Becoming a city Buddhist among the young generation in Seoul

Introduction

Despite the growing trends of psychiatry and the therapy industry under South Korea’s neoliberal economic regime since the late 1990s, few studies have examined how Buddhism is imbricated in this social change. In fact, Buddhist-related meditation centers – run by both Buddhist and non-religious groups – are booming in Seoul, where religious organizations are ‘marketing’ spirituality, compassion, and intimacy. Religious centers and their auxiliary institutions, such as educational and healing centers, constitute the fashionable landscape of large metropolitan cities like Seoul, but many urbanites are striving to manage their minds and emotions through religious discourses of happiness, healing, and the authentic self.

Though Buddhism is the oldest established religion in the country, its popularity has been declining relative to other religions, especially Christianity. This trend is particularly prevalent among the urban population. One of the reasons for this is the physical inaccessibility of Buddhist temples, as most are located outside of the city. Many young people also regard Buddhism as traditional and conservative. Young urbanites who are attracted to Buddhist spirituality and mediation thus represent a counter-trend. Their quest for spirituality represents a novel and highly distinctive form of social reproduction in contemporary South Korea whose image has been dominated by the state-led economic developmentalism and homogeneous national identity. As Korea rapidly transits from a late-developmentalist to a post-developmentist stage, however, the disintegration of established patterns of life has forced people to invent new identities and lifestyles for themselves and others (Beck, 1994: 14).

Within this context, Buddhist religious and meditation practices have come to offer people of different ages, sexes, and social classes novel therapeutic spaces and discourses of self-improvement, alternative lifestyle, and spirituality to reach out and connect with others. These spaces and discourses appear to be particularly popular among young people who are forced by a hyper-competitive work environment, fragmenting family, and high youth unemployment to internalize the cultural logic of neoliberalism. ¹ As they strive to overcome attendant feelings of stress and anxiety, many are turning to the anti-materialist values of Buddhism. As the main source of this stress and anxiety, neoliberal capitalism is thus playing a pivotal role in constructing the therapeutic self, which tries to overcome the dichotomy of ‘spiritual versus material’ in order to achieve a higher – and more peaceful – state of being.

This article seeks to understand the emerging practices of Buddhism within post-industrial Seoul. In particular, it aims to analyze how a segment of the young urban population strives to reconcile the knowledge and management of one’s heart, promoted by Buddhist religion, with the neoliberal ethos of self-improvement. The emergence of the Mahayana school’s teaching of ‘engaged Buddhism’ – as manifested in Jungto Society – provides an interesting case study to examine the ways in which the culture of healing is being popularized through Buddhism in Korea (Park, 2013). ² Jungto Society was founded by Monk Pomnyun in 1988, with the aim of teaching individuals how to become liberated from the anguish of human life. Due to the charismatic leadership of Monk Pomnyun and the society’s engagement with diverse issues, including international humanitarian efforts, the reunification of the two Koreas, and the environmental movement, the Seoul-based Jungto Society has earned the strong support of the younger generation since the 2000s. Of particular appeal to this generation is Jungto Society’s combination of individualistic practice with social action, which also differentiates it from other Buddhist organizations. This article argues that the fundamental Buddhist concepts of Gong (emptiness), Mu-a (non-self), Yeongi Gwan (mindfulness of dependent arising), and Jari Ita (improving oneself and bringing benefit to others) – among others – generate a certain form of self-reflection among practitioners that expands both their religious and civic minds. These concepts also help to dispel the emotions of fear and precarity that characterize the lives of Korea’s young generation, who are beginning to realize that the nation is no longer a place of aspirations and immediate realizations.

Spiritual quest as new urban aspirations

There are several competing views of contemporary religion or spirituality. One reason for the contemporary Western preoccupation with Eastern spirituality is that the concept of ‘spirituality’ provides more flexible and differentiated meanings than ‘religion.’ Spirituality has often been used in a wider sense than religion to signify not only religion but also the meanings of culture, faith, and attitude (Gilbert and Parkes, 2011). Many people in contemporary society have also turned to different forms of spirituality as a cultural resource to deal with social-political instability, resist environmental destruction, and create sustainable and more holistic forms of life (Faver, 2004; Gilbert and Parkes, 2011; Hedlund-de Witt, 2011). In other words, people’s involvement with Eastern spirituality under conditions of reflexive modernization can be interpreted as ‘a particular expression of disenchantment with the West’ (Phillips and Aarons, 2007: 325).

