Korean shamanism
Although most Koreans associate it with superstition, shamanism is widely practiced in modern South Korea. Indeed it may be more widespread in Korea than in other East Asian societies, although shamanistic elements are found in spiritual and medical practices in many countries. Shamanism generally entails practices in which an individual communicates with both spirit and human realms and often uses soul flight to leave the body and travel to other realms. Although separate from practitioners of indigenous medicine (hanbang), shamanism in Korea is a form of healing. It is a mistake to see the shaman as simply another medical alternative, however. The shaman operates in the "field of misfortunes," helping the supplicants deal with their bad luck. Ritual deals with illness caused specifically by misfortune, called in Korean byonghwan, "illness-misfortune."
MUDANG AND OTHER TYPES OF SHAMANS
Scholars generally refer to shamanism as musok, "shamanistic folklore." But ordinary Koreans simply refer to shamanism as misin, "superstition." The practitioners are called mudang. This title is in fact derogatory, and many practitioners do not like to be called mudang. other words for shamans vary with different regions. However, the mudang type is the most common, making up around 50 percent of all contemporary practitioners. The shamans themselves prefer such titles as mansin (10,000 gods) or boasla (bodhisattva or, in current usage, a female Buddhist). In fact many shamans go under the guise of being Buddhists.
Most researchers divide Korean shamans into two main types, the mudang, who practice ecstasy, and the tangol, who do not. Mudang are masters of trance and depend on entry into states of ecstasy.
This means the mudang approximates a classical definition of the shaman, that given by Mircea Eliade: "the shaman specializes in the trance state, during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld" (Eliade 1987: 202).
The tangol shamans work together with another specialist, called myeongdu, who uses divination not trance. The myeongdu work with a tangol to find the relevant spirit and hold a ceremony, called a kut. The tangol holds the kut without entering a trance, thus not quite corresponding to the image of the shaman given by Eliade.
None of the Korean shamans engage in soul flight, another classic practice of shamans. Because of these deviations from the "classic" model of the shaman, it is possible simply to view these Korean practitioners as followers of a single religious tradition, called by one writer (Suk-Jay Yim) mu-ism. Practically speaking, then, Korean shamanism can be seen as the fourth, or "folk," tradition of Korean religions, after Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism.
SHAMANIC RITUAL, THE KUT
The most accurate way to describe Korean sha-manic practice is through reference to ritual. The kut ritual is practiced by all shamans, regardless of their other characteristics, whether the trance is entered into by the shaman, the supplicant, or not at all; whether the shaman assumes his or her duties after illness or through hereditary tradition; whether a spirit stick is used or not.
In the kut the spirit is given a voice and then openly engages in dialog with people. The spirits express strong emotions through laughter or anger. The shaman performs the key function of invoking the spirit so that he or she can then speak. unlike in ancestor-worship rituals such as the chesa, in which the spirits of the deceased are silent, in the kut they actively participate and express their emotions. And unlike in current Christian exorcism rites, the spirit is invoked not to be expelled, but to be engaged in negotiation. Korean shamans show a sympathetic understanding of the spirit world and the plight of the deceased. The relationship between the supplicant, a living being, and the deceased, a spirit, is one of misfortune, and the kut functions to heal the pain through mutual understanding. This dialog is the defining characteristic of Korean shamanism.
There are two type of kut ritual, the sitting (anjeun kut) and the standing (seon kut). A spirit stick (sinjangdai) is used only in the sitting version. The spirit stick is a divining stick made of wood. While the supplicant holds the stick, the shaman asks questions. Answers are given through the stick: nodding means yes, shaking sideways means no, and so on. In general nearly anyone who holds the stick is possessed by the spirit—it is the participant’s job to become possessed—while the shaman simply manages the kut ritual.
Unlike in many ritual performances, in the kut there is often no audience; only the shaman, the supplicant, and the deity are present. However, close relatives may also attend. As part of the ritual performance, the shaman may preside over a wedding or even a murder of the spirit, to complete some unfinished or painful issue. Many of these actions are performed to ward off misfortune, not simply to fix an existing condition.
