The problem of the Seven Emotions is mainly "excessiveness. "As soon as it is excessive, it is not in accord with the original substance [*bonche*/*benti*] of the mind."72 If any of the Seven like anger or desire is excessively expressed, it is unstable and needs to be controlled and harmonized. Wang introduced his innovative idea of the mind-in-itself ("original essence of the mind") and argued that selfsh emotions neglect the original purity of the mind. Therefore, the idea of controlling and overcoming *selfsh* emotions is strongly embedded in Wang's ethics of the mind and emotions. As he states,

How can the human mind be free from anger [*no*/*nu* 怒], and so forth? But it should not have them. When one shows a little bit of feeling of wrath, his anger is excessive, and his mind is no longer the original substance [*bonche*/*benti*] that is broad and extremely impartial [quoting Cheng Hao]. Therefore, whenever one is affected by wrath to any extent, his mind will not be correct … [even though] we all feel angry in our minds at the party who is wrong.73

Wang writes further:

71 See *Analects*, 1: 1, 6: 20, and 7: 19, respectively. See Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> of this chapter for our detailed discussion of these statements about Confucius's utmost pleasure and joy in this regard.

72*CXL* pt. I, sect. 44; Chan 1963a: 38. For more statements on Wang's doctrine of the mind-in-itself (original substance of the mind), see his *CXL* pt. I, sect. 3; Chan 1963a: 7.

73*CXL* pt. II, sect. 167; Chan 1963a: 205.

Pleasure [*hui*/*xi* 喜], anger [*no*/*nu* 怒], sorrow [*ae*/*ai* 哀], fear [*gu*/*ju* 懼], love [*ae*/*ai* 愛], hatred [dislike; *o*/*wu* 惡], and desire [*yok*/*yu* 欲] are also natural to the mind. But you should understand innate knowledge [of good; *yangji*/*liangzhi* 良知] clearly …. When the seven feelings [Seven Emotions] follow their natural courses of operation, they are all functions of innate knowledge, and cannot be distinguished as good or evil. However, we should not have any selfsh attachment to them. When there is such an attachment, they become selfsh desires and obscurations to innate knowledge.74

In this passage, Wang gives a complete list of the Seven Emotions and confrms the *Book of Rites* that they are the "natural" innate emotions that we all have and "do not learn from the outside." However, the Seven can become bad when they have "any selfsh attachment." For example, anger, one of the Seven, is a natural human emotion but the excessive anger that is not properly controlled by the mind can certainly become "selfsh" and lead to evil. It is the negative emotion of wrath deviating from the original essence (*bonche*/*benti*) of the heart-mind. In this case, one's mind has to be rectifed.

Wang's disciple asked for his master's advice on Cheng Hao's (older brother of Cheng Yi) saying that "The feelings [emotions] of the sage are in accord with all creation and yet he has no feelings of his own" and the claim that "If learning is to stress having no feelings … it ceases to be Confucian and will become Buddhist. Is that all right?" As Wang advises:

The sage's effort at extending knowledge is characterized by his absolute sincerity which never ceases. The substance of his innate knowledge [of good] (*yangji*/*liangzhi* 良知)) as clear as a bright mirror without any slight obscuration …. This is what is meant by saying that the feelings [emotions; *jeong*/*qing*] of the sage are in accord with all things and yet himself he has no [selfsh] feelings [*mujeong*/*wuqing* 無情]. The Buddhists have a saying, "One should have no attachment to anything and thus let the mind grow." This is not correct.75

As far as Wang is concerned, sages have basic human emotions. However, they not only control and overcome selfsh emotions and desires but also perfect their heart-minds as the "bright mirrors" without any impurity or

74*CXL* pt. III, sect. 290; Chan 1963a: 229.

75*CXL* pt. II, sect. 167; Chan 1963a: 148.

selfshness. In other words, they practice virtuous emotions like Confucius's true joy in harmony with the original essence (goodness) (*bonche*/*benti*) of the heart-mind; therefore, sagely moral emotions are in cosmic harmony with heaven, earth, and all things.

In the quoted passage above, Wang concisely interprets his entire philosophy of the mind in terms of its three key doctrines: innate knowledge [of good], the extension of innate knowledge, and absolute sincerity. He emphasizes the "original substance/essence" (*bonche/benti*) of the mind *as well as* the Mencian teaching of "innate knowledge [of good]" (*yangji*/*liangzhi*) and "innate ability [to do good]" (*yangneung*/*liangneng* 良能).76 Wang certainly liked Mencius's ontological moral belief in original human goodness in the heart-mind of virtuous emotions. The Four Beginnings refer to as the mind-in-itself and thereby confrm its innate knowledge of good, which *universally* enables moral self-cultivation and the path to sagehood.

Overall, Wang's ethics of emotions emphasizes self-cultivation as moral awakening and practice; that is, extend the good heart-mind (*yangsim*/*liangxin* 良心) to others by "making the will sincere" to "do good and remove evil."77

Unlike the orthodox Zhu Xi (Cheng-Zhu) school, Wang Yangming did not have a major impact on the Korean philosophy of emotions mainly because the Yangming school in Korea was effectively opposed by the orthodox Zhu Xi school (known as Seongnihak) and offcially persecuted by the Joseon dynasty for centuries. However, Jeong Jedu 鄭齊斗 (Hagok 霞谷; 1649–1736) was a prominent thinker who accomplished his "great synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea" (Chung 2020). Hagok articulated the Four-Seven philosophy of emotions but focused his creative interpretation more on the Mencian and Yangming doctrines. This topic is discussed further in Sect. 1.4.1 on Korean Confucian perspectives.

76For more details on Wang's doctrine of *yangji*/*liangzhi* and *yangneung*/*liangneng*, see *CXL* pt. I, sect. 8 and pt. II, sect. 152; Chan 1963a: 15, 132. See also Wang's famous essay "Inquiry on the Great Learning" (*Daxue wen*) in Chan (1963b: 665). Furthermore, for the original Mencian doctrine of *yangji*/*liangzhi* and *yangneung*/*liangneng*, see *Mencius*, 7A:15; Lau 1970: 184 or Chan 1963b: 80.

77 See *CXL* pt. I, sect. 129 and pt. III, sect. 315; Chan 1963a: 86, 244. See also "Inquiry on the Great Learning"; Chan 1963b: 664, 666. Furthermore, Ching (1976) is a good book on this topic, and consult Chung (2020) for my detailed discussion of this topic in the Korean and comparative context of Jeong Jedu's (Hagok) Yangming Neo-Confucianism.

### 1.3 Emotions in the Buddhist Tradition

### *1.3.1 The Buddha's Teaching and Theravada*

The word "emotion" variously appears in the Buddhist scriptures of Theravada or Mahāyāna. We see its related words and concepts more often: for example, "sensations (Pāli *vedana*)," "feelings (*vedana*)," "craving (or desires)" (*taṇhā*)," "moods," "psychic dispositions," "consciousness (mind)," "mental distraction," "clinging," "attachment," and so on. It is also important to note that specifc examples of human emotions and feelings are frequently mentioned either negatively or positively in certain scriptures and discourses of Indian Buddhism: for example, "sorrow" (suffering; *duhkha*), "ill-will," "hatred," "pride," "passion," "depression," and so on in the negative cases; and "equanimity," "calmness," "compassion," "joy," "love," "extreme joy" in the positive cases.

Some Mahāyāna scriptures repudiate "unwholesome" emotions and desires such as "craving," "desire," "anger," "happiness," "greed," "fear," "hatred," "pride," and "jealousy" and, more importantly, encourage or praise "compassion," "great compassion," "love," "courage," "generosity," "utmost joy," "joy of omniscience," "humbleness," and so forth.

According to the Buddhist tradition, after attaining his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, the Gautama Buddha preached the famous First Sermon on the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths, and the Noble Eightfold Path. He explains the Middle Way as follows:

The pursuit of desires and of the pleasure which springs from desire, which is base, common, leading to rebirth, ignoble, and unproftable; and the pursuit of pain and hardship, which is grievous, ignoble, and unproftable. The Middle Way of the Tathāgatha avoids both these ends. It is enlightened, it brings clear vision, it makes for wisdom, and leads to peace, insight, enlightenment, and Nirvana.78

This passage is self-explanatory on why the historical Buddha negatively viewed several examples of common emotions: self-indulging desire and

78 *Samyutta Nikāya* 5: 421 ff; de Bary 1969: 16. In this section, this and other excerpts on the historical Buddha's teaching come from several scriptures in the *Sutta Pitaka*, one of the Pali *Tipitaka* of Theravada Buddhism. See selected translations in de Bary's edited *The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan* (1969). Another good primary source is Conze (1963).

pleasure and self-damaging pain and grievance (sorrow). His message about the Middle Way is to gain peace and *nirvana* by suppressing and transcending these two extremes of life.

As the Buddha taught, sorrow (suffering; *duhkha* in Pāli) is universal human suffering not only physically but also emotionally, and it is ultimately caused by craving (desires, greed; *taṇhā*). These are the frst two items of his teaching of the Four Noble Truths:

This is the Noble Truth of Sorrow [*duhkha*]. Birth is sorrow, age is sorrow, disease is sorrow, death is sorrow, contact with the unpleasant is sorrow … in short, all the fve components of individuality [forms, sensations, perceptions, psychic dispositions, and consciousness] are sorrow. And this is the Nobel Truth of the Arising of Sorrow. It arises from craving [*taṇhā*], which leads to rebirth, which brings delight and passion, and seeks pleasure now here, now there—the craving for sensual pleasure, the craving for continued life, the craving for power. And this is the Noble Truth of the Stopping of Sorrow. It is the complete stopping of that craving, so that no passion remains, leaving it. Being emancipated from it, being released from it, giving no place to it. And this is the Noble Truth of the [Middle] Way which leads to the Stopping of Sorrow.79

This self-explanatory passage articulates the Buddha's repudiation of negative emotions and inclinations such as self-pleasing craving, sensations (feelings), passion, and pleasure because all of them ultimately cause universal suffering (*duhkha*). Thus, the Eightfold Path means to eliminate all kinds and levels of selfsh or self-indulging emotions, passions, and desires and to eventually become completely "emancipated" and gain *nirvana*.

Selfsh feelings of attachments are the result of *taṇhā* (craving) that causes more *duhkha* (suffering). This inevitable condition of life is the fundamental reason for moral-spiritual discipline known as the Eightfold Path. Human beings need to constantly practice "non-attachment" in order to control self-indulging thoughts, desires, and emotions, all of which can be extinguished only when *nirvana* is attained. Emotional experience is therefore closely linked to human sufferings. Suffering is the reality of existence that is further entrenched by bad attitudes of selfshness, clinging, or deflement. The Buddha taught a true understanding of the existential human conditions of suffering, including emotions and desires in their interdependent, dynamic nature.

79 *Samyutta Nikāya* 5: 421 ff; de Bary 1969: 16.

In articulating the "the arising of the whole body of ill [suffering]" (also known "the twelve interdependent chain of causation"), the Buddha includes emotions and sensations such as craving, grief, lamentation, sorrow, and despair as follows:

Ignorance is the cause of psychic constructions, hence is caused by consciousness, hence physical form, hence the six senses, hence contact, hence sensations, hence craving, hence attachment, hence becoming, hence birth, hence old age and death with all the distraction of grief and lamentation, sorrow, and despair. This is the arising of the whole body of ill [suffering]. So we agreed that by the complete cessation of ignorance, the whole body of ill [suffering] ceases.80

Craving (desire), grief, and sorrow as mentioned in this passage are three common emotions that are compatible with Chinese and Korean *yok*/*yu* 慾 (desire; craving) and *ae*/*ai* 哀 (sorrow; grief). The Buddhist emotion of lamentation is also similar to the Chinese and Korean *won*/*yuan* (怨) or *han*/*han* (恨). The Buddha recommends the suppression of these kinds of self-afficting emotions, as articulated in his discourse on rejecting conventional Hindu belief in the eternal soul:

If one experiences a happy sensation, and thinks "this is my soul," when the happy sensation ceases he will think "My soul has departed." One who thinks thus looks on his soul as something impermanent in this life, a blend of happiness and sorrow with a beginning and end, and so this proposition is not acceptable …. When a monk … refrains from such views and clings to nothing in the world; and not clinging he does not tremble, and not trembling he attains Nirvana.81

In this passage, the Buddha rejects belief in the permanent self by affrming only one's temporary existence consisting of sensations, happiness, sorrow, and other physical and mental components. The emotions of happiness and sorrow are highlighted here.

