The Zen Monastic Experience: Buddhist Practice in Contemporary Korea [Hardcover]

Robert E. Buswell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1992

Robert Buswell, a Buddhist scholar who spent five years as a Zen monk in Korea, draws on personal experience in this insightful account of day-to-day Zen monastic practice. Buswell's depiction of Zen reveals a religious tradition that differs radically from the stereotype prevalent in the West. Westerners exposed to Zen through English-language materials have been offered a picture of an iconoclastic religion that is bibliophobic, institutionally subversive, aesthetically sophisticated, devoted to manual labour, and intent solely on sudden enlightenment. Its most revered teachers are depicted as torching their sacred religious icons, bullying their students into enlightenment, rejecting the value of all the scriptures of Buddhism, and even denying the worth of Zen itself. In discussing the activities of the postulants, the meditation monks, the teachers and administrators, and the support monks of Songgwangsa, a major Korean Buddhist monastery, Buswell challenges much of this picture. In the "counterparadigm" of Zen offered in the daily lives of the monks, Zen's putative iconoclasts are replaced by resolute members of a community dedicated to a methodical regimen of spiritual training. Zen's apparent bibliophobia pales to reveal contemplatives learned in classical Chinese and often having extensive experience in Buddhist seminaries. And the brash challenge allegedly made to systematizations of religion, even to Zen itself, fades before monks with strong faith in the arduous way of life they have undertaken. The author's treatment relates contemporary Zen practice to the historical development of the tradition and to Korean history more generally, and his intimate, sympathetic portrayal of the life of modern Zen monks in Korea provides a look at Zen from the inside.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A myth-shattering foray behind the walls of a Korean Zen Buddhist monastery. The common Western image of Zen as a religion that features unpredictable, iconoclastic teachers ``bullying their students into enlightenment'' is, says Buswell (East Asian Languages and Cultures/UCLA), grossly inaccurate. And he should know, having spent five years as a monk at Songgwang-sa, one of the largest Zen monasteries in Korea. Here, deftly weaving scholarship and memoir, Buswell depicts what life in a Zen monastery is really like. Early chapters discuss the history and current status (not terribly vital) of Buddhism in Korea; the course (surprisingly flexible) of a typical monk's career and of a typical monastic year; and the layout and bureaucracy of Songgwang-sa, plus a look at its charismatic ``master,'' Kusan, who ``achieved the great awakening'' in 1960, at age 50. Through this survey, which is well-detailed but hardly gripping, Buswell explodes Zen's reputation as bibliophobic, artsy-craftsy, and reliant on physical labor. Ironically, the narrative takes flight with the author's description of the aspect of Korean Zen that matches its reputation--the arduous life of the monastery's ``elite vanguard,'' the meditators. Although meditators comprise only a small percentage of the monks (with the rest devoted to support activities or ritual), their efforts astonish: sitting in meditation for 14 hours a day; for one week a year, sitting seven days straight without sleep; engaging in such severe practices as extensive fasting, never lying down to sleep, and the frowned-upon but ever-popular practice of burning off their fingers (a ``symbolic commitment''). But for most monks, Buswell notes, it's ``a disciplined life, not the transformative experience of enlightenment,'' that's crucial. Less the sound of one hand clapping than of hands, mind, and heart working together to lead a sanctified life--and, as such, a sound corrective to Western misunderstandings about Zen. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

A myth-shattering foray behind the walls of a Korean Zen Buddhist monastery.... Less the sound of one hand clapping than of hands, mind and heart working together to lead a sanctified life--and, as such, a sound corrective to Western misunderstandings about Zen. -- Kirkus Reviews



[This book] is ... forged from [Buswell's] own experience and practice.... He enlivens his study with a detailed personal account of his daily life at Songgwang-sa, one of Korea's main monasteries, and with wry humor.... This book should be read by anyone interested in the daily life of Zen training. -- Martine Batchelor, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (July 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691074070
• ISBN-13: 978-0691074078
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I escaped to temple life for a bit with this book., December 17, 2003

By 

Dennis Yoon "rivermanfire" (Silver Spring, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Zen Monastic Experience (Paperback)

Wow. Should have been a documentary as well. It took me into the existence of Korean Zen Monks. No pop psychology here. I was humbled at the notion of meditating for two weeks straight in one sitting and I respected more what it is to be a monk. It made me think of my childhood. When I was a little boy in Korea a renunciate came to my house to beg for rice to my mother's disdain. He wore a white tattered robe and I realize now what he was.

Living in this hectic modern world and having my illusions shattered over and over again made me realize how lucky I was to have seen a Buddha with my very eyes. I think I'll read this one again soon. Buddha Bless You. You know what I mean.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear Picture, October 25, 2005

By 

C. Blomberg (Seoul, Rep. of Korea) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Zen Monastic Experience (Paperback)

Below is an edited version of a critical book review for a class on Buddhism.

Professor Buswell's book is an engaging and fascinating portrait of Buddhist life in a Korean Seon temple long before it became common for us to see books and dharma talks by foreign Seon monks. His tale is as rollicking an adventure story as a tale of quiet mediation and disciplined scholarship could be. Reading his words we imagine the idealistic young man Buswell must have been, urgently holding his professor back in the halls after class to answer his eager questions, with firm purpose boarding a plane for Thailand where with a serious expression and a quick beating heart his head was shaved and he donned the robes of a monk. Then finding something missing setting out for a remote tete-a-tete, sharing his monk mentor with only one other as he diligently studied tracts on Buddhist philosophy written in Classical Chinese, then by chance and good fortune finding the spiritual home of his heart, Song'gwangsa, the `Sangha Jewel Temple'.