In addition to the above literature, there emerged a substantial body of writing which has been critical of the boom of Eastern spirituality and Buddhism, along with other meditation and monastic practices, in the West (Bell, 1992; Drew, 2011; Lynch, 2007; Roof, 1999). Žižek (2001), for example, criticizes Buddhist meditative practices for constructing a self that either maintains or supports an indifferent stance towards global capitalism. Using the terms, ‘expression of a fetish’ and ‘meditative stance,’ he argues that such spiritual practices enable people to retain a semblance of mental sanity while fully participating in the capitalist market. Also, Strenger (2011) has pointed out how urban residents turn to meditation and spirituality as part of a reflective individualization in order to preserve their own space of freedom. In this sense, one might agree with Žižek’s criticism that Buddhist healing or meditation does not promote but hinders social change. What it does do, is to provide individuals with a ready escape from feelings of inner emptiness or lack of meaning associated with the modern way of life and its ‘crisis of identity’ (Giddens, 1991).

The popularity of Buddhist spirituality has also been examined in terms of its close relation to the contemporary ‘experience society’ founded on individual tastes and preferences. Coined by Schulze (2008 [1999]), the term, ‘experience society,’ refers to the ways in which late modern individuals strive to create a life that is considered beautiful, entertaining, and subjectively fulfilling through experience-oriented lifestyles. In an experience-oriented society, the market takes on a heightened importance as everything becomes potentially commodifiable. Religions and social movements are no exception to this trend. They become constructed in ways that people can experience them in discrete ways as consumers, all as part of the task of constructing fulfilling lives. If ‘experience’ is thus defined as the endless desire for novelty through concrete instances of consumption, then religion – as an invisible and immaterial field – is also becoming a consumer object (Miller, 2003). Further, the commodification of spiritual experiences can represent the ‘take-over’ or ‘re-branding’ of religion by spirituality (Carrette and King, 2005).

The above bodies of literature on religion and spirituality, however, cannot adequately account for the experiences of city Buddhists. They overlook how the Buddhist temples have re-emerged as the site of counter-hegemonic discourses and practices among city dwellers. As shown in Taylor’s work (2004), the decline of Buddhist temples in cities and the emergence of a new cyber-monastic community in traditionally Buddhist Thailand illustrate the dynamic processes of Buddhist influences in Asia. Buddhist temples used to be regional spiritual centers that attracted large groups of people through their diverse social activities. With the unbridled growth of capitalism and the occupation of core urban spaces by businesses, however, many temples became ‘the oppressed and depressed population [in] being pushed out of the city centers in the post-metropolitan landscape’ (Soja, 2000; Taylor, 2004: 80). Nonetheless, despite the decline and stagnation of urban associational life anchored in temples, Buddhist believers are creating new forms of social capital through their interactions in cyberspace. With the propagation of ‘digital dharma’ or ‘simulated sangha’ on Internet spiritual sites, the ‘re-territorialization’ of spirituality becomes a greater possibility. While religious leaders, including monks, have emerged into the secular sphere of the Internet to directly converse with their followers, the believers, themselves, are creating new social networks through their online conversations about Buddhism. These various aspects of ‘virtual Buddhism’ (Jones, 1997) and ‘cyber-monastic communities’ (Taylor, 2004) thus characterize the new forms of postmodern urban-based Buddhist society in Thailand. Even though ‘sacred’ and ‘sacred persons’ are being marginalized within urban cores dominated by glitzy financial and consumer capitalism, this marginality also becomes the basis of new counter-hegemonic discourses. By effectively mobilizing the flexible resources of cyber-technology, urban-based religious movements are becoming sites of emergent political actions and discourses within the metropolis.

