrayed by some reform-minded Buddhist intellectuals as a conservative constituency, insufficiently grounded in Buddhist doctrine and overly dependent on monastic authority. By contrast, critical lay movements have often developed at some distance from temples and ritual practice, around projects aimed at reforming Buddhism and the monastic institution. These different ways of being a “lay Buddhist” have given rise to competing conceptions of the role of laypeople, reflecting a longer history of divergent efforts to modernize Korean Buddhism, extending from twentieth-century reform movements to the various currents of Engaged Buddhism.
The presentation will focus in particular on one of the most significant debates in recent Korean Buddhism, known in Korea as the “controversy over fortune-seeking Buddhism” (kibok pulgyo nonjaeng 祈福佛敎論爭). Initiated in the early 2000s by the intellectual journal Pulgyo P’yŏngnon (佛敎評論, Buddhist Review), this controversy explicitly targeted some of the most widespread practices found in Korean temples, including prayers for academic success and rituals for the dead. The intellectuals who launched the debate denounced such practices as incompatible with the fundamental principles of Buddhism and as morally problematic. A broad and intense controversy ensued and continued for two decades.
Far from being merely a question of orthodoxy, the controversy over “fortune-seeking Buddhism” reveals deeper conflicts about the foundations of Buddhist authenticity and authority, as well as the respective roles of lay persons and monastics. It highlights how, in contemporary Korea, debates over “Buddhism for the laity” are inseparable from broader questions about the definition of Buddhism itself.