Shamanism in Korea is a contested category. People would generally prefer not to recognize it, yet they continue to consult the mudang when a situation warrants it. Shamanism is looked down on because it is seen as superstition and, it would appear, invalid. Historically, shamanism has run against all dominant ideologies, including Confucianism and, today, Christianity and modernism. Spirits’ speaking, the key ingredient of Korean shamanism, is an idea that runs counter to everyday, commonsense reality. Nevertheless shamans appear to perform an important, subterranean function in Korean society, one not likely to disappear soon.
Kornfield, Jack
(1945- ) American lay practitioner and teacher of vipassana meditation
After his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1967, the future Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield joined the Peace Corps. He was assigned to northeast Thailand, where his stay provided the occasion of his meeting with Ajahn Chah (1918-81), then at the height of his fame as a leading force in the Thai Forest Meditation Tradition. Kornfield took the opportunity to study Theravada Buddhism and practice meditation intensively. After his time in the Peace Corps, he became a monk.
He returned to the united States in 1972 and joined Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein in the founding of the Insight Meditation Society, based in Barre, Massachusetts. This organization began to offer the intensive practice of insight meditation to the American public. Kornfield later founded Spirit Rock Center, in California, north of San Francisco, as a West Coast center for insight meditation practice.
Since the mid-1970s, Kornfield has traveled extensively offering classes and workshops in VIPASSANA meditation and has authored a number of books. He also obtained a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Kosai-ji
This Buddhist temple at Kukuchi, near Amagasaki City, Japan (near osaka), is well known as the burial place of Chikamatsu Monsaemon (16531724), the best-known Edo era (1603-1868) playwright. The temple is now a national heritage site.
Koya, Mt.
Mt. Koya, the center of Shingon Buddhism in Japan, is located in Wakayama prefecture (near Osaka). In 816, Kukai, the founder of Shingon, resided in Kyoto. Wishing to escape the general chaos and corruption of city life, he requested a grant of land for a rural retreat where Shingon monks could concentrate on meditation and the development of their ritual and meditation skills. The emperor Saga (809-823) granted the mountain and Kukai moved immediately to construct a temple and other necessary building for a monastic community. unfortunately, because of his duties in Kyoto, he was unable to move there until 832. He would remain on Mt. Koya for the rest of his life and eventually be buried there.
In the years after Kukai’s death, a rivalry developed between the Shingon center in Kyoto (To-ji) and Mt. Koya. To-ji, given to Kukai in 823, remained the primary place for training students, but their final examination and ordination took place on the mountain. As the number of ordained priests was rigidly regulated, the right to examine and ordain carried much power. The ongoing tension between the two centers led the emperor to step in on several occasions. In 853 he ordered the candidates for ordination to be examined at To-ji and ordained at Mt. Koya. Nine years later, Mt. Koya was given full jurisdiction over ordinations. Finally, in 902, the number of ordinations was increased and split between the two centers.
Through the 10th century, Kukai became an increasing object of veneration. The cult of Kukai was further stimulated by the emperor’s giving him the posthumous honorary title Kobo daishi (great teacher). Many of the Shingon believed that Kukai had not died but had entered a deep trance state awaiting the appearance of Maitreya, the future Buddha. Through time, Kobo Daishi was viewed by some as an incarnation of Maitreya and Mt. Koya was part of Maitreya’s heavenly realm.
A large stupa was erected over his tomb, and in 1107, the emperor Horikawa (r. 1086-1107) was buried in front of the stupa. Mt. Koya subsequently became a pilgrimage site and a popular place to be buried.
Of some interest, Kukai believed that women could not attain Buddhahood (a popular opinion in the Buddhist community at the time), and thus women were not allowed to go to Mt. Koya, visit its temple, or participate in any of its activities. However, in 1160, Bifukumon’in, a consort of the emperor, requested that her body be buried on Mt. Koya. Her request was granted. She was the only woman to violate the standing rule prior to 1872, when it was abandoned.