Following Wacquant’s (2004) conceptualization of the boxing club as a particular form of sanctuary, Buddhist temples and meditation centers can also be considered to be sanctuaries for urbanites. For Wacquant, boxing gyms in the 1950s provided the racially and economically marginalized within the Black metropolis of Chicago not only with a sanctuary from a violent street culture, but also an alternative system of honor and belonging based on values such as self-discipline and asceticism. Rather than being isolated sites of religious ritual, city temples are emerging as borderlands responsible for linking, opposing, and reconciling seemingly opposed religious and secular values. These venues are transforming from secretive and exclusive spaces into open and flexible institutions that cater to the spiritual desires of urban dwellers. Utilizing complex spatial arrangements, flows of actions, language, and symbolic codes, urbanites are thus able to create meanings to help them heal their vulnerable emotions and sentiments and pursue an alternative lifestyle. Buddhist temples and meditation centers can hence be seen as enabling their members to develop an alternative lifestyle situated in symbolic opposition to the material aspirations and ever-growing competition of neoliberal culture, along with the sense of loneliness and alienation that it generates. Instead of expressing their desire to become true believers of an established religion, young people’s interest in Buddhism is articulated as desire for rest, belonging, and short-term therapeutic disengagement from responsibilities in the external world (Day, 2010; Kennedy, 2004). For these individuals, Buddhist spirituality and meditative practices become a ‘reserved space’ that protects them from threats of poverty, anxiety, and psychological pain. As such, they can regain a sense of dignity and also of honor in affirming an ‘authentic’ self (Taylor, 1992). As in Arjun Appadurai’s (2004: 59) terms, Buddhism allows urbanites to develop the ‘capacity to aspire’ to a different future in global cities. These spiritual aspirations of the urbanites are not necessarily confined to claiming their religious identities as Buddhists. By using the term ‘aspirations,’ we can do away with ‘the static connotation of the concept of identity’ and think instead about ‘what and where they aspire to be’ (Van der Veer, 2015: 4).

Methods and data collection

In order to study the rapid increase in youth practitioners of Buddhism especially within Seoul, the methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews were employed. I attended temple stay programs in six temples across Seoul in 2013. From 2013 to 2015, I participated in a two-year educational and meditation program offered by Jungto Society. This was in addition to a one-year Buddhist college online course, also offered by Jungto Society, that I had enrolled in and completed as part of my participant observation. Finally, participant observation of Jungto Society’s Retreat of Awakening, an intensive and major training program, and Entrance Ceremony, an important ritual, was conducted. I carried out 24 in-depth interviews primarily with members of Jungto Society and six interviews with members of diverse mediation programs. The average age of the interviewees was 32.4 years. They included six interviewees in their twenties, 23 in their thirties, and one in his forties. Though the majority of the interviewees had internalized the discourse of self-development during their youth, after experiencing the IMF Crisis in their middle and high school years, due to the slow economic growth and high youth unemployment of Korean society, they underwent the difficult experience of failing to secure stable employment. Even among the highly professional workers, many suffered from either lack of personal leisure time or poor health because of overwork. Among the interviewees, the women were disproportionately represented: six men to 24 women. Ninety percent of them were college graduates – thus belonging to a relatively highly educated bracket.

Rebranding Buddhist temples from sacred into cultural spaces

The increase in urban dwellers’ interest in Buddhist spirituality stems from an unprecedented interest in improving the quality of life, and living the ‘good life’ in Korean society. For middle-class children, who have received a good college education based on their parents’ economic resources, their ability to enjoy material wealth and freedom of choice as consumers offers access to professional employment after college that is similar to that of their parents’. However, with the growing socio-economic precarity of Korean society, the idea of the good life has begun to be interpreted in both material and affective terms: peace, happiness, and dignity.

There are two main reasons for the growing popularity of Buddhist spirituality, which was previously not associated with modernity, urbanity, affective consumption, and youthfulness. One is the increased emphasis on the propagation of Buddhism in urban areas since the 1990s. Another is the emergence of engaged Buddhism during the same period. Through these initiatives, Buddhism becomes understood as a ‘cultural space’ of rest and cultural consumption. Furthermore, it is also perceived as a cultural resource by both youth and highly educated professionals for leading an ‘alternative’ life.

Korean Buddhism is generally referred to as a ‘state-protecting Buddhism’ (Buswell, 2005; Lee, 2015), and ‘Mountain Buddhism’(Kim, 2014: 110). Korean mainstream Buddhism has been criticized for its distance from the democratization movement (Cho, 2002), and for its conservative stance on social and political issues. Buddhism’s dominant image is that of middle-aged and elderly women who seek good fortune through prayer. After the 1990s, Korean Buddhism began promoting the practice of urban outreach, which involves having Buddhist leaders overcome their ideology of seclusion (Yoo, 2007), and reach out to the public. In turn, Buddhist temples located in cities began to cater to the everyday needs of their practitioners by developing diverse programs (Galmiche, 2010: 39), and changing their character, in order to match the tastes and lifestyles of urban dwellers.