When the Buddha taught the monk Rāhula (formerly his son) on "right mindfulness," the seventh stage of the Noble Eightfold Path, he emphasizes: "Develop the state of mind of friendliness, Rāhula, for, as you do so, ill-will will grow less; and of compassion, for thus vexation will grow less;

80*Majjhima Nikāya* 1: 256 ff; de Bary 1969: 19.

81*Dīgha Nikāya* 2: 64 ff; de Bary 1969: 21.

of joy, for thus aversion will grow less; and of equanimity, for thus repugnance will grow less."82 A good number of emotions are mentioned here. The Buddha praised compassion, joy, and equanimity/calmness as the wholesome emotions that will "grow" as one cultivates right mindfulness. Note that these emotions and friendliness are also known as the four cardinal virtues of Buddhism. By contrast, vexation (displeasure), aversion (hatred), and repugnance are negatively viewed, respectively.

The Buddha's perspectives on the relationship between the emotions and the doctrine of selfessness (*anatta*) can provide a rich array of philosophical and spiritual resources to help us to distinguish selfsh emotions from self-less (or self-emptying) emotions. The so-called three poisons of clinging attitudes are greed, hatred, and delusion. These are classifed as unwholesome states of the mind, and suffering is generated by these afficting emotions and their concomitant psychic states. Padmasiri de Silva, a scholar of Indian Buddhist philosophy and psychology, points out that "non-egoistic" and "self-transcending emotions" in the Buddhist context include "loving kindness (*metta*), compassion (*karuṇā*), gladness at the success of others (*mudita*), and equanimity (*upekkha*)" (de Silva 1995: 110).83 These wholesome emotions are gained through the process of realizing enlightened selfessness (*śūnyatā*).

In the Discourse of the Great Passing-away (*Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta*), we also read the last instructions of the Buddha to his beloved disciple Ānanda: "A monk becomes his own lamp and refuge by continually looking on his body, feelings, perceptions, moods, and ideas in such a manner that he conquers the cravings, and depressions of ordinary men and is always strenuous, self-possessed, and collected in mind."84 The Buddha's fnal teaching therefore reiterates the practice of self-control by controlling all ordinary feelings and removing all selfsh emotions. That is to say, moods and ideas are also highlighted here in relation to cravings.

On a comparative note, Marks argues that since the Buddhist teaching on the universal cause of suffering disparages strong *desires* (craving; *taṇhā*), it requires "the elimination of strong desires" (1995b: 143).85 This is partly why Marks defends the Buddhist admiration of dispassion for

82*Majjhima Nikāya* 1: 256; de Bary 1969: 27.

84*D*ī*gha Nikāya*, Sutta 16; de Bary 1969: 29.

85Marks (1995b) is "Dispassion and the Ethical Life," a book chapter in Marks and Ames (1995).

83 See de Sila's article "Theoretical Perspectives on emotions in Early Buddhism" in Marks and Ames (1995).

the ethical life. On the other hand, in his "The Cross-cultural Comparison of Emotion" (1995b),86 Solomon criticizes Marks by arguing that the latter's support for "the goodness of dispassion" is not convincing because Marks was infuenced by Buddhism. From a non-Buddhist (Western) perspective, Solomon himself prefers to support passions for the ethical life.87

Buddhist morality, the second part of the Eightfold Path (right speech, conduct, and livelihood), also represents Gautama's role model as follows:

The Monk Gautama … lives modestly, full of mercy, desiring in compassion for the welfare of all things living. He has given up taking what is not given, he has lost all inclination to it … he lives in honesty and purity of heart …. His pleasure is in peace, he loves peace and delights in it …. He speaks only words that are blameless, pleasing to the ear, touching the heart, cultured, pleasing the people, loved by the people.88

This passage stresses Buddhist virtuous emotions such as compassion, modesty, and mercy for all beings and also positively affrms the three common emotions of delight (joy), pleasure, and love in the Buddhist context of seeking holistic peace. It is also worthwhile to note that the Buddhist discipline of detachment should not be completely identifed with "the destruction of emotion." This is because "wholesome emotions are an integral part of refned sensibility and provide fertile soil for clear judgment and the generation of moral and spiritual insights" (de Silva 1995: 112).

The Buddha's thought-provoking teaching of pure mind and righteousness therefore emphasizes love over hatred and sorrow:

Never in this world is hate Appeased by hatred; It is only appeased by love— This is an eternal law. Victory breeds hatred For the defeated lie down in sorrow. Above victory or defeat The calm man dwells in peace.89

86This work is the concluding chapter in Marks and Ames (1995).

87For Solomon's ethics of passions, an interesting and important topic, see Solomon (1993, 1995a, 1995b).

88*Dīgha Nikāya*, 1: 4 ff; de Bary 1969: 29.

89*Dhammapada*, 3–5, 201: de Bary 1969: 39.

The following excerpt also explains Gautama's experience of *nirvana* through self-awakening and complete emotional liberation at the conclusion of his seven-day meditation just prior to attaining his enlightenment:

Having acquired the concentration of mind which springs from solitudes, the price was flled with extreme joy and bliss [of enlightenment] …

Alas, wretched is he who, out of ignorance and blindness of pride, ignores others who are distressed by old age, sickness, or death …

He became neither excited nor distressed; free from pleasures; and untouched by hatred for contempt of others.

While this passionless, pure insight of that great-souled one grew …

I am free from the evils of passion arising from objects of sense.90

One has to abandon negative emotions like selfsh pride, pleasure, and hatred and remain "passionless" in order to seek true insights and ultimate peace and joy in attaining *nirvana*. In other words, Buddhists endeavor to suppress emotions and desires, but this would never mean that their entire lives are absolutely empty of all motivational elements (Kupperman 1995: 128). They have ethical and spiritual motives: that is, a religious faith and desire to seek peace, "love," and, ultimately, enlightenment "with extreme joy and bliss."

In our view, despite their psychological and ethical context, the Buddhist emotions of compassion, pleasure (happiness), delight (joy), love, and hatred are basically compatible with the Korean and East Asian Confucian counterparts. The Buddhist emotion of modesty also resonates with the Confucian and Neo-Confucian teaching that the moral emotion (heart-mind) of modesty is one of the Four Beginnings of virtue. "Mercy" and "dispassion" appear to be more or distinctively Buddhist, which is discussed further in the next two sections on Indian and Chinese Mahāyāna perspectives.

### *1.3.2 Indian Mahāyāna Perspectives: Great Compassion and Ultimate Joy*

The Mahāyāna doctrine of the bodhisattva provides both clergy and laity with its ideals of religious faith and practice. It emphasizes that all good Buddhists are bodhisattvas in the making and should work endlessly

90 de Bary 1969: 64–65.

toward the universal goal of complete enlightenment. One of the most important virtues of the bodhisattva is therefore compassion (*karuṇā*) to help and save all beings from suffering to ultimate *nirvana*.

The *Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines Sūtra*, a famous Mahāyāna scripture, articulates it as follows:

And immense compassion grips him [the bodhisattva]. His Divine eye sees numerable beings, and he is flled with great distress at what he sees, for many bear the burden of punished in purgatory, others will have unfortunate rebirths. So he pours out his love and compassion upon all beings, and attends to them, thinking, I shall become the saviour of all beings.91

Here Mahāyāna faith in the bodhisattva power is emphasized for universal salvation (enlightenment). The virtuous emotions of "love" and "compassion" are not just ordinarily human but also selfess and transcendent (divine). Many passages of the Mahāyāna texts talk about the bodhisattva's solemn religious vow of self-sacrifcing compassion to endlessly assist all beings from suffering to enlightenment and peace. For example, the *Śikṣāsamuccaya* (*Compendium of doctrine*)92 states:

The bodhisattva …. The virtue of generosity is not my helper …. It is I who help them. For all beings are caught in the net of craving, encompassed by ignorance, held by the desire for existence; they are doomed to destruction, shut in cage of pain …. I must so bring to fruition the root of goodness that all beings fnd the utmost joy, unheard of joy, the joy of omniscience. (de Bary 1969: 83–85)

All bodhisattvas must always practice moral and spiritual precepts such as supreme "generosity" for the utmost joy of all beings. Furthermore, the same text emphasizes the bodhisattva's full "happiness" even under the most painful or self-sacrifcing circumstances. The bodhisattva must bring about "the joy of complete enlightenment":

So the bodhisattva … is happy even when subjected to the tortures of hell …. For this was the resolve of the Great Being, the bodhisattva: "… And those who revile me, affict me, beat me … or take my life—may they

92This work is written by the seventh-century Mahāyāna master Śāntideva; see Barbra Clayton (2006): *Moral Theory in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya: Cultivating the Fruits of Virtue*.

91*Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñ*ā*pāramitā Sūtra*, 22: 402–403; de Bary 1969: 81–82.

all obtain the joy of complete enlightenment … he cultivates and develops the consciousness of joy in his relations with all beings, and so he acquires a contemplative spirit feld with joy in all things.93

Here the bodhisattva's joy is not just an *emotional* joy but, more important, "joy in all things" in a spiritual and religious sense. Joy and compassion are two of the four cardinal virtues of Buddhism. From a similar standpoint, another Mahāyāna sūtra emphasizes the bodhisattva's ten "perfections" (perfect virtues; *pāramitā* [Skt.])94 "by which a bodhisattva gains her strength." Five of these perfect virtues are: the bodhisattva

"bows humbly to all beings, and does not increase in pride"; "has compassion on the weak and does not dislike them"; "protects those who are afraid"; "delights the poor with his riches"; and "speaks to all beings pleasingly."95

Note that these virtues are also associated with common emotions such as humbleness and pride, compassion, fear, delight (joy), and pleasure, respectively. General speaking, compassion, humbleness (modesty), altruism, and joy (delight) are emphasized as moral-spiritual emotions in the Confucian tradition as well. As we have seen in the foregoing sections, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred (disliking), and desire (craving) are the common emotions that are also discussed in Chinese Confucian texts as well.

No wonder why most of these emotions that the Buddha and Indian Mahāyāna mentioned are therefore articulated in the Chinese and Korean Buddhist texts as well.

93 *Śikṣāsamuccaya*, 181 f; de Bary 1969: 90–91.

94 In Mahāyāna Buddhism the bodhisattva's six *pāramitās* (virtues) are generosity (*dāna*), morality (*śīla*), patience (*kṣānti*), vigor (*vīrya*), concentration (*dhyāna*), and wisdom (*prajñā*). This list became expanded to promote the ten perfect stages (*bhūmi*) of a bodhisattva in the process of attaining full enlightenment. The ten perfections of the bodhisattva are (1) generosity, (2) morality, (3) renunciation (*nekhamma*), (4) insight (*pañña*), (5) energetic diligence (*viriya*), (6) patience, (7) truthfulness (*sacca*), (8) resolution (*adhiṭṭhāna*), (9) loving-kindness (*metta*), and (10) equanimity (*upekkhā*).

95*Tathāgataguhya Sūtra*, *Śikṣāsamuccaya*, 274; de Bary 1969: 91.