This book, in brief, is the story of Buswell's experience of Korean Buddhism, written in a style that manages to be both conversational and easily readable and yet academic and possessed of face and content validity at the same time. Buswell explains Seon Buddhism in Korea by explaining what he saw and experienced over five years at Song'gwangsa, including chapters on the temple itself, the daily work of monks and the different positions monks filled beyond working on meditation. This book serves as a more closely focused and Korean telling of the world that you can read about in Welch's "Practice of Chinese Buddhism". The sorts of tasks, the ways the monks meditate, even the ascetic practices that we heard about from Welch reappear here in a clearly told and highly reliable illustration of the mid to late 70s practices of Korean Seon monks.

It is very curious to think of the amazing success that Seon Buddhism has had with foreigners. Though Buswell was one of the early ones, or even the first, there are many monks who many years ago put on their robes, and unlike Buswell, have kept them on many more than five (or seven) years. It was Seung-san a famous Buddhist teacher who became the most active face of Seon to the outside world. Through temples and centers he established in America and Europe many non-Koreans got to experience Buddhism, Seon style, first hand. It's unsurprising to me but perhaps quite surprising to most Koreans that many of those interested in Seon went so far as to attend retreats in Korea, and some even ordained.

I am not convinced that becoming a monk is any more or less difficult for a foreigner than a Korean. However there is one thing I must admit, if a westerner is lazy and shiftless and unskilled and they want to find an easy life, they would never consider moving to Korea and putting on a cheongsam. Buswell in his evaluation of those who ordained for the wrong reasons states "...continued involvement in the monastic life may remold that motivation into an entirely exemplary one. Indeed, there is no way of predicting from a monk's background his ultimate success in the religious life." (pg 76). I hold to the idea, personally, that fate leads us where we are supposed to go. So, though it would not occur to a foreigner to use a temple as a back-up way of life, and it would occur to a Korean, it doesn't mean that any foreigner will be a better monk than his compatriots. If a (Korean) man becomes a monk, even though he thinks he's doing it to use the monastery as a safe escape from lay life, there is a reason, and he will fulfill some task or mission as a monk that he could not otherwise have carried out. Though Korean and foreign monks may ordain for different reasons, they are living the same life, can each find their own path to understanding and may help people in different, but equally legitimate, ways.

In fact, I have only two complaints about this book. The first complaint is that occasionally Buswell included Romanized Korean terms that were not special Buddhist vocabulary (using his spelling, for example kabang, and haroboji) but in the context of the book, where all other Romanized terms were specific to Buddhism, this could be confusing to a non-Korean speaker. I kept imagining someone saying to their friend "Those gray bags for monks are called `kabang'. I learned this from this book I just read!" The only other complaint is that the information in the book is in some respects dated. Though many things about life in temples has not changed, nor is it likely to change, there are constant trends and fads that effect the practice of the monks, and new issues that arise. When reading the book I felt regret that I couldn't go and talk about some aspects of the book with my monk friends because most of them hadn't even become novices yet when Buswell was a resident at Song'gwangsa.

Don't misunderstand me, though, I truly enjoyed this book. The best part about it for me actually (not withstanding kabang) was the fact that I learned useful new Korean terms, what I want to use as soon as I can is to ask my friends where they are in the Samigwa, Sajipgwa, Sagyogwa, and Daegyogwa system. I'm also happy to see terms like Dono Jeomsu and Dono Donsu written side by side, because this is not vocabulary I can find in my own dictionary, even though I am familiar with the terms in English, I've never been able to have a satisfying talk in Korean by trying to only explain what I meant without having confidence in the terminology I was using. I think that in terms of improving my own understanding of Korean Seon Buddhism it was this chapter (A Monk's Early Career) with the clear descriptions of the process that will provide the most benefit.

I would certainly refer this book to anyone interested in Korean Buddhism.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book on Korean Zen, February 29, 2004

By 

Swing King (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Zen Monastic Experience (Paperback)

This is a comprehensive and direct account of the structure of practice at a contemporary Korean Zen monastery. Robert Buswell is a Buddhist academic teaching at the University of California who also spent five years as a Zen monk in Korea. Here he ties into the book what daily life and religious ritualistic practice is truly like while staying in a Zen monastery. This book should absolutely be read by everyone. Buswell draws on personal experience in this intriguing account of day-to-day Zen monastic practice. His depiction of the life of contemporary Zen monks practicing in Korea gives an original and thought provoking look at Zen from an insiders perspective. He covers truly everything one needs to know about Zen practice in a matter of fact way which can help clear up a Westerners possible misconceptions.

If you like this work, you will also like "A Glimpse of Nothingness" by Janwillem van de Wettering; an account of experiences had in an American Zen community. Also I cannot recommend enough the teachings of Zen master Seung Sahn, ie. The Compass of Zen, Only Don't Know, and Dropping Ashes on the Buddha. This is a great accent to such works.