It is only recently that Korean Buddhism has begun to provide programs for contemplative practice and meditation (In, 2013). According to one Buddhist newspaper, Buddhism ‘goes beyond the dimension of restoring the inherent ability of healing, consolation, or self-consolation and emphasizes the healing of the fundamental root of one’s mind’ (Kwon, 2012). The influence of Buddhism has also significantly increased with the public lectures and television appearances of monks preaching inner healing. As in the West, packaging of Buddhism and Buddhist spirituality in an easily consumable form has contributed to its popularity in Korea. By the packaging of Buddhist food as ‘traditional’ or ‘slow’ food after the mid-1990s, for example, Buddhism contributes to both the assertion of national identity and the appeasement of collective anxiety (Moon, 2008). However, changes to the exclusive image of Buddhism, more than anything, occurred after the introduction of temple stay programs. In 2002, Korea became the focus of world attention for co-hosting the FIFA World Cup with Japan. To publicize Korean culture and solve the issue of accommodation for soccer fans visiting Korea, the Korean government requested the opening of temples as lodgings (Galmiche, 2010; Kaplan, 2010; Lee, 2015; Suk, 2008). Temple stays thus emerged as a result of the ‘nationalistic touristic intention’ of the Korean government along with its desire to promote Korean Buddhism among foreigners. The largest Buddhist organization of the Jogye Order also began offering temple stays to promote Buddhist teachings and secure funds (Lee, 2015). Temple stays in Seoul and the countryside thus became rebranded as custodians of the Buddhist religion and keepers of Korean traditional culture, such as the Korean tea ceremony, clothes dying and paper craft, hence ‘transforming from simply being sacred sites into inclusive hybrid displays of national heritage’ (Kaplan, 2010: 128).

As monasteries and temples multiply in urban areas, a growing number of people are being initiated into the monastic lifestyle and practice of meditation and the spatial distance between Buddhist monastics and lay devotees is being reduced (Galmiche, 2010). More importantly, following the reforms in Buddhist education for monks and nuns in the 1980s (Kim, 2014), lay followers began to display a strong desire to receive training in basic Buddhist teachings. Galmiche argues that ‘the emphasis placed on religious education and on the spreading of doctrine is a key feature in the urban development of Buddhism’ in Korea (2010: 52). Diverse programs ranging from the study of sutra, Buddhism in English for foreigners, tea ceremonies, and meditation have gained popularity among both city Buddhists and non-Buddhists who are interested in Buddhist spirituality and meditation. ³ The rebranding of temples as spaces of tradition, nature, well-being, and cultural heritage as well as spiritual nurturing has attracted people with very different faiths. As such, Buddhist religion has become one of the main players in the reconstitution of Seoul as a ‘consuming’ city within the larger context of Korea’s globalization.

More than anything, engaged Buddhism has been responsible for attracting urban youth to Buddhism and meditation. Jungto Society, as engaged Buddhism, emphasizes a ‘non-discriminatory attitude that does not distinguish men from women; Buddhist practitioners from lay people; religious practice from work; helping others from self-salvation; and Buddhist believers from non-believers’ (interview with Monk Pomnyun by Noh, 2003). As a result, the influence of engaged Buddhism has grown not only among youth but also among non-Buddhists. Another reason for its popularity is the charismatic figure of Monk Pomnyun, who has entered secular spaces to meet directly with the public. A popular series is the Question-and-Answer Dharma Talk. A public lecture without a script, it is composed of Monk Pomnyun’s prompt responses to questions from the audience. It is a public occasion for the audience to listen to spontaneous conversations between Monk Pomnyun and the questioners on very mundane and personal issues. The aim of the lectures is not only to bring self-liberation through confession and enlightenment but also to realize world peace. Individuals are seen to pursue the common good only after achieving personal happiness (Lee, 2014: 717). Breaking the old image of Buddhism as a religion ‘of seclusion’ (Lee, 2014: 716), the Question-and-Answer Dharma Talk, which is open to everyone regardless of their religious or cultural beliefs, helps to popularize both Buddhism and engaged Buddhism. Recordings of the lecture are also widely available as a podcast or can be viewed on YouTube.

More than anything, Jungto Society strives to create a person who engages in Buddhist practices, alms, and volunteering. Not surprisingly, this is a community-oriented person (Lee, 2010: 11). In the case of Jungto Society, the individual practice of Buddhism and public volunteer work are considered inseparable. Following the Jari Ita precept, ‘What benefits the world benefits me and what benefits me benefits the world,’ both the practice of individual faith and social change are considered inseparable (Lee, 2010: 11). ⁴ Being a Jungto Society member demands regular and continuous engagement with Buddhist writings and ceremonies as well as concrete practice in social volunteer work. Conversely, individuals who diligently participate in the events organized by Jungto Society can become a member even if they are not a Buddhist believer.

Encountering the changing affects of young urban people and Buddhism

Examining the transformation of urban temples from sacred places into cultural spaces that promote Korean culture and tradition does not necessarily answer the question of why Buddhism has become so popular among young people. What meanings do they create as they use Buddhist practices to try to raise the quality of their life, pursue happiness, and create alternative lifestyles? How has Buddhism emerged as a sanctuary for young people as it competes with or combines the political, economic, and cultural ideologies of the global city of Seoul?

The rapid economic growth of Korean society was achieved through various factors including national policies emphasizing frugality and savings as well as the desperate efforts of its citizens to escape the poverty of post-Korean War society. Recently, however, with the overcoming of the Korean state’s ‘developmentalist paradigm’ that has equated the nation’s political development with the material prosperity of its citizens, Korea is transforming into a post-developmentalist society of low growth, high unemployment, and unpredictable everyday life. In tandem with these changes, both the social position and dominant affect of youth are also rapidly changing. For the youth who fought the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, their large-scale protests – along with the deaths and persecution that accompanied them – were infused with the pathos of social grieving. According to Song (2014), with the democratization of Korean society in the 1990s, youth began to engage in the affective work of overcoming the cultural baggage associated with the 1980s represented by social duty and collective lamentation (Song, 2014: 79). That is, in order to construct a new collective self, they engaged in a moratorium of ‘self-suspension’ and adopted the pursuit of ‘enjoyment’ as their lives’ dominant ethos. With enjoyment viewed as the overcoming of family ties and traditional norms and the pursuit of individual achievement, they cultivated an ‘anti-establishment’ affect. Subsequently, the young generation’s pursuit of pleasure has combined with the flexible lifestyles and self-development discourses of neoliberalism in unexpected ways. Individual freedom and the liberal social atmosphere promoting independence manifested themselves in many ways: the democratization of many organizations and institutions including the government, http://dot.com companies, self-employment, and the appearance of new styles of living and working, including expanded leisure and travel opportunities. With the discourse of ‘well-being’ wielding a powerful influence in Korean society until 2005, it became a trend for people to consume environmentally-friendly or cosmopolitan products, including brand names. In order to become ‘valuable citizens’ who were globally competitive, highly educated youth aspired to adopt the creative mindset and self-managing character of corporate CEOs (Ong, 2007) promoted by neoliberalism. However, after the 2008 financial crisis in the United States and continued high unemployment, the emotions of Korean youth began to change. Depending on their different levels of wealth, education, and employment, the Korean young generation belong to a broad spectrum of socio-economic categories including ‘gilded youth’ (Braslavsky, 1986), ‘precariat’ (Standing, 2010), and the ‘new poor.’ Surely, the dominant affect of young Koreans, regardless of their different lived experiences, is the feeling of anxiety since complex desires of youth can be satisfied neither through political activism nor the pursuit of individual success. Increasingly rejecting institutional politics based on social and political identities, young people are now faithful to diverse causes with multiple biographical trajectories (Rossi, 2009: 470). Engaged Buddhism like Jungto Society has provided them with an avenue to pursue an emerging type of new lifestyle and social activism. The youths I interviewed expressed their anxiety and gloomy emotional situation through the statement, ‘There is nowhere for us to turn to find a sense of peace.’ Through regular participation in the various programs provided by Jungto Society, including its mediation programs, they tried to rediscover their ‘heart.’ Through its temples in Seoul, retreat centers in the mountains, and volunteer programs in India and the Philippines, Jungto Society provided them with new experiential possibilities. Through traveling back and forth between these glocal spaces, they tried to recover their heart as well as intervene in social change at an international level.

As city Buddhists and activists, living and working in Jungto Society’s main temple in the middle-class neighborhood of Gangnam, most of them took part in the 100-day retreats. They also took part in Jungto Retreat Center’s awakening and meditation retreats in Mungyeong, a mountainous area in the southern part of Korea. During their retreats, they are advised by their leaders to lead their lives with ‘the spirit of Chulgaja (renunciant monks).’ The worldview of Yeongi Gwan (mutually dependent interconnectedness) is also promoted through overseas volunteer programs in poverty-stricken villages in India and the Philippines. When the participants encounter an interconnectivity between themselves and others living in distant locations – whom they had considered completely unrelated – they experience a moment of revelation in which abstract knowledge becomes materialized as concrete and practical understanding of the other.

After three years of practicing the philosophy of non-self and non-possession, they become qualified as a Jungto Society staff member. After that, most of the Jungto practitioners serve as volunteers within an affiliated NGO organization, thereby becoming a Buddhist-turned-activist or vice versa.

The Buddhist temple as a new urban sanctuary

Before participating in Jungto Society activities, 36-year-old Cho Seung-woo lived a typical childhood in Gangnam. Having grown up in a well-to-do middle-class family with a father who worked in an investment firm and a mother who was a professor, he did not experience any particular hardships. Nor did he once feel compelled to earn his own living. After attending one of the private after-school institutions in Gangnam, he went on to graduate from one of the prestigious private universities in Seoul. Still, Cho Seung-woo, who had managed to enter the prestigious university thanks to his parents’ unwavering support, felt pressured to satisfy their high expectations. One day, after following his mother, who was a devout Buddhist, to a meditation of awakening, he learned that ‘Everything is something that I have created,’ which became a powerful resource in overcoming the hardships of his military service. After his discharge, he went on a 40-day ‘sunjae training’ (training for volunteers) in India where he experienced overseas volunteer work for the first time.

What was initially meant to be a 100-day stay in a Buddhist sanctuary turned to six years. Located in the busiest part of Gangnam near a bus terminal with business offices, hotels, and entertainment facilities, the Buddhist sanctuary of Jungto Society was completely different from the sanctuaries located in the quiet mountainside. For six years, his daily schedule at this urban temple consisted of morning chanting at 4:30 am; cleaning, Baru gongyang (alms-bowl meal), and work practice as staff member and activist until 6 pm; and evening chanting, repentance and purification, or study of Buddhist philosophy until he retired to bed at 10 pm. His well-off friends, who, at the time, could not understand him, called him crazy and even tried to drag him away from the sanctuary in their car. In order to better understand Buddhism, however, Cho Seung-woo enrolled in a university well known for its Buddhist studies. He is currently a master’s student there. Not only that, he became determined to become a coach and seminar leader for people who – from the perspective of Buddhism – were ‘suffering’ or had ‘lost their way.’ Even though he does not engage in an ascetic life within the Buddhist sanctuary, he does engage in bowing 108 times and meditation every morning. Even though he believes that he is happier than his ‘well-to-do’ friends who are working full-time within large corporations, he admits that it is not easy to quiet his mind within the city, which constantly induces consumption and provokes anxiety.

For Cho Seung-woo, the first step to becoming a city Buddhist has been to end the habit of consumption constantly encouraged by the city as well as cut off ties with his friends with whom he shared the temptations and pleasures of life. As the physical site of ‘actually existing neoliberalism,’ the city is where one can observe the ceaseless destruction and creation of capitalism (Brenner and Theodore, 2002). Especially in the case of rapidly rising Asian cities like Seoul, it is becoming a 24-hour production and consumer center (Miles, 2010). As part of its new city branding efforts, Seoul has developed its night economy. Composed of night entertainment industries such as theaters, cafes, bars, pubs, nightclubs, and shopping centers, they are giving rapid expansion to a youth playscape (Chatterton and Hollands, 2002). Despite the rising unemployment and youth precarity, these places have become an important consumer space within ‘youth,’ and ‘youthful’ identities and lifestyles are being emphasized (Miles, 2010). For six years as a Buddhist practitioner, Cho Seung-woo neither earned nor spent money. Solving his needs for food and housing through temple stay and working as a volunteer for Jungto Society causes, he was able to wean himself off his previously prosperous life as a child of middle-class parents and practice a non-materialistic and ascetic lifestyle. However, not all who practice an ascetic life as a form of social moratorium come from well-to-do families like Cho Seung-woo.

Among my informants, there were many who engaged in both paid work and unpaid activist lives in Jungto Society to pursue an ascetic lifestyle. Kim Jee-soo, who came to Seoul from the provinces to prepare for job applications, started attending the Buddhist academy run by Jungto Society. After participating in its programs, she began to rearrange her time and space to engage in an ascetic lifestyle. Living with the youth members of Jungto Society near the main office, she engaged in nearly unpaid Jungto Society activities. Full-time activists at Jungto Society make about $80 a month, which is enough for monthly transportation expenses but not to survive. Due to financial difficulties, Kim Jee-soo took a job as an English language tutor for six months while continuing to carry out Jungto Society activities. Due to her belief that one should earn only as much as one needs to survive, she planned to quit her job and return to a life as a full-time ascetic once she had saved enough money. Soon afterwards, she quit her job and resumed full-time work as a Jungto Society activist. Six months later, she earned $1300 working for an environmentally-related NGO. After solving her economic worries through two years of saving money, she returned to being a full-time Jungto Society activist. In the past two years, she has worked part-time at Jungto while working part-time in a cafe operated by her Jungto Society friends where she receives approximately $700 a month. Through alternating between wage labor and an ascetic lifestyle, Kim Jee-soo has been able to combine an urban lifestyle with an ascetic one.

Thirty-two-year-old Lee Jeong-woo spent six years in the Buddhist sanctuary in Seoul. Lee, who had entered a top-ranked university with the thought that he would do nothing but play for two years, did just that: he spent two years watching movies, hanging out in billiard halls, playing video games, and drinking with his friends. After his sophomore year, he entered the military where he suddenly realized that there were people who were suffering. From the Buddhist perspective of Yeongi Gwan, he took their suffering as his own responsibility so that, after being discharged from the military, he searched out Jungto Society. After attending Youth Buddhist College, he began to actively participate in the society’s various activities including support for North Korean migrants, preparations for the Dharma Talk, and a Northeast Asian history tour. After a 100-day chulga suhaeng (renunciation practice) in Munkyung, he felt a strong aversion towards his previous secular desires and started an ascetic life within Jungto Society’s Buddhist sanctuary in Gangnam. During his six years of ascetic life, Lee took on all sorts of part-time jobs to pay off college loans, cell phone costs, and other expenses. They included teaching private lessons two or three times a week, working in convenience stores, and working as a parking attendant. Even though he was able to reduce his secular desires, he could not avoid all the expenses of carrying out his volunteer activities for Jungto Society. They included the costs of a cell phone – an absolute necessity for carrying out an urban life. In 2014, due to a health problem related to long-term asceticism, he returned home and now works in a company. He says that even though he sometimes feels anxious about having college loans to pay off, because he has the support of his reference group of Jungto Society activists and his own set of values, he feels fine.

City temples provide a space of separation from family expectations, social pressures to succeed, and the continuous play and consumption necessary to maintain ties with friends. Not only that, they are a space to escape the continuous other-directed labor and stress of working in a company and engage in an independent life and socially meaningful work. In contrast to the previous exclusively monk-centered Buddhist culture, Jungto Society, which is representative of engaged Buddhism, is open to anyone who wishes to practice an ascetic lifestyle. Accordingly, it enables young people who wish to use Buddhist practices to radically change their everyday lives to achieve a social moratorium. For six years, both Cho Seung-woo and Lee Jeong-woo were able to use Buddhist ascetic practices and activities to focus on their lives and, as a result, become ‘Ascetic Vow Takers’ (someone who makes a vow as a Buddhahood aspirant). For them, the Buddhist temple has become not only a sanctuary from the troubles and temptations of the secular world but also a space of intense self-transformation through bodily discipline and austerity necessary for the mastery of Buddhist rituals and practices. To them, a city temple like Jungto Society is a place where they can continuously study and learn the symbolic and cultural resources provided by an ascetic life to withstand and overcome social pressures.

Religious association and distinctive way of social reproduction

Kim Woo-joo, is a 39-year-old systems programmer. After graduating from college, she worked for 11 years in an IT venture firm where she faced tremendous stress under the pressure of having to continuously upgrade her technical skills and pull all-nighters. Even though she is married, she gave up the thought of having children knowing the difficulty of having to both work and engage in childcare. Her only source of solace at work was purchasing luxury items from foreign suppliers through the Internet. After poring over product reviews on shopping websites, she would post the lowest price for a product and wait for an opportune time to purchase it. Getting a deal became an affirmation of the qualities that best distinguished her – information gathering, patience, judgment, and careful preparation – and became the main source of pleasure in her life. Through such activity, she felt both a sense of self-satisfaction and freedom. Other than her work colleagues, the people that she corresponded most with on her Internet messenger were others who shared her pastime of visiting foreign shopping sites.

In 2010, eight years after she started working, she was shocked and heart-broken to be diagnosed with glaucoma. As a condition that requires constant care for the rest of her life, she felt angry and resentful and, upon the recommendation of an acquaintance, attended a Consciousness Awakening retreat at Jungto Society. Even though she had expected the retreat to be similar to a temple stay, she felt much more peaceful after realizing that ‘everything was the result of my own thoughts, decisions, and emotions.’ Afterwards, imagining another form of life for herself, she changed her lifestyle from being addicted to shopping to buying only what she needed. Kim Woo-joo, who had refused pregnancy due to her fear of over-exhaustion and the possibility of giving birth to a deformed baby, changed her mind. She felt that life would continue to be worth living should the latter possibility become true. Afterwards, she has used auto-therapy, aromatherapy, and energy healing through hand acupuncture to recover her health. Recently, she has also quit her job to plan a pregnancy. Even though she wishes to move back to the countryside, she considers it too difficult to change her city-oriented lifestyle, which she has become too used to. Still, one day, she wishes to move to a place outside of Seoul where people share childcare and have formed a lifestyle community. Kim Woo-joo wishes to become part of a community where its members do not interfere in each other’s lives too much but help and cooperate with one another. In addition to Kim Woo-joo, there were many informants who wished to engage in a different form of social reproduction than urban dwellers through Buddhist spirituality and meditation.

Nam Min-woo is someone who is actively engaging in a new form of social reproduction. Along with six of his friends whom he had met in Jungto Society, he and his wife, Bak Mi-rae, live in a shared housing unit. After studying economics in university, he worked for an investment company. In his twenties, as he put it, his only interest was to ‘earn a lot of money.’ He interpreted this obsession with money as stemming from his anxiety about the future. After attending Monk Pomnyun’s Dharma Talk, however, he realized that this anxiety was something that he had constructed and could not be relieved with more money. Resigning from his corporate job, he decided to become a Jungto practitioner. Once an investment company employee who had earned more than 5 million Korean Won (US$4800) a month, he now lives on 800,000 Korean Won (US$ 800) a month as a ‘low-cost urban practitioner.’ Desiring a life that was less shaped by capitalism, he continues to organize alternative activities.

After moving to the outskirts of Seoul with more affordable housing, Nam Min-woo continues to engage in cooperative living with his wife and friends. He also works in a co-op cafe, with seven staff members who receive the minimum living wage of US$700 a month. In order to increase their self-sufficiency, they have also bought a plot of land and engage in rice farming. On another plot of land, they engage in dry-field farming as urban farmers to meet their basic food needs. Spending money only for the absolute necessities, Nam Min-woo and his friends are creating a new personal life where they are working and consuming less. In the midst of creating an independent community based on long-term reciprocity and mutual trust, one day, they plan to open a large community where 100 youth can live together. The reflective perspective generated by Buddhist concepts does not merely generate a momentary revelation; it leads to the socialization of awakening, which leads to a fundamental change in perspective and a stronger ability to resist external pressures. Through cultivating their mind and engaging in alternative activities, they sustain an ‘urban life at a minimal cost.’

Conclusion

Most of the participants in this research mentioned that the self they discovered through Buddhist meditation and spirituality was different from the self they had trained through self-improvement techniques. In the latter, since they continued to compare themselves to others in all the different stages of entering university, getting a job, marrying, giving birth to children, and raising them, they suffered from feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, self-alienation, and loneliness even after they had achieved their goals. Through Buddhist practice, they attempted to ‘encounter an authentic self’ for the first time in their lives (Taylor, 1992). According to Taylor, authenticity is related to a self-determining freedom (1992: 43). In a culture of anxiety that is created by the prevalence of individualism, they realize the ideal of the liberated self where they are no longer affected by external influences, and become self-determining. An important reason for the popularity of Jungto Society among younger generations is its connection to the currently fashionable discourses of happiness and healing. Through combining the discourses of authenticity and happiness, the teachings of Jungto Society assuage the worries and anxieties of the insecure young generation. To them, being an ascetic and engaging in the practice of asceticism is not to enter a world of pain but to cultivate the strength to transcend it and reach the state of happiness.

The socialization of awakening promoted by Jungto Society also diverges from the commonplace understanding of awakening as something that is mysterious, absolute, and occurs only at a personal level. By applying Buddhist values to society in a practical manner, it attempts to transpose the Buddhist concepts of agony, non-self, mercy, and wisdom into social discourses as the basis of alternative lifestyles (Jo, 2009: 16). For the young generation, this socialization of awakening functions as a worldview that resists the culture of endless competition and self-improvement demanded by the neoliberal order. Instead, membership within Jungto Society is marked by the simultaneous pursuit of the identities of practitioner and activist. Even though this therapeutic intervention often results in a radically privatized form of healing, as this case study of Korean youth who become Buddhist practitioners demonstrates, it also forms a collective mind among individuals who collectively aspire to live anti-consumerist, anti-competitive, and environmentally-friendly lives while working and consuming less. They create resistant, alternative, and subversive solutions to life’s problems as well as distinctive social forms of reproduction.