### *1.3.3 Chinese and Korean Mahāyāna Perspectives: Tiantai, Chan, Pure Land, Wonhyo, and Jinul*

The Tiantai school of Mahāyāna Buddhism in China developed an important doctrine that infuenced both Chan (Zen) and Pure Land Buddhism. According to its doctrine of the "perfectively harmonious threefold truth," all beings and dharmas are generated by interdependent causation, so they are ultimately "empty" for having no permanent self-nature. However, each of them has a temporary existence as well. In other words, "the truth of emptiness" and "the truth of temporariness" also mean the "truth of the Mean" regarding all dharmas.

In his famous work *the Profound Meaning of the Scripture of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law*, Zhikai, the founder of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism, articulated the harmonious threefold truth:

The present scripture uses ten dharmas to comprise all dharmas, namely the such-like character, such-like nature, such-like substance, such-like power, such-like activity, such-like causes, such-like conditions, such-like effects, such-like retributions, such-like beginning-and-end-ultimate, and the like of the dharmas …. Distinction makes it easier to understand, hence we specify Emptiness, Temporariness, and the Mean. (de Bary 1969: 164)

Emotions and feelings are indeed included in and interdependent on what Zhikai calls "such-like" character, nature, activities, conditions, and effect; therefore, they are physical and mental phenomena that do not have any permanent self-existence. The Tiantai teaching basically resonates with the historical Buddha that emotions and desires have to be "emancipated" for self-awakening *nirvana* because the "deluded" self generates selfsh emotions, feelings, and desires and thereby continue causing more suffering.

In section 17, one of the most frequently quoted sections of the *Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch*, the most eminent Chan maser Huineng says:

No thought is not to think even when involved in thought …. If one instant of thought is cut off, the Dharma body separates from the physical body, and in the midst of successive thoughts there will be no place for attachment to anything …. If you stop thinking of the myriad things and cast aside all thoughts …, you will be reborn in another realm …. The deluded man, however, does not himself see and slanders the teaching of the sūtras. (de Bary 1969: 218–220)96

By "no-thought" and "stop thinking," Huineng also means no "craving", no "abiding" attachments, and, of course, no more emotions, desires, or passions. And one's "physical body" must be controlled and regulated accordingly. As Huineng says, "Because man in his delusion has thoughts in relation to his environment, heterodox [wrong] ideas stemming from those thoughts arise, and passions [emotions] and false views are produced from them" (de Bary 1969: 220). From another angle, awakening is gained by actual practice.

Richard Shusterman, an American pragmatist philosopher, calls Zen "practical somaesthetics," for it involves disciplined, refective practice aimed at "somatic" self-improvement (Shusterman 2012: 45). Chan (Zen) Buddhism warns against the distracting nature and afficting role of emotions and passions. Christoph Anderl, a Buddhist scholar, points out that *jeong*/*qing* doesn't mean the "real state of affairs or feelings" but refers to the activities of the "unenlightened mind" and thus has a rather negative connotation (2004: 149).97 The failure to overcome the deluded self can result in "attachment" to the mental processes of conceptualizing the deluded perspectives of the world.

Section 36 of the *Platform Sutra* also states: "Crush the passions and destroy them." This concurs with the Gautama Buddha's experience of *nirvana* through self-awakening and complete liberation; that is, having "passionless, pure insights" and being freed from "the evils of passion" arising from objects of sense (de Bary 1969: 64–65). In discussing Chan, Huineng, and emotions, Parkes points out that for Huineng, "deluded ideas or delusive emotions" are viewed as "clouds and mists," so one's "mastery over the passions and emotions" is demanded for enlightenment (1995: 217).98 Huineng's teaching is self-explanatory on the question of why Chan Buddhism, the most ascetic (meditative) and rigorous form of East Asian Mahāyāna, like the historical Buddha, strongly repudiates emotions and thoughts for their self-indulging delusion and self-damaging

96This and other excerpts on Huineng come from de Bary (1969), all of which were originally taken from Yampolsky's translation (1967).

97Anderl's article "*Qing* in Chan Buddhist Chinese" is in *Love and Emotions in Traditional Chinese Literature* edited by Halvor EIfring (2004).

98 See Parkes's comparative essay on emotions and passions in Zen and Nietzsche in Marks and Ames (1995).

craving that ultimately cause suffering. Selfsh emotions, passions, and desires have to be completely "transcended" in the process of "selfemptying" and for the fnal goal of enlightenment.

The eminent, ecumenical Korean monk Wonhyo 元曉 (617–686) strongly criticized the problem of emotions from a similar standpoint. In his famous work *Ijang eui* 二障義 (*Doctrine of the two hindrances*),99 Wonhyo writes: "The greed, hatred, delusion, and so forth … are all of unwholesome quality" (Muller and Nguyen 2012: 78). The affictions of emotions such as craving, anger, and pride should be rejected because they cause delusion and suffering. "Eliminated in the Path of Cultivation are the anger of the desire realm and the three affictions of greed, pride, and nescience."100 These emotions are harmful (unwholesome) and should therefore be eliminated in "the path of cultivation." Wonhyo's teaching therefore concurs with early Buddhism; that is, certain forms of suffering are dependent on emotions like craving and hatred, two of the so-called three poisons (Muller and Nguyen 2012: 54). Both poisons originate from the frst poison nescience that conditions negative emotions. Affictive (Skt. *kleśa*) emotions are the reason for suffering.

Similarly, Jinul 知訥 (1158–1210), the most infuential Seon (Chan) master in the formation of Korean Buddhism, harshly repudiated "the deluded mind" for engendering poisonous emotions such as "greed" and "hatred" and thus their continuous affictions.101 By contrast, "the true mind" "does not give rise to [afficting] feelings of hatred or lust" (Buswell 1991: 135). Jinul's message, like the Buddha's and Huineng's teachings, is that the (Seon) Buddhist way of enlightenment means to eliminate all unwholesome ("poisonous") emotions, passions, and desires, thereby discovering "the true mind (self)."

Mahāyāna contains a *soteriological* paradox in regard to Pure Land doctrine and practice. Pure Land Buddhism, the unique school of East Asian Buddhism, stresses the Mahāyāna doctrine of universal enlightenment through faith in the divine power of the Amitabha Buddha. It praises "compassion" and "love" as not only virtuous moral emotions but also the Amitabha's universal divine virtue and grace. In his *Compendium of the*

99This text is fully translated with annotation by Charles Muller in Muller's and Nguyen's edited *Wŏnhyo's Philosophy of Mind* (2012).

100 *Ijang eui* 4.2; Muller and Nguyen 2012: 107.

101For the life and thought of Jinul, see Buswell's *Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul's Korean Way of Zen* (1991). Consult Buswell (1992) for his experience and interpretation of Korean Zen pracitce as well.

*Happy (Pure) Land*, Daocho (562–645), one of the greatest masters of Pure Land Buddhism in China, explained the recitation of the Amitabha's name as the most effective universal way of salvation by emphasizing the Amitabha's "great compassion" and his "compassionate mindfulness of the beings" (de Bary 1969: 202). The Pure Land teaching uniquely emphasizes the bodhisattva path of "great compassion" for its universal salvation of "complete enlightenment."

In this regard, Wonhyo and Jinul strongly support the bodhisattva path of Korean Mahāyāna. Wonhyo highlighted the cultivation and practice of "great compassion" (Buswell 2007: 253) as the most important virtue for universal salvation. In his infuential *Jinsim jikseol* 眞心直說 (Straight talks on the true mind),102 Jinul talks about what he calls "the heart-mind of great compassion" (Buswell 1991: 135). As represented by Wonhyo and Jinul, then, Korean Buddhism emphasizes universal enlightenment for "all sentient beings": "great compassion" is the virtuous-spiritual emotion of the bodhisattva.103 In this book, Sharon Suh's Chap. 11 on *jeong* and interrelationality in Korean Buddhist cinema discusses the modern Buddhist meaning and role of "bodhisattvic compassion" in relation to Confucian-infuenced Korean *jeong e*motions.

# 1.4 Emotions (*Jeong*/*Qing* 情) in Korean Philosophy and Religion

What has been discussed in this introductory chapter so far is the editors' detailed introduction to three related topics: "Emotions in General, East and West" (Sect. 1.1); "Emotions (*Jeong*/*Qing* 情) in the Chinese Tradition " (Sect. 1.2); and "Emotions in the Buddhist Tradition" (Sect. 1.3). All of these sections will effciently serve as a helpful textual, philosophical, ethical, and religious background of Korean *jeong* 情 studies. We are now ready to introduce Korean perspectives according to their leading traditions and doctrines and their comparative and contemporary meanings and implications in harmony with the Korean way of human experience, rationality, and emotionality.

102This text is fully translated in Buswell (2007): *Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wŏnhyo's Exposition of the* Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra (Kŭmgang Sammaegyŏng Non).

103For more details on Wonhyo's and Jinul's teachings of "great compassion," see Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> (Great Compassion and Joy).

This last section of the introductory chapter introduces and outlines all three main parts of the book as follows:

### *1.4.1 Korean Confucian Perspectives*

### *<IP_ADDRESS> The Holistic Nature, Role, and Problem of* Jeong*: Emotions, Self-cultivation, Human Relationships, Ethics, and Beyond*

Korean Confucianism greatly contributed to articulating the nature of emotions (*jeong*/*qing* 情) and its manifold and multilevel roles in selfcultivation and ethics. It championed virtuous emotions while repudiating the potential problem or selfshness of negative emotions, and this mode of reasoning consistently infuenced many generations of Confucian thinkers and ordinary Koreans. As a result, the Korean Confucian tradition has developed its comprehensive context and scope of *jeong*/*qing* emotions common to all human life and experience in relation to human nature (*seong/xing*), heart-mind (*sim*/*xin*), and physical and psychological dispositions. Its extensive vocabulary of *jeong* includes the Four Beginnings of virtue and the Seven Emotions as well.

We cannot deny the essential infuence of Chinese Confucian texts, doctrines, and ideas on Korean emotion talks with respect to the Four and the Seven, the *Book of Rites*, *Zhongyong*, Mencius, and Zhu Xi. However, it is also wrong to argue that Korean Confucians merely followed the Chinese tradition because Yi Toegye (1501–1570), Yi Yulgok (1536–1584), Jeong Hagok (1649–1736),104 and Jeong Dasan (1762–1836) not only discovered the fundamental ambiguity and limitation of these Chinese classics and Neo-Confucian commentaries but also creatively developed their original ideas, interpretations, and insights. This became a key topic in the Korean Four-Seven debate, which began in the mid-sixteenth century and lasted for three centuries.105

104 See Chung (2020: 46–52) for Jeong Jedu's (Hagok) Four-Seven ethics of emotions. This book is a full-length study of Hagok's "great synthesis" of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea, including his critical reinterpretation of Zhu Xi's and Toegye's philosophies. Hagok was the leading Korean thinker and scholar of Yangming Neo-Confucianism.

105For current scholarship on the Korean Four-Seven debate, see Kalton et al. 1994; Chung 1995, 2016 (Introduction, Part II, Sect. 1.2), 2019b, 2021 (a new book on Toegye's ethics and spirituality). For various articles, see Ching 1985; de Bary and Haboush 1985; Ivanhoe 2015, 2016; Hyoungchan Kim 2015; Seok 2018; Tu 1985b. Furthermore, Toegye's Four-Seven letters are included in Yi Toegye (1985), *Toegye jeonseo* (hereafter abbrevi-

Their unique common goal was how to understand and explain the self rationally, psychologically, morally, and spiritually. This is why the holistic nature of Korean *jeong* seems to be more associated with or infuenced by the *Confucian* tradition of language, philosophy, moral psychology, and social relationships. In this regard, one can say that the foundational meaning and implication of Korean *jeong* are more Confucian in teaching and practice than Buddhist or another. In fact, it is historically true that Korea was comparatively the most "Confucianized" country and culture in East Asia.106

In the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), Korean Neo-Confucians comprehensively discussed various textual and philosophical questions about *jeong*. In particular, they rigorously debated those regarding the Four-Seven relationship as well as its implications for moral-spiritual selfcultivation, most of which had not been explained clearly in the Chinese tradition of classics and Song Neo-Confucian commentaries. Part of their common practice was to interpret a conceptual, moral, and psychological distinction or connection between the Four and the Seven in terms of emotions (*jeong*/*qing*), sentiments, passions, desires, and related emotive phenomena.

For example, how do the Four and the Seven all relate to *jeong*/*qing* feelings and emotions in general? This quickly became a major issue in the Korean Four-Seven debates. One critical issue was about whether the Four and the Seven are only different "names" for emotions or actually have two distinctive conceptual and moral meanings and roles. What about ordinary physical or psychological feelings or desires? Another key question was why Mencius described the Four as "emotions" (*jeong*/*qing*) and especially in terms of the "heart-mind" (*sim*/*xin*). What about the question of why the Four are moral willing, emotions, or intuitions? This ambiguity existing at the heart of Mencius's moral philosophy and psychology and Song Chinese Neo-Confucian commentary was one of the most important issues in the Korean Four-Seven and Horak debates. These kinds of issues regarding the orthodox, mainstream line of interpretation

ated *TJ*), 16: 8a–30a, and Yulgok's letters in *YJ* 9: 32b–10:40a (vol. 1, 192–216); for a full translation of these letters, see Kalton et al. 1994, 7–104, 109–183. Chung (1995) is a comparative, comprehensive discussion of Toegye and Yulgok and the practical implications of each thinker's Four-Seven thesis.

106For this topic on the "Confucianization" of Korean language, culture, and society from historical or socio-institutional angels, see Haboush (1991), Deuchler (1992), Rozman (1991), Duncan (2002), Elman et al. (2002), and Chung (2015).

are variously discussed in Chaps. 2, 4, and 6 of this volume by Seok, Chung, and Harroff, respectively. Chapter 5 by Baker is unique in discussing Jeong Dasan's own unorthodox interpretation of emotions and "the pursuit of sagehood."

Korean Neo-Confucians Toegye and Yulgok—like Korean Buddhist thinkers such as Wonhyo and Jinul—did not fully distinguish emotion from reason (cognition), and vice versa. In other words, they traditionally viewed the heart-mind (*sim*/*xin* 心) as one integrated holistic faculty that unites, coordinates, or apprehends the entire self with respect to rationality, emotionality, morality, and spirituality. *Jeong*/*qing* emotions engage the entire self, including the body as well as the heart-mind, as in the case of Confucian or Buddhist philosophy and spirituality.107 This issue of emotion-and-reason continuum is discussed by Seok in his Chap. 2 on the Korean Four-Seven and Horak debates; it is also mentioned in Chung's Chap. 4 on Yulgok's ethics of emotions, and see Harroff's Chap. 6 on his Western comparative views of the Four-Seven relationship.

 They also discussed the *Doctrine of the Mean* (Chap. 1), which gives attention to the frst three together with joy (delight; *rak*/*le* 樂) and emphasizes "equilibrium" and "harmony" in terms of "before arousal" and "after arousal," respectively.108 In other words, these are innate physical and psychological *jeong*/*qing* of human nature. The cultivation of mind therefore requires a measure of control over emotions, including the Seven, as clearly taught in the *Zhongyong*. According to this ethics of emotions, the goal of selfcultivation is to attain the state of control and "harmony" after the Seven or related emotions are aroused (*bal*/*fa* 發).

This topic of emotions is discussed in Chaps. 2 and 4 of this book by Seok and Chung, respectively. Seok gives a general overview according to

107For this topic regarding top eminent Korean Buddhists such as Wonhyo and Jinul, see Sects. 1.3.3 and 1.4.3 of this introductory chapter.

108For our discussion of the Seven Emotions according to the *Book of Rites*, Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> (The *Book of Rites* and the *Doctrine of the Mean* …) of this introductory chapter. See also Sect. 1.1.4 on the diversity of emotions.

the Korean Four-Seven debate, and Chung focuses on Yulgok's interpretation. As discussed in Chap. 5 by Baker, Dasan seriously doubted this mainstream orthodox line of interpretation by giving his own opinions on human emotions. For example, Baker keenly argues that Dasan went beyond the conventional Confucian list of the Seven by discussing other signifcant emotions (*jeong*/*qing* 情) according to his creative reading of the classics: resentment (lamentation; *won*/*yuan* 怨), remorse (regret; 悔 *hoe*/*hui*), suffering/grievance (恨 *han*/*hen*), and resentful suffering (怨恨 *wonhan*/*yuanhen*).

Many chapters of this book discuss Confucian moral emotions such as "compassion" (*cheugun*/*ceyin* 惻隱), "shame and aversion" (*suo*/*xiu* 羞 惡), "courtesy and modesty" (*sayang*/*cirang* 辭讓), and "discernment of right and wrong" (*sibi*/*shifei* 是非), all of which are known as the Four Beginnings of virtue (*sadan/siduan* 四端) according to the *Mencius* (2A: 6; 6A: 6) and Chinese Neo-Confucian commentaries.109 In the Korean tradition, the moral emotion of compassion (sympathy; empathy) is an innate virtuous feeling. This topic is variously discussed by Seok (Chap. 2), Choi (Chap. 4), and Chung (Chap. 5) and two comparative-theme chapters of Part II by Joseph E. Harroff (Chap. 6) and Lee (Chap. 7).

Other virtuous emotions such as *gyeong*/*jing* 敬 (reverence; mindfulness; respect) are also emphasized and encouraged, especially by the Toegye school. Moral virtues, including *in*/*ren* 仁 (benevolence; humanheartedness), *ye*/*li* 禮 (ritual propriety), and *xiao* 孝 (flial affection), are also honored. Choi's Chap. 3 in particular deals with Toegye's ethics of *gyeong* reverence and emotions. Choi makes an important point that Toegye's way of self-cultivation and moral practice stresses *gyeong* to control selfsh emotions and cravings internally and externally.110

With respect to these moral virtues, Confucius also believed that true emotions are essential to sincerity and virtuous human experience and should therefore play a vital role in the process of self-cultivation.111 This insight inspired later generations of eminent Confucians and Neo-Confucian thinkers, including Yi Toegye and Yi Yulgok in Korea.

109For the Four, see Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> on Mencius; regarding Zhu Xi's and Wang Yangming's views of the Four, see Sects. 1.2.3 and 1.2.4, respectively.

110For more discussion of this topic from a moral and religious standpoint, see Chung 2016, 2021 (a new book on Toegye's ethics and spirituality).

111For details, see Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> (Confucius: True Emotions and Human Character). Furthermore, consult Ames (2020) for an interesting discussion of "role ethics" and human "becoming."

The Korean Four-Seven debates rigorously discussed textual, conceptual, ethical, or psychological issues regarding the Four-and-Seven relationship or difference as well as its implications for moral cultivation, most of which were not explained clearly in the Chinese classics and Neo-Confucian commentaries. For example, how the Four and the Seven differ from each other, and why they should be understood in relation to the heart-mind (*sim*/*xin*). Toegye and Yulgok similarly confrmed that the Four Beginnings, including compassion, are indeed moral emotions (*jeong*/*qing*). For Mencius, the "original goodness of human nature" consisting of the Four should therefore be "fully developed" for selfcultivation; "neglecting your own potentials is to destroy yourself." (*Mencius*, 2A: 6).112 Self-cultivation not only involves the Mencian teaching of nurturing the Four as the moral essence of human nature but also has to maintain what the *Zhongyong* calls "[emotional] harmony after [the Seven such as] pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused." Chapter 2 (Seok) generally discusses this part of the Korean Four-Seven debate on emotions, and Chap. 4 (Chung) focuses this discussion on Yulgok's ethics of emotions and political reform.

The Mencian doctrine of compassion and other moral emotions was discussed by Korean Neo-Confucians with admiration and care for their signifcance in self-cultivation and ethics. It is also important to note that Toegye emphasized the Mencian teaching in his ethics and spirituality of emotions and self-cultivation. Toegye frequently quoted not only Mencius's doctrine of original human goodness and the Four but also his spiritual talk of "Heaven" and "serving Heaven," which seemingly contributed to Toegye's Korean religious thought.113

Another issue was whether or not the Four and the Seven are two separate or distinctive types of *jeong* emotions. Toegye emphasized that the Four such as compassion and the discernment of right and wrong defnitely belong to a special, separate group of moral emotions. By contrast, Yulgok insisted that the Seven represent the "totality" of emotions and feelings that includes the Four as their "good side [subset]." The Four-Seven debates also addressed questions regarding Zhu Xi's Four-Seven statements, his dualism of the moral-and-human mind, and his ethics of self-cultivation. Toegye, Yulgok, and their debaters built the constructive meaning of the Four-Seven relationship by covering various texts,

112Chung's translation; see also Lau 1970: 82–83.

113For details on this topic, see Chung 2016, 2019c, 2021.

thinkers, and ideas comprehensively and systematically. This was indeed necessary to understand and practice the vital role of human emotions in moral and spiritual self-cultivation.

To Toegye and his followers, Zhu Xi's unexplained statement that "the Four Beginnings are manifestations of *i*/*li* (理; principle), and the Seven Emotions are manifestations of *gi*/*qi* (氣 vital/physical energy)"114 implied an ontological and conceptual distinction between the Four and the Seven. This issue was also discussed by Yulgok and other Korean scholars in relation to Zhu's philosophy of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*. 115 Chapters 2 (Soek), 4 (Chung), and 6 (Harroff) of this book discuss this topic from various angles. Choi's Chap. 3 deals more with Toegye's ethics of *gyeong* reverence and emotional control in relation to Zhu Xi's teaching of *gyeong*. Chapter 5 (Baker) articulates why Dasan opposed the orthodox line of Korean interpretation in terms of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*.

Korean thinkers argued that Zhu Xi's ambiguous comment on the Four-Seven relationship is to be understood in terms of "[moral] purity," and there must be moral distinction or continuum between the Four and the Seven. For Toegye, the Four and the Seven are different ontologically, conceptually, and morally; this is why Zhu Xi meant that the Four are aroused by *i*/*li* whereas the Seven are aroused by *gi*/*qi*. In other words, Toegye emphasized that one should overcome dehumanizing tendencies such as the potential selfshness of the Seven stimulated by *gi*/*qi*; this can be done by practicing our moral virtues backed up by *i*/*li*. According to Yulgok, however, there is moral-emotive continuum between the Four and the Seven, for which reason Toegye misinterpreted the Four and the Seven as two distinctive and separate groups of feelings.116 As Yulgok states, "what is manifested is *gi*/*qi*, and the reason for its manifestation is

114*ZZYL* 53: 17b.

115 See n. 57 in Sect. 1.2.3 (Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism) for details on Zhu Xi's philosophy of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*; *f*or current scholarship on Zhu Xi's philosophy of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*, see also n. 39 in Sect. <IP_ADDRESS>. For more on this topic in relation to emotions, see Chaps. 2, 4, and 6 of this book by Soek, Chung, and Harroff, respectively. See Sect. <IP_ADDRESS>, n. 39 for the current literature on Zhu Xi's philosophy of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*.

116*YJ* 9: 35b; I, 192 (see Chung 1995, 2019b for my discussion of Yulgok's critique of Toegye's four-Seven thesis). For a full translation of Toegye's and Yulgok's Four-Seven letters, see Kalton et al. 1994.

*i*/*li*." In the arousal of all emotions and feelings, including the Four and the Seven, *gi*/*qi* is therefore what actually becomes manifested.117

Toegye, Yulgok, and other Korean Neo-Confucians all confrmed that the Four Beginnings such as compassion are purely good because they are backed up by the original goodness of human nature inherent in the heartmind. They basically agreed that ordinary human emotions and feelings such as the Seven are *potentially* good if they are properly expressed or harmonized according to moral principles (*i*/*li* 理). However, as Toegye, in particular, argued, any of these emotions like anger, hatred, or desire can easily become precarious or evil because they are stimulated by impure *gi*/*qi* (氣) in response to daily things or phenomena (Chung 1995, 2021 [Chaps. 4 and 8]).

Another controversial issue of the Korean Four-Seven debate dealt with Zhu Xi's doctrine of "original human nature" (*bonyeon ji seong*/*benran zhi xing* 本然之性) and "physical human nature" (*gijil ji seong*/*qizhi zhi xing* 氣質之性) in terms of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi*, respectively.118 Toegye and his followers generally argued that by original human nature Zhu Xi meant the Mencian notion of "original human goodness," including innate moral virtues like human-heartedness (benevolence) as well as moral emotions such as the Four Beginnings (e.g., compassion). By contrast, the Seven belong to physical human nature that includes all ordinary physical or psychological feelings, sensations, and desires; in other words, the Seven Emotions of the physical human nature are conditioned by *gi*/*qi* and can therefore lead to good or evil. Chapters 2 (Seok) and 4 (Chung) discuss this part of the Four-Seven debate on emotions.

Furthermore, Yulgok in particular became interested in discussing Zhu Xi's doctrine of "[Dao] moral mind" (*dosim/daoxin* 道心) and "[ordinary] human mind" (*insim/renxin* 人心): the moral mind is "good" because it is aroused from heavenly moral principles (*cheolli*/*tianli* 天理), whereas the ordinary human mind is "precarious" and involves both good and evil because it is aroused from "the selfshness (*sa*/*si* 私) of physical

118 See Sect. 1.2.3 (Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism …) for details of this topic on the *bonyeon ji seong* and *gijil ji seong*.

117*YJ* 10: 5a; I, 198. For articles on the Korean Four-Seven debates, see Ching 1985 (on Yulgok); Ivanhoe 2015, 2016; Hyoungchan Kim 2015; Seok 2018; Tu 1985b (on Toegye). For Chung's comprehensive discussion, see Chung 1995, 1998 (on Yulgok), 2019b, 2021 (chapter 4).

form."119 However, Zhu did not explain this topic in terms of emotions and the Four-Seven relationship, so it was a major issue in the Korean debate. Chapter 2 (Seok) discusses the moral/human mind issue in the Four-Seven debate, Chap. 3 (Choi) presents the same issue from the standpoint of Zhu Xi's and Toegye's ethics of reverence (*gyeong*).

Yulgok emphasized "the oneness of the mind" ontologically and ethically. There is a "mutual relationship" of continuum between them: the mind is one, even though there are just "two names" used in explaining it. As good moral emotions, the Four are included in the Seven.120 Yulgok states: "Mencius selected good [moral] emotions out of the Seven Emotions, thereby calling them the Four Beginnings."121 When love, one of the Seven, is expressed properly, then it is a moral emotion that is no different from compassion, one of the Four.122 The Four do not exist outside the Seven, the "totality" of emotions: it is impossible for the "good side" (the Four) and the "totality" (the Seven) to be divided into two kinds of emotions.123 Accordingly, the moral and human minds should be understood in terms of the oneness of *jeong* emotions. "The Four Beginnings refer to the moral mind in particular; the Seven refer to the moral-and-human mind combined as a whole."124 Just as the reality of the heart-mind is "one," the wholeness of emotions and feelings is also one and not divided into the Four and the Seven. In this regard, Yulgok also criticized Toegye for dualistically misinterpreting the Four and the Seven as two distinctive groups of emotions.

Jeong Jedu 鄭齊斗 (Hagok 霞谷; 1649–1736), the most eminent thinker in Korean Yangming Neo-Confucianism,125 discussed the

119*ZZWJ* 76: 21b; quoted from Zhu's preface to the *Zhongyong zhangju*. More details on this topic and quotations from Zhu's *ZZYL* and *ZZWJ*, see Sect. 1.2.3 (Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism …), nn. 65, 66. Furthermore, Zhu's moral psychology of the dual nature of the mind strongly infuenced Toegye's advanced moral-religious thought (Chung 2016: 26–45, 2021 [chapter 6]).

120*YJ* 9: 34b; I, 192. This statement is almost identical to the original thinking of Gi Daeseung (Gobong; 1525–1572) who rigorously debated with Toegye.

121*YJ* 20: 56b; I, 455; Chung's translation.

122This opinion basically corresponds to Gobong's original view; see *TJ* 16: 13b; I, 408.

123Yulgok's argument indirectly concurs with Zhu Xi's unquoted statement that "the Four can be understood in the context of the Seven." See *ZZYL* 87: 16a–b. Note that Yulgok, as well as Toegye and Gobong, were not familiar with this statement by Zhu Xi.

124*YJ* 10: 7b; I, 199; Chung's translation.

125 In Korea, this tradition is also known as the school (learning) of the mind (*simhak/ xinxue* 心學). Hagok is as important as Korea's three famous Confucian thinkers: Yi Toegye, Four-Seven philosophy of emotions by criticizing Cheng-Zhu thought through his creative reading of the Mencian and Yangming doctrines. Like Wang, Hagok said that the Four as virtuous emotions represent "the original essence (*bonche*/*benti* 本體) of the heart-mind."126 This ontologicalethical claim is backed up by the Mencian teaching of "innate knowledge [of good]" (*yangji*/*liangzhi* 良知) and "innate ability [to do good]" (*yangneung*/*liangneng* 良能) (*Mencius*, 7A: 15). Hagok's thought reconciles Wang Yangming, Zhu Xi, and Seongnihak Neo-Confucianism in Korea. Like Wang, he interpreted emotions in terms of emotional control, *yangji*/*liangzhi*, and moral practice. Moral emotions such as the Four, including compassion, refer to as the innate knowledge and ability of the mind-in-itself. Hagok's ethics of emotions, therefore, posits moral practice "to do good and remove evil."127 Wang's and Hagok's ideas of "innate heart" (conscience; *yangsim*/*liangxin* 良心) and "essential heart-mind" (*bonsim*/*benxin* 本心) positively contributed to Korean emotive and ethical language, to the extent that contemporary Koreans often talk about what they call *yangsim*/良心 and *bonsim*/本心 as the true [good] heart with emotive emphasis on everyday human relationships.

Jeong Yagyong 丁若鏞 (Dasan 茶山; 1762–1836), a leading Korean Confucian scholar, criticized and opposed the orthodox Korean school (Seongnihak) of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism in many ways. For example, in his view the mainstream Neo-Confucian theories of emotions in terms of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi* do not represent the original teaching of Confucius and Mencius. This is why Dasan concluded that the Seongnihak's theoretical and practical discussion of emotions (*jeong*/*qing*) is limited and unsuitable for the sagely Confucian way of ethics. As discussed by Baker in Chap. 5, Dasan's reading of various classics such as the *Book of Rites*, *Analects,* and *Mencius* inspired him to discuss more types of common emotions (*jeong*/*qing*), including resentment (lamentation; *won*/*yuan* 怨), remorse (regret; 悔 *hoe*/*hui*), suffering/grievance (恨 *han*/*hen*), and

Yi Yulgok, and Jeong Dasan. The Korean Yangming school was effectively opposed by the orthodox Zhu Xi school (known as Seongnihak) and offcially persecuted by the Joseon dynasty for centuries.

126A comprehensive discussion of Hagok's life and thought is Chung (2020): *The Great Synthesis of Wang Yangming Neo-Confucianism in Korea*.

127Consult Chung (2020) for Hagok's discussion of this topic. For Wang's sayings, see *CXL* pt. I, sect. 129 and pt. III, sect. 315; Chan 1963a: 86, 244. See also "Inquiry on the Great Learning"; Chan 1963b: 664, 666.

resentful suffering (怨恨 *wonhan*/*yuanhen*). These emotions were ignored by the orthodox Zhu Xi school of Neo-Confucianism.128

As Baker points out, Dasan wrote an essay on *won*/*yuan* 怨 (resentment; lamentation), in which he insightfully quotes the *Mencius* (5A: 1–2; 6B: 3) and *Analects* (17: 9) for directly addressing the emotion of resentment (*won*/*yuan*).129 For Dasan, then, resentment is something that even the sages and wise persons would feel as a genuine human emotion. Dasan was arguably the frst Korean Confucian thinker who formally talked about these "signifcant" emotions textually and ethically.

It is also important to note that Dasan's discussion closely resonates with three of the most common "Korean" emotions such as *won* (怨), *han* (恨), and *wonhan* (怨恨) that continue to engage the contemporary Korean repertoire of emotion (*jeong*/*qing*) talks morally, socially, and psychologically.

What follows hereafter is our overall, integrated introduction to four main chapters of Part I on the Korean Confucian perspectives of emotions.

### *<IP_ADDRESS> An Introduction to Part I, Chaps. 2 –5: Korean Confucian Perspectives*

Chapter 2 by Bongrae Seok is titled "Moral Psychology of Emotion (*Jeong*/*Qing* 情) in Korean Neo-Confucianism and Its Philosophical Debates on the Affective Nature of the Mind." This chapter discusses the so-called Four-Seven debate (1559–1572) and the Horak debate (*Horak nonjaeng* 1709–1715)—the two major philosophical debates of Korean Neo-Confucianism—and analyzes how Korean Neo-Confucians in the Joseon dynasty explained *jeong*/*qing* "emotions in relation to the heartmind (*sim*/*xin* 心), human nature (*seong*/*xing* 性), and morality." Although these thinkers respected the philosophical framework of orthodox Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, they also developed their own theories of emotions "by focusing on the affective foundation of morality in the heart-mind." Seok applies what he calls the onto-directive and the psycho-affective approaches to this topic and discusses the Korean Neo-Confucian understanding of emotions. The chapter concludes that Korean Neo-Confucianism coherently developed "a unique form of moral

129 Jeong 2012: I, 10: 4a–b (2, 205–206).

128 See *Yeoyudang jeonseo* (Complete works of Yeoyudang Jeong Yagyong [Dasan]); Jeong 2012: I, 8: 27b (2, 72).

psychology," the moral psychology of "the emotional mind rooted in the ethical and devotional nature of human beings."

Seok's basic insight concurs with the *jeong*/*qing* chapter of his *Embodies Moral Psychology and Confucian Philosophy*, according to which Confucian *jeong* is more than "subjective" emotions as extended and shared experience of human experience and the foundation of the moral heart-mind (Seok 2013).130

Seok's Chap. 2 is a helpful historical and philosophical introduction to the Korean Confucian philosophy of emotions according to the Four-Seven and Horak debates. It specifcally explains the Four-Seven relationship in terms of *i*/*li* and *gi*/*qi* and other related issues such as "before arousal" (*mibal*/*weifa* 未發) and "after arousal" (*ibal*/*yifa* 已發) from a conceptual and analytic standpoint. This chapter will also facilitate the readers' understanding of the three other chapters in Part I. For Toegye, Yulgok, and their debaters, the Four and the Seven are all aroused (*ibal*) emotions. One can question the extent to which Seok's detailed discussion of the Horak debate's *mibal* concept explains the nature and role of emotions. Furthermore, one key aspect of their Four-Seven debates highlights the issue of good and evil. Toegye persistently articulated the fundamental Four-Seven difference in this regard: that is, potential moral evil of the Seven regarding uncontrolled or selfsh emotions and desires. This is precisely why Toegye passionately emphasized the virtuous and transcendent reality of human nature as the Four [moral emotions] backed up by *i*/*li*. We need to be mindful of this vital moral-religious dimension of Korean Four-Seven philosophy,131 although this topic is beyond the scope of Seok's chapter due to its limited space. The reader will see that to some extent the next chapter by Choi covers Toegye's attention to the moral and transcendent goodness of human nature in terms of *gyeong* (reverence).

