Philosopher
Baek Yongseong
1864–1940
Also known as Paek Yongsŏng
Korean Seon monk and independence activist who compared Buddhism favourably with Christianity and founded the Order of Great Awakening to bring enlightenment to lay people.
Baek Yongseong was a Korean Seon monk who, faced with competition from Christian missionaries, set out to show the superiority of Buddhism by comparing the two religions. He tried to return Buddhism to its original purpose in the lives of lay people.
In 1922 he founded the Order of Great Awakening and launched the Great Awakening school movement, which gave lay people access to meditation classes for the first time. With Han Yongun, he also took an active part in social movements, including the Korean independence movement.
Key ideas
- Buddhism and Christianity compared
- Christianity, Baek argued, lacks a full understanding of the mind. He rejected the idea of God as a creator separate from creation: in Buddhist terms, all beings arise from the original mind, and each person’s mind holds the Buddha’s.
- Against divine punishment
- It seemed harsh to him that a creator should punish people for original sin after allowing them to go wrong.
- Enlightenment for everyone
- Enlightenment, realising one’s own Buddha-nature, is the heart of Buddhism. Everyone should seek it and help others to it, so he founded the Order of Great Awakening in 1922 to open meditation to lay people.
Sources
- Lucy Hyekyung Jee, Korean Buddhism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy