Teacher: Professor David A. Mason

Description: Korean Buddhism is more oriented towards Nature, ecological considerations, and natural-health practices than any other Buddhism in this world, due to a variety of historical factors. Many major temples were in cities and towns during the earlier eras, as in all other Asian nations, but a major effect of the official oppression of Buddhism during the Joseon Dynasty was to drive them totally out of urban areas and into the mountains surrounding cities, causing monks and believers to gather at the monasteries that had already been established deep in the greatest mountains. The result of this is that today most of Korea’s greatest traditional temples are found at its most beautiful and sacred mountains, many of them national and provincial parks, most desirable to live upon for aesthetic and health reasons.  
Out there, they absorbed a lot of folk-village traditions including veneration of the natural guardian deities. Also, Chinese Daoism was imported to Korea ever since the 600s, but never became established and as a national religion, which would be a rival; therefore Buddhism absorbed many of its ideas, practices and artworks into itself. A third factor is that the imported “foreign religion” of Buddhism was compelled to adopt belief in and veneration of many of the spirits that were very important to the nationalistic native population in order to be accepted by both the rulers and the populace. All this led by the Joseon Era to a unique factor within global Buddhism, altars or entire shrines, and appropriate veneration practices, for Folk-Shamanic-Daoist icons within almost all Korean Buddhist Temples (of the dominant Jogye & Taego Orders). These two lectures will explain the main five of these deities, or rational understanding of them, and the roles that they play for the monks and the laypeople.