Today, To-ji is considered the headquarters temple of Shingon Buddhism and Mt. Koya the center for monastic practice and pilgrimage.
Kshitigarbha (Jin Dizang, Ti-tsang, Jizo)
Kshitigarbha (Earth Repository), a popular bod-hisattva in Mahayana Buddhism, is believed by devotees to have been entrusted with the task of saving souls in the era between Sakyamuni BuDdha, the past Buddha, and Maitreya, the future Buddha. Kshitigarbha appears to have originated from a female earth deity in Hindu mythology. He initially attained some popularity as a Buddhist figure in China during the Tang dynasty (618906) as Mahayana Buddhism rose to prominence. Known as Jin Dizang, he first appeared in the fifth century when the Sutra of the Ten Chakras was translated. From China Kshitigarbha found his way to Korea and was introduced in the eighth century in Japan, where he became known as Jizo. In Japan Jizo was always second to Vairocana Buddha. However, he gained a new following during the 13th century and has grown in popularity ever since.
Small stone images of Jizo (Kshitigarbha), the bodhisattva concerned with those in the afterlife. In Japan these are often dressed as babies or given toys as acts of remembrance by couples or women who have performed mizuko Kuyo, the ceremony of remembrance for aborted fetuses.
Bronze image of the bodhisattva Kshitigarbha in Qinglong temple, Xi’an, China
Kshitigarbha is valued for his reputed power to grant long life and to give mothers easy childbirth. He is generally pictured as a monk carrying a pilgrim’s staff and a bright jewel representing the Dharma truth, whose light banishes fear. As the equally popular Guan Yin, he is often associated with Amida Buddha (Amitabha) and is seen assisting people trapped in hell to find their way to Amida’s Western Paradise.
As Jizo, he has become an integral part of the modern cult of children in Japan, where numerous attributes found nowhere in the older sutras are ascribed to him. He is now, for example, seen as the guardian of unborn, aborted, miscarried,and stillborn babies. He is often portrayed as a cute figure quite accepting of children, and Jizo festivals in Japan have become family affairs with special activities just for kids.
Kukai (Kobo Daishi)
(774-835) Japanese Buddhist leader and founder of Shingon
Kukai founded the influential branch of Japanese esoteric (hidden and mystical) Buddhism, Shin-GoN. Born to a provincial gentry family, Kukai studied Confucian classics until he suddenly left his studies to focus on Buddhist cultivation at age 14. He followed a strict ascetic lifestyle.
He was finally ordained as a priest when he was 30. He visited Tang dynasty China, where he learned further esoteric techniques and was allowed to initiate others. He was later appointed abbot of To-ji, a temple and monastery complex in Kyoto, which then became the center of Kukai’s new sect, the Shingon. He spent his final years building a new center on Mt. Koya.
Cultic worship of Kukai as Kobo Daishi, an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya, continues today.
Kumarajiva
(344-413) translator of Buddhist works into Chinese
Kumarajiva was born into a royal family in Kucha, Central Asia. His mother, a devout Buddhist, became a nun when Kumarajiva was but seven years old, and under her guidance the boy began to learn Buddhist sutras, many of which he memorized. He traveled with his mother to study with the noted monks Bandhudatta (who lived in what is today Kashmir) in India and Buddhayashas in Kucha. Raised in a Theravada Buddhist atmosphere, he later adhered to Mahayana Buddhism. He was ordained around 364.
Kumarajiva attained a high profile for his knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures. His fame was great enough that the king of a short-lived Chinese dynasty, the Former Qin, ordered his general Lu Kuang to attack Kucha in order to take Kumarajiva to his capital. On the way there the Former Qin was overthrown. Lu Kuang subsequently settled at Liang-chou, where he maintained his custody over Kumarajiva. He finally arrived in Chang An, the capital of the new dynasty of the Later Qin, in 401.
Kumarajiva was treated as a major asset and spent the remainder of his life translating texts. The 35 texts he and his teams translated included the Nirvana Sutra and the Avatamsaka (Flower Garland) Sutra, the latter leading directly to the formation of the Hua Yan school. The development of Buddhism in China, including the emergence of its major sects, was largely based on the appropriation of the Kumarajiva’s translations.