Chapter 3 by Suk Gabriel Choi is titled "The Idea of *Gyeong/Jing* 敬 in Yi Toegye's Korean Neo-Confucianism and Its Availability in Contemporary Ethical Debate." It presents the Confucian doctrine of *gyeong* in relation to emotions according to Zhu Xi's and Toegye's interpretations, as well as its distinctive implication for contemporary Western virtue ethics. *Gyeong*

130 Seok points out that *jeong* in the Korean Confucian context is "a resonating affective state that can be sensed by and expressed through the body, and that can be shared with others and the community, but not exclusively, necessarily, or always felt as inner personal feelings" (Seok 2013: 168).

131For this topic, consult Chung 1995, 2019b, 2019c, 2021 (a new book on the religious thought of Yi Toegye with comparative perspectives).

敬 (C. *jing*; translated as "seriousness," "reverence," "reverential concentration," "reverential seriousness," "mindfulness," etc.) is one of the most signifcant ideas in the Confucian tradition. Choi examines the meaning and cultivation of *gyeong* according to Zhu Xi and then discusses its relation to the topic of emotions and emotional control in the Korean Neo-Confucian context. In particular, Choi explains how Toegye understood Zhu Xi's idea of *gyeong*/*jing* and also systemized his own ethics of *gyeong* and self-cultivation. Furthermore, this chapter articulates how Toegye's Korean notion of *gyeong* can play "a distinctive role" in contemporary Western debates "on emotion, morality, and virtue."

Choi's chapter contributes to explaining Toegye's philosophy of *gyeong* from the contemporary Western standpoint of virtue ethics pertaining to Sher (1998), Montague (1992), and other ethicists' comparative views in terms of virtuous dispositions, motivations, habits, and so on. Overall, it makes an important point that "*gyeong*/*jing* is a crucial practice of selfcultivation," including an appropriate control of emotions and feelings. It keenly identifes *gyeong* as "the emotion of reverence" [and] self-refection that is essential in the practice of self-cultivation. The phrases "being mindful," "clear from obscurity," and "self-examination" are rightly cited. In other words, according to both Zhu Xi and Toegye, *gyeong* plays a vital role in the practice of moral virtues and emotions such as the Four Beginnings.

A related question Toegye himself would ask us is: what about the role of *gyeong*, "the master of the unifed self," in controlling or transcending (eliminating) "selfsh cravings" (*sayok*), the potential origin of moral evil? This is because Toegye emphasized *gyeong* in terms of contemplative "selfrefection," emotional control, and "self-rectifcation." In other words, there is something important about his *gyeong* beyond Choi's textual and ethical analysis. Toegye's notion of *gyeong* is not just a philosophical theory or moral practice but, more importantly, a holistic system of ethics and spirituality based on his own experience engaging in contemplation, spiritual cultivation, and Confucian belief in the transcendent reality of human existence.132 Some discussion of this topic could have been given if more space with a slightly deeper analysis was allowed for this chapter.

Chapter 4 by Edward Y. J. Chung is titled "Yi Yulgok on the Role of Emotions in Self-cultivation and Ethics: A Modern Korean Neo-Confucian

132For the religious nature of Toegye's life and spirituality of *gyeong* reverence, see Chung 2004, 2010, 2011, 2016 (introduction), or 2021 (chapters 5, 6).

Interpretation." It presents Yi I 李珥 (Yulgok 栗谷; 1536–1584), a leading Neo-Confucian thinker and one of the greatest statesmen in Joseon Korea (1392–1910), by focusing on Yulgok's philosophy of emotions (*jeong*/*qing* 情) and statecraft. It covers his Four-Seven debate letters and *Seonghak jibyo* (聖學輯要; *Collected essentials of sagely learning*) as well as his major political essays such as *Yukjogye* (六條啓; *Six-article memorial for current affairs*). The second and third sections articulate the holistic nature and roles of emotions and briefy compare Yulgok's interpretation with some leading Western theories. These sections also discuss Yulgok's ethics of "the transformation of *gi*/*qi*" (氣; vital energy),133 and why it supports his political reform ideas. The concluding section comments on the modern relevance of Yulgok's insights for a comparative and crosscultural study of emotions.

Chung argues that Yulgok's view of emotions (*jeong*) as "desires" (*yok*/*yu* 欲) to fulfl the specifc "needs" of the human body resonates with what William James emphasized as physiological "sensations" (1984, 1990) and concurs with Joel Marks's theory of emotions as desires (1995a, 2013). Yulgok's theory that moral emotions like flial piety and compassion involve moral awareness and conscious judgment is compatible with Robert Solomon's emphasis on emotions as "judgments" (1993, 1995a, 2001). Furthermore, we can compare Yulgok's practical ethic of compassion with Michael Slote's virtue ethics of "empathy" and "moral motivation" (2007, 2010, 2020). Chung also notes that Solomon's theory of "passion," "justice," and "the ethical life" (1993, 1995a, 1995b) resembles Yulgok's moral passions for political justice and social wellbeing.134 Beyond this compatibility and resemblance, the sixteenth-century Korean thinker not only passionately emphasized real *actions* but also actively *participated* in the development of political reform and social improvement, for which reason this combination of passion, action, and contribution represents the Korean distinctiveness of Yulgok's Neo-Confucian virtue ethics.

133 See Chung 1995 (Chapter 5) or 2019a (in Choi and Kim 2019) for details on Yulgok's philosophy of *gi*-transformation and self-cultivation.

134A good question beyond the focus and limited scope of this chapter is to discuss the differences among Yulgok's theory and these contemporary Western theories in a new detailed comparative study. In the coming years, I (Chung) plan to prepare a new book manuscript on Yulgok's Neo-Confucian thought that will likely include such a study (chapter). This will be based on Chung's translation and interpretation of Yulgok's famous philosophical and political essays.

Yulgok strongly advocated political reform actions to bring about economic and cultural benefts to a changing society at large. Chung concludes that the modern spirit of democracy, political responsibility, and social justice remarkably resembles Yulgok's ethical passions for government "for people," "by public opinion," and "people-based policies."135 This is another key reason for recognizing the distinctiveness and contemporary relevance of Yulgok's Korean Neo-Confucian ethics of passions (*jeong*). Chung hopes to have provided a thought-provoking chapter for Korean Neo-Confucianism and the comparative ethics of emotions and, at the same time, to make a worthwhile contribution to the feld of Comparative Philosophy.

Chapter 5 by Don Baker is titled "Jeong Dasan on Emotions and the Pursuit of Sagehood." Jeong Yagyong (Dasan [l.n.]; 1762–1836) is said to have spent much of his life trying to understand the role emotions play in motivating both moral and immoral behavior. This chapter discusses why Dasan "did not limit his investigation of moral psychology to the standard list of Seven Emotions" but also looked at other essential emotions such as "resentment" (*won*/*yuan* 怨) and "apprehension" (*gonggu/ kongju* 恐懼). Dasan concluded that, in order to ensure our emotions direct us to "act appropriately," we need to cultivate an attitude of caution and apprehension. As mentioned in the chapter, this includes one's emotional apprehension of (god) Sangje/Shangdi 上帝, the Lord on High, as well as the moral emotion of empathy for fellow human beings. Grounded in such an attitude, the heart-mind will control and integrate "the inclinations (which Dasan believes constitutes human nature) and emotions which inspire us to act selfessly."

Baker's chapter presents one remarkable aspect of Dasan's Korean ethics by discussing several unconventional emotions that rarely appear in the orthodox Zhu Xi or Seongnihak Neo-Confucian repertoire of emotion (*jeong*/*qing*) talks: resentment (*won*/*yuan*), remorse (regret; 悔 *hoe*/*hui*), suffering/grievance (恨 *han*/*hen*), and resentful suffering (怨恨 *wonhan*/*yuanhen*). Even the sages and wise persons would feel these

135The notion of "Confucian democracy" (S. Kim 2014, 2016) is also relevant here. Another interesting point that emerges out of the focused context of Chap. 4 is to develop a new comparative study that will articulate this part of Yulgok's moral and political thought, especially in terms of Confucian moral-political thinking, human dignity and equality, political justice, modern democracy, and so on. In the coming years, Chung hopes to prepare a full-length book manuscript on Yulgok's life and thought, which will likely include a chapter on this topic.

human emotions, for which reason Dasan discussed them as "signifcant" emotions. Another interesting point discussed in this chapter is that certain emotions and inclinations inspire one's effort to overcome selfshness and act morally. Dasan's phrase "be cautious and apprehensive" is a key teaching of self-cultivation originating in the *Doctrine of the Mean* (*Zhongyong*). Baker quotes an important passage from Dasan:

It is the fear that our misbehavior will be noticed. Noticed by whom? … We are cautious (*gyesin/jieshen* 戒愼) and apprehensive (*gonggu/kongju* 恐 懼) … because we know our sovereign can punish us if we behave improperly. What makes us behave properly even in the privacy of our own room and make sure that even our thoughts are appropriate thoughts? The only reason why a moral person is watchful over his thoughts and behavior even in the privacy of his own room is that he knows that the Lord on High [*Sangje*/*Shangdi*] is watching him.136

The self-cultivation of the Way requires self-control by "being cautious [over what one does not see] and apprehensive [over what one does not hear]."137 It appears that Dasan intended to integrate the *Zhongyong*'s teaching with classical religious belief in Sangje *vis-à-vis* one's moral or immoral thoughts and actions. Does this not mean the religious emotion of fearing Sangje's spiritual (divine) power and judgment?138 Fear is one of the Seven Emotions, so one's apprehension of Sangje certainly resonates with the emotion of fear (worry) belonging to the general Confucian list of the Seven Emotions.139

136 Jeong 2012: II, 3: 4b–5a (6, 232–233).

137This teaching was also frequently quoted by the leading Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Toegye, and others.

138We make this interesting point here from a religious standpoint of Shangdi and early Confucianism, although Baker does not mention it in this chapter partly due to its limited scope.

139Another further question beyond the focus and scope of this chapter is about any possible infuence of Catholic Christian beliefs on Dasan's talk of the apprehensive fear of Sangje's anthropomorphic and transcendent power in an emotive yet religious way. This question is interesting from a comparative religious standpoint. It is historically true that while interacting with early Catholic missionaries from Europe and their Korean Christian converts, including his older brother and his friends during the late eighteenth century, Dasan became familiar with Christian doctrines, including faith in heavenly God as the supreme being (lord). In other words, it would be more interesting to know if Dasan's talk of religious fear of the Heavenly Lord (Shangje) was directly or indirectly infuenced by the Christian fear of God as the divine watcher, judger, or punisher. Dasan himself did not for-

According to this chapter, another emotion Dasan passionately discussed is desire (*yok*/*yu* 欲): all human beings desire to feel good and have the desire for that which is good. For Dasan, those who desire to follow the moral good will "live a righteous life" by "acting appropriately" [morally] in private as well as in public.140 Dasan likely did not confrm either desire as one of the Seven Emotions or the mainstream Neo-Confucian view that the desire is a potentially "precarious" [selfsh] emotion that should be suppressed. However, unlike other Neo-Confucians, including Toegye, Dasan strongly affrmed desire as a positive and engaging emotion that can contribute to the Confucian way of self-cultivation.

#### *1.4.2 Comparative Korean Confucian Perspectives*

The second part of the book presents three interesting chapters in order to enrich our comparative discussion of key Korean Confucian doctrines and views of emotions. This is to be done from our three contributors' comparative ethical, political, or social perspectives. Many essential aspects of the Korean Confucian perspectives that we have presented in the foregoing sections also apply more or less to all three chapters of Part II of this book. These three specialized chapters are organized as follows, and their abstracts and our comments are discussed below.

In summary, Harroff's Chap. 6 presents the Four-Seven debate while assimilating this topic with some aspects of Western philosophy. From a comparative moral-political angle, Lee's Chap. 7 discusses *jeong* (emotions) as "a core political notion" that ethically and politically infuenced the development of "Confucian democracy" and "public culture of civility" in South Korea. Iljoon Park's Chap. 7 will be treated separately along with Jea Sophia Oh's Chap. 12 (fnal chapter) of Part III because their shared views of Korean *jeong* (情; emotions)" and *han* (恨; resentment/ suffering) from contemporary Confucian, social, or related angles.

mally or directly testify so in any of his writings, partly due to his own fear of being persecuted by the Joseon dynasty that politically oppressed and religiously prohibited Catholic missions and converts. Nonetheless, the current Korean and Western literature on Dasan's life and thought basically confrms the subtle theistic dimension of Dasan's thought as something that not only relates to the religious dimension of early Confucianism but also was likely infuenced by his early private study of Catholic Christianity (known as *seohak* 西學 [literally Western learning]) or his basic familiarity with its theistic moral beliefs.

140 Jeong 2012: II, 2: 170 (6, 219–220).

### *<IP_ADDRESS> An Introduction to Part II, Chaps. 6 and 7: Comparative Confucian Perspectives*

Chapter 6 by Joseph E. Harroff is titled "Thinking Through the Emotions with Korean Confucianism: Philosophical Translation and the Four-Seven Debate." It attempts to articulate a method for engaging in responsible cross-cultural comparative philosophy via what Harroff calls "translingual practice and hermeneutically transformative re-description." Emotional experience and embodied moral subjectivity are said to be engaged via this method in the context of the Four-Seven debate. Harroff wants to render "foregrounding uncommon assumptions and remaining hermeneutically open to translational in-betweeness," while arguing for some fruitful ground for more philosophical research regarding the uniqueness of Korean Neo-Confucian thinking through emotions and embodied ethical cultivation. Considering Yi Toegye on the importance of "reverent attention" (*gyeong*/*jing* 敬) as cultivated *habitus*, "the importance of somaesthetic culture" generally in transforming "sedimented structures of emotions in order to become more inclusive and appreciative of diverse values is appealed to in a cosmopolitan horizon as a source of melioristic hope and creative intelligence."

After a detailed introduction, the second section of this chapter covers "*Ars Contextualis* as philosophical translation," the third section discusses "the Four-Seven debate as translingual practice," and the fnal section gives some comparative conclusion. Only the Toegye-Gobong part of the Four-Seven debate is highlighted in terms of "the dual or non-dual nature of *i* 理 and *gi* 氣." This chapter also confrms the common argument that the Four and the Seven "are all human emotions (*jeong*)." Harroff keenly points out that the debate was about self-cultivation and ethical practice more than metaphysics and abstract epistemology.141 Toegye's idea "reverential attention" (*gyeong*/*jing*) is mentioned as an important aspect of the Toegye-Gobong debate, although it needs further clarifcation.142

141 In this regard, Harroff concurs with other scholars' works on Toegye's Four-Seven thought; see Kalton (1994), Ivanhoe (2015, 2016), and Chung (1995, 2019b, 2021).

142 In regard to translating *gyeong*/*jing* (敬) as "reverential attention," Harroff emphasizes the non-dualistic aspect of *gyeong* as "somaesthetically embodied ethical practice" by saying *gyeong* is rather "a transformation of the very kind of ethical subjectivity as an embodied attentional economy that one brings to the act of constituting a world of value." In this regard, Halla Kim calls *gyeong* "reverential seriousness" a *li*-oriented therapy of mind-body and argues that "Toegye stressed the role of *li* in the path to self-cultivation" (Kim 2017: 602). In Choi's Chap. 3, we can read more about the literal, moral, and philosophical nature

Regarding the issue of philosophical translation, Harroff makes an interesting argument that it is important to talk about Freud, Marx, Dewey, and Wittgenstein in "employing a hermeneutics of suspicion regarding dominant epistemologies." A good question beyond the limited scope and length of this chapter is to discuss why or how this kind of hermeneutics applies to the Korean Four-Seven debate on emotions. A worthwhile part of Harroff's discussion is also about the joint work of Ames and Hall on the philosophical translation and glossary problem of Confucian classics and especially the *Zhongyong* (Ames and Hall 2001). This chapter concludes that translingual practice is suitable for discussing the "ethical subjectivity and cosmopolitan universalism" of a "recontextualized" Four Seven debate. The Four-Seven debate makes a "uniquely Korean Neo-Confucian contribution" to Asian and comparative philosophy and (post)modernity.

Chapter 7 by Hyo-Dong Lee presents "*Jeong* (情), Civility, and the Heart of a Pluralistic Democracy in Korea." It seeks to interpret the Confucian concept of emotions (*jeong*/*qing*) as a core political notion of what might be called "Confucian democracy" within the traditional Korean context. This chapter examines the philosophical underpinnings of the Mencian *seongseon*/*xingshan* (性善) thesis (human nature is good) in terms of the Four Beginnings (Sprouts) of virtue (*sadan*/*siduan*), and its potential to support a "Confucian theory of democracy." For reinterpreting the "politicality of the Four Beginnings," this chapter focuses on *jeong*/*qing* emotions as the core notion of Neo-Confucian moral psychology, as a kind of "affectionate and moral solidarity," and as an innate human potential which confers upon us political equality. By understanding *jeong* as a kind of "political and social glue" that holds together diverse groups of Korean people with competing visions of human fourishing, Lee's study attempts to lay the basis for envisioning a thriving "pluralistic democracy" sustained by a public culture of civility in modern Korea.

Following the introductory section, the second section of this chapter presents the Confucian teaching of "*jeong* and the heart-mind: the affective basis of moral equality," which includes some essential points about "empathetic" *jeong* emotions according to the Korean Four-Seven debate

of *gyeong* and its vital role in self-cultivation according to Zhu Xi's and Toegye's virtue ethics of *gyeong*/*jing*. Furthermore, the spiritual and religious signifcance of Toegye's *gyeong* is comprehensively discussed in Chung's recent books on Toegye (2016, 2021) or see his articles Chung 2004 (in Tu and Tucker 2004), 2011.

as well. The third section discusses "from moral equality to political equality: a Confucian theory of civil democracy." Lee makes an important concluding remark that the Korean Confucian form of *jeong* has contributed to moral-political equality and civility.143 For example, the Four Beginnings of virtue—the humane heart of compassion and empathy—intrinsically animate "the moral public culture of a Confucian democracy."

Lee has envisioned this chapter as a political-philosophical discussion of emotions from a Korean Neo-Confucian perspective and hence examined its possible implication for modern politics. It is written as a good theoretical, analytic topic on Confucian emotions and ethics and modern democracy.144 However, an important question beyond the limited focus and scope of this chapter is to discuss the distinctively Korean patterns of interplay between empathetic *jeong*, moral equality, Confucian civility, and political democracy in South Korea today.

### *<IP_ADDRESS> An Introduction to Part II, Chap. 8 and Part III, Chap. 12: Confucianism and Social Emotions:* Jeong*,* Han*,* Heung*, and Women*

The Korean (Confucian) concept of *jeong* closely relates to other common emotions such as *han* (恨; suffering; deep resentment/lamentation) and *heung* (興; exhilaration, utmost joy), both of which are said to be Korean "social emotions." Furthermore, the *jeong* and *han* are also associated with Korean women's experiences in their traditional gender roles according to Confucian-infuenced social norms. The inevitable connection between *han* and *jeong* is also discussed along with other related emotions or concepts such as *heung* in Iljoon Park's Chap. 8 and *uri* (we/our) and *salim* (enlivening/power of life) in Jea Sophia Oh's Chap. 12.

Park seeks to discover some positive, powerful elements of Korean emotions in a contemporary Korean context of socio-cultural *jeong* and *heung*. He argues that the basic message of the Korean Four-Seven debate emphasizes the moral and emotional essence of being genuinely human.

143Lee briefy mentions the uniquely Korean form of *jeong* in relation to Sungmoon Kim's (2014, 2016) discussion of Korean *jeong*, *uri* (our)-responsibility, and political democracy.

144The detailed third section of this chapter carefully analyzes several theorists of Confucian moral politics and modern democracy, including Sungmoon Kim, Joseph Chan, and Edward Shils. Its key words and phrases include "the empathetic heart," moral equality, political authority/equality, Confucian civility/democracy, democratization, and so on. Thus, a good thinking question is also to ask how these political theories specifcally apply or relate to the trends of Confucian infuence on Korean people's *jeong* emotions, moral culture, and political democracy in South Korea.

Korea's social-emotive culture of *han*, *heung*, and *jeong* cannot be separated from this "Confucian understanding" of emotions. Oh addresses a similar theme of *jeong* and *han* from her "Korean-American" standpoint of understanding Korean family life and women's experience. Despite traditional Korea's patriarchal gender roles, Korean women are said to have transcended their emotion of *han* (suffering) and played their leading roles as wise wives and mothers, compassionate caregivers, educators, colleagues, business women, public offcials, and so on.

On a related note, the Korean phenomenon of *han* (resentment) has been studied from several angles: historical, sociological, religious, theological, feminist, and so on. For example, Andrew Sung Park, a Korean theologian of *han*, explained the *han* as the relational consequence of sin that is the pervasive reality of victims' suffering and the scars left from the sins of others who have wronged them (1993).145 Park also argued that the *han* of women, *han* of nature, and *han* of God are all characterized by such embodied emotional trauma. From this liberation theology viewpoint, subordinated groups, *minjung* (the oppressed), and women are said to be depicted as *han*-bearers. In a similar vein, Wonhee Anne Joh, a postcolonial theologian, combined *han* and *jeong* together in formulating her Christological arguments from a Korean-American postcolonial perspective. Joh offered a hybrid Christology of *han* and *jeong* by dealing with native Korean concepts as lived and understood (2006). *Jeong* makes relationships "sticky" (xiv) and is therefore an "adhesive bond" that gives rise to hopefulness in the midst of *han* suffering.146 Examining the

145The thematic title of this book is sophisticated and outside the Confucian context with a liberation theological approach: *The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin*. It is important to note Park's bold approach to deconstruct the traditional Western-oriented theology and to introduce a Korean contextualized theology of *han* (suffering) by comparing the Christian doctrine of sin with Korean *minjung* people's *han* from his comparative process theological perspective. However, it is a limited interpretation of Korean emotions (*jeong*) that only partially tells about the integrated dynamics of *jeong*, *han*, authoritarian society, and moral psychology in the Korean context.

146 See Joh's *Heart of the Cross: A Postcolonial Christology* (2006), which not only provides postcolonial-liberationist-feminist insights into the area of theology but also achieves its distinctiveness as a narrative theology by using the Korean notion of *jeong* and *han.* Her theological interpretation of *jeong* and *han* is said to appeal to Asian/Korean American women's experience. Since our volume does not include the Korean Christian interpretation of *jeong*, readers may fnd some interest in Joh's postcolonial theological work. Joh's fnal chapter seeks to answer a Christology of *jeong* by comparing it with the Buddhist concept of the noself": "Jesus is awakened to no-self through *jeong*" (2006: 123). Nonetheless, Joh's insights Korean-American experience of *han* and *jeong*, Joh therefore atempted to construct a postcolonial theology of the Cross by suggesting the power of *jeong* as compassion.

In Chap. 8, "Korean Social Emotions: *Han* (한 恨), *Heung* (흥 興), and *Jeong* (정 情)," Park deals with Korean social emotions such as *jeong*, *han* (resentment, suffering)*, heung* (exhilaration, utmost joy), and *musim* (non-attachment, no heart-mind). The South Korean dynamics of emotions through *"*the coupling of *heung* and *han"* or that "of *musim* and *jeong*" is called *pungnyu* (also spelled *poong-ryu*; 풍류 風流), the Korean aesthetic tradition of "enjoying the fow of life and nature." Park argues that *jeong* emotions may serve as a "social interface to optimally exchange personal feelings with others," so that human beings and things achieve an affective way to interact with one another. The *pungnyu* may be an "ideal stabilizer to balance emotional instability" and promote emotional harmony in the contemporary world.

