44. Kim Iryŏp: Meditation and the Attainment of the Mind
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Jin Y. Park [+]
American University
Description
Kim Iryŏp (d. 1971) was a female Sŏn master and thinker in modern Korea. Kim was her family name and Iryŏp her pen name and dharma name. Before she joined the monastery in 1933, she was known as a writer and an activist in the women’s movement demanding gender equality in Confucian Korean society. Iryŏp’s Buddhist writings, published in the 1960s, are unique for their style and for her combination of personal life stories with Buddhist teachings—what I characterize as “narrative philosophy.” Her Buddhist philosophy demonstrates her lifelong search for freedom, which she discussed in such terms as “great self,” “creativity,” and “culture.” In this piece, Iryŏp emphasizes the importance of meditation, which she describes as a practice of controlling one’s mind. Having been trained in the hwadu meditation of the Sŏn (Chan in Chinese) Buddhist tradition, Iryŏp teaches meditation as a way to overcome habitual energy that constrains one’s capacity to be a free being. Religious practice, for Iryŏp, is not a matter of belonging to a certain organization but of education on becoming an authentic human being, and thus, for our author, meditation is essential to that path.