Kuon-ji
Kuon-ji is the head temple of the Nichiren Shoshu sect, on Mount Minobu, in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. In 1274, Nichiren’s relationship with the shogun in Kamakura came to a head. The sho-gun offered to build him a temple, but Nichiren turned it down because the shogun was continuing to support the other Buddhist sect groups. Thus in the middle of 1274 he left Kamakura and went to Mount Minobu. There he spent the next years teachings, writing, and training his closest disciples.
Kuon-ji was actually founded by Nichiren in 1281. It was built by Hakiri Sanenaga, a follower who was steward of the area around the temple. Sanenaga gave the building to Nichiren After Nichiren’s death, Sanenaga had a disagreement with Nikko, one of Nichiren’s primary disciples, who left (1289) to found the Nichiren Shoshu. Another disciple, Niko, assumed control of Kuon-ji.
Kusha
The Kusha (Dharma analysis) school was one of the six schools of Buddhist thought established in the eighth century at Nara, Japan. Kusha here is short for the Abhidharma-kosa, the school based on the work of that name by the great Indian philosopher Vasubandhu. At that time Vasubandhu was a committed Sarvastivadan, and the Kusha can be seen as a summation of Sarvastivada (Sar-vastivadin) school and indeed all Hinayana doctrine. The 564 translation of the Abhidharma-kosa into Chinese gave birth to a school of Chinese Buddhism, which was introduced to Japan in the eighth century.
Vasubandu suggested that while the self lacked substantiality, matter really existed. It was composed of very fine particles that are continually rearranged to produce the ever-changing state of things we see in the world. He also considered the past and the future as having a real existence.
At Nara (as previously in China), the view of the Kusha school was opposed to the perspective being offered by the Jojitsu school (which denied the substantial existence of matter) and the Sanron school, which saw both the Kusha and Jojitsu schools as erroneous. The debate among the three schools and the study of the texts upon which they were based became lively pursuits in the eighth and ninth centuries in Japan but gradually lost the attention of Buddhist leaders and all three schools eventually disappeared.
Kusinagara (Kusinara)
Kusinagara, a town in eastern uttar Pradesh, India, was the capital of the Malla state during the lifetime of the historical Buddha. Kusinagara was later absorbed in the expanding Magadha state. Gautama Buddha, after a long and successful life in laying the foundations of Buddhism, spent his last days at Kusinagara. Here the Buddha delivered the Mahaparinirvana Sutra on the subject of diligence and admitted the last followers to be received as Buddhists by him personally. After the Buddha’s death, his body was cremated and the remains divided among eight Buddhist kings from different parts of India. Some of his ashes were enshrined at Kusinagara.
Kusinagara grew in importance during the reign of the Buddhist king Asoka in the third century b.c.e. He initiated a period during which most of the religious structures in the community were constructed. Kusinagara remained an active Buddhist center for many centuries, but then the Buddhist community was destroyed during the years of Muslim rule beginning in the ninth century. For almost a thousand years Kusinagara was lost in the jungles. It was rediscovered in 1878 by British explorers. Extensive excavations have uncovered the remains of a large monastic community that survived into the 11th century.
Today, the Chankhandi Stupa marks the spot where many believe that Buddha was cremated. In the midst of the ruins is a large pillar originally erected by King Asoka. None of the Buddha’s relics originally placed in the stupa are known to exist. Close by is the Mahaparinirvana Temple in the midst of which was found a large statue of a reclining Buddha. Burmese Buddhists restored the temple in 1927 and 1956.
In a joint effort, Indian, Japanese, and Sri Lankan Buddhists have built a modern Buddhist pilgrimage center. In 1994, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the enthronement of King Bhumibhol of Thailand, and to contribute to the effort to reestablish Buddhism in India, Thai Buddhists constructed Wat Thai Kusinara Chalermraj in Kushinagara.