Following a short introduction, the second section of this chapter briefy presents emotions in the Korean Confucian tradition, including the textual and philosophical meanings of emotions (*jeong*) according to the Four-Seven debate as a theoretical background. This provides a good foundation for Park's discussion of Korean social emotions. The third and fourth sections present "dangers of unstable emotions in the internet connected world" and "precarious conditions for social emotions" in Korea by citing some Western scholars and their relevant views. The detailed ffth section discusses social emotions such as *jeong*, *han*, *heung*, *musim*, *miunjeong* (미운정; hateful *jeong*), *wonsugatun jeong* (원수같은 정; "enemylike *jeong*"), and *injeong* (인정 人情; human[e] *jeong*).

The concluding section offers Park's thoughtful comments. For example, the Korean Four-Seven debate motivates us "pay more attention to the emotional and ethical feature of what it means to be truly human" because it teaches that "the core way of being human is the self-cultivation of emotions/feelings, and this insight [possibly] corresponds to the contemporary scientifc understanding of emotions." Park keenly concludes that Korea's emotive-social culture of *han*, *heung*, and *jeong* has become

hardly address profound Confucian infuence on Korean *jeong*; that is, the linguistic, humanistic, moral, and socio-cultural infuence—both positive and negative—of Confucian human relationships, values, bonds, and emotions and feelings (*jeong*).

"a matrix to accept the Confucian understanding of being human."147 During the pandemic world of non-contact culture, the Korean spirit of *pungnyu* and *heung* is "to respect differences among people and to beneft all humans accordingly." Emotions seek to fnd a balance, so Park concludes that we can appreciate "this transformation as an art that shows a harmonized beauty of *han*, *heung*, and *jeong*."

Chapter 12, the second fnal chapter by Jea Sophia Oh, is titled "Emotions (*Jeong* 情) in Korean Confucianism and Family Experience: An Ecofeminist Perspective." It "critically reimagines the dynamics between Korean Confucianism and family life. In doing so Oh rediscovers constructive meanings and functions of emotions (*jeong* 情) as sites of ethical and political transformation. This chapter introduces the Korean concept of *jeong* in relation to the closely related concepts of *uri* (we/us) and *han* (resentments). By examining Korean women's gender roles in their staunchly patriarchal Confucian society of the *Joseon* dynasty (1392–1897) to the present time, it attempts to deconstruct the traditionally prejudicial misogynic images of Korean women who have been mystifed as passive and compliant housewives while at the same time sexually objectifed and fetishized along with other Asian women."148

147Park also makes another interesting concluding remark: "the emotion of *heung* is associated with Confucian *rak* (락 樂; joy) and *hui*/*xi* (희 喜; happiness, pleasure), two of the Seven Emotions, and *han* closely relates to Confucian *ae*/*ai* (애 哀; sorrow, grief), another example of the Seven." However, the question is whether this makes the emotions of *han* and *heung* more Confucianized or more Korean. This relevant point needs further research and discussion in terms of the dynamic interplay between the social emotions of *han* and *heung* and the Confucian ethical and psychological culture of emotions in today's Korea.

148As Oh carefully points out in this chapter, "feminist philosophers in the East and West tend to be anti-Confucian and to criticize Confucianism as a primary instigator that legitimizes women's oppression." Although historically bound up with oppressive practices in some societies, Confucian philosophy is not inherently sexist. Thus, feminist critics of Confucianism and Confucian societies must do further researches to clearly justify or explain what specifcally the *politicized* criticism (or tradition) of Confucian "misogynic" patriarchy has to do with the essential Confucian teaching and practice of "fve human relationships" or its ethics and education of moral emotions such as the Four Beginnings as well as love (*ae*/*ai* 愛) [one of the Seven Emotions], including reciprocal compassion or affection, conjugal intimacy, and *yin*-and-*yang* gender harmony. For this topic on Confucianism and women in modern Korea and especially women's enormous contributions to family, education, social ethics, and economic development, see Chung 1994, 2015 (chapter 8: "Korean Women and Confucian Values: Change and Assimilation"). See also Kim and Pettid, eds. *Women and Confucianism in Choson Korea* (2012). From Chinese Confucian feminist perspective, Robin R. Wang wrote a constructive scholarly work to discover the egalitarian origin of gender:

On the other hand, Oh keenly "recognizes Korean women's leading roles in traditional Confucian families as advisors, educators, and caregivers." "Korean women have been recognized as icons of the uniquely Korean feelings of *jeong* and *han*. Unlike general assumptions that Korean society has been described as essentially an extreme form of patriarchy, Korean women's role in the Confucian family can be predominant and perhaps even more integrally powerful than the role typically proscribed for women in the liberal Western family." This chapter "analyzes multiple degrees of *jeong* as consisting of more than just essentially genderized emotions, but more importantly as being composed of transformative affects that elicit compassion and care with and for others despite its inherent potential for destructiveness and oppression. Korean women have thrived through *han* by dealing with *salim* (enlivening) as the subject of *life.* Oh's ecofamilial extension of *jeong* broadens the horizon of care and compassion to our planetary living with more than humans beyond any reductionistically biological ties grounded in anthropocentrism."

An interesting question emerges out of Oh's chapter for our further consideration beyond the focus and scope of this chapter. What is unique or distinctively "Korean" about this historical, ethical, and/or social pattern of emotions, Korean Confucianism, family, and women?149 It appears that the Korean-ness of *jeong* or the Korean distinctiveness of *jeong* and women has something to do with the traditional Korean context of *uri* (we or our) relationship and interaction, *han* emotive culture, and *salim* "enlivening." In fact, the uniqueness of *han* (resentment, suffering) and *jeong* is also more or less confrmed by Park's Chap. 9 in relation to the emotive Korean spirit of *pungnyu and heung* as well as by Baker's Chap. 5 in terms of Dasan's unique Confucian discussion of *wonmang* (resentment, lamentation) and *han*. The distinctiveness of Korean *jeong* and its

*Yinyang: The Way of Heaven and Earth in Chinese Thought and Culture* (2012), and Ann A. Pang-White excavated Confucian empowerment of women in her book *The Confucian Four Books for Women: A New Translation of the Nü Sishu and the Commentary of Wang Xiang* (2018).

149 In Chap. 12, the phrases "Korean women and gender roles" and "Korean society" are frequently mentioned for criticizing the misogynic practice of Korean Confucian society at the same time while discovering the positive and constructive aspects of Korean women in their Confucian family and society. In this regard, a related question or topic for further discussion in another research project is the distinctiveness of the Korean case in comparison with the Chinese (or Japanese) tradition that went through the similar historical, institutional, or social patterns of the past.

diversity and dynamics will be discussed further in our concluding Chap. 13.

#### *1.4.3 Korean Buddhist and Contemporary Perspectives*

#### *Wonhyo and Jinul on Emotions and Emotional Control*

The Buddha's teaching, Indian Mahāyāna, and Chinese Buddhism generally infuenced key Korean Buddhist doctrines and ethics of the mind and emotions and therefore contributed to the contemporary Korean Buddhist notion of *jeong* emotions morally and religiously.

Wonhyo 元曉 (617–686) and Jinul 知訥 (1158–1210) were the two most eminent Buddhist masters in Korea.150 Korean Buddhism is infuenced by Wonhyo's great works on Mahāyāna scriptures and especially the *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* (Treatise *on the foundation for yoga practitioners*) and *Avatamsaka Sūtra* (Flower Garland sūtra). Hwaeom (Huayan) Buddhism emphasizes its central doctrine of the "interdependence" and "interpenetration" of all beings, things, and phenomena in the universe. Similarly, Wonhyo highlighted the teaching of "all-in-one, one-in-all" through its image of a net of jewels refecting one another. He reformed Buddhism to be more open to the common people and lived the life of a secular monk, emphasizing the need to harmonize spiritual ideals with the realities of everyday life. According to Wonhyo's central teaching, original human nature is the Buddhanature (*bulseong*/*foxing* 佛性) as one heartmind (*ilsim*/*yixin* 一心). Chapter 9 by Hyekyung Lucy Jee articulates that Wonhyo's *ilsim* doctrine provides a Buddhist philosophical foundation for understanding Korean *jeong* emotions.

Jinul, another prominent fgure in Korean Buddhism, successfully reformed Buddhism by refocusing on Seon (Zen) meditation and by providing its doctrinal foundation from the scriptures. He taught that the cultivation of one's mind is what will bring enlightenment. As Huineng, the greatest mater of Chinese Chan, said, enlightenment could be found by looking inwardly and directly into one's self-nature. A sudden enlightenment cannot be sustained unless all unwholesome thoughts and habits are eliminated. Like a newborn baby, the enlightened mind is born with all of the tools and capabilities it needs but also has to cultivate them

150For the life and thought of Wonhyo, see Muller and Nguyen (2012) and Buswell (2007). For Jinul as well, see Buswell (1991).

(Addiss et al. 2008: 138). For Jinul, then, one must apply this insight to cultivating a lifestyle that is aligned with the Seon Buddhist standards and similar to the Confucian teaching of self-cultivation.

Wonhyo's major work *Ijang eui* 二障義 (*Doctrine of the two hindrances*) occasionally criticizes the "affictive hindrances within the three [karmic moral] qualities" and explains the moral problem of emotions: "The greed, hatred, delusion, and so forth … are all of unwholesome quality."151 In discussing Wonhyo's philosophy and spirituality of mind, Charles A. Muller points out that the *Śrīmālā-sūtra* (Sūtra of Queen Śrīmālā), a key Mahāyāna text, lists "the entrenchment of emotion toward objects in the desire" as one of the four entrenchments. The Buddhist notion of "four entrenchments" is taught in other *Tathāgatagarbha* (Embryo of the Buddha) Mahāyāna scriptures (Muller and Nguyen 2012: 59). The basic nature of particular emotions such as desire, craving, anger, and pride is therefore condemned for causing continuous suffering.

For Wonhyo, one of the two hindrances that are mentioned in Mahāyāna scriptures is the affictive hindrances (*kleśa-āvarana*), according to which suffering is caused by certain phenomena that delude the mind to see things untruly. These affictions (*kleśa*) are believed to involve all mental activities associated with nescience, delusion, anxiety, and so forth. The term *kleśa* also means pain, trouble, or deflement. The so-called six affictions (*upakleśa*) are craving, anger, ignorance, pride, doubt, and wrong views (Buswell 2007: 367).

Wonhyo quotes his favorite Mahāyāna scripture, *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* (Treatise on the foundation for yoga practitioners)152 as follows:

Each of [the ten derivative affictions of] anger, enmity, hypocrisy, vexation, jealousy, parsimony, deceit, guile, conceit, and hostility arises separately in unwholesome states of mind … these ten are all limited in their function to the desire realm …. This summarizes the characteristics of the affictive hindrances.153

151 *Ijang eui* 2: <IP_ADDRESS>; Muller and Nguyen (2012: 78).

152Wonhyo liked Yogācāra Mahāyāna and especially the *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra*, a scripture that he frequently quoted in his commentaries. For him, it was considered as the most important source for the Buddhist philosophy and psychology of the mind and emotions. The *Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith* also infuenced Wonhyo's Buddhist philosophy. For this topic, see Muller and Nguyen (2012).

153 *Ijang eui* 2: <IP_ADDRESS>; Muller and Nguyen 2012: 80.

Wonhyo continues to articulate: "The confusions in regard to the Truth of Suffering within the desire realm include the ten affictions …. Eliminated in the Path of Cultivation are the anger of the desire realm and the three affictions of greed, pride, and nescience in all three realms."154 Certain examples of these affictions are, therefore, the harmful (unwholesome) emotions of anger, desire, greed, and pride that must be eliminated in "the [Buddhist] path of cultivation."

*Geumgang sammaegyeong non* 金剛三昧經論 (Exposition of the *Vajrasamādhi-sūtra*)155 is another major work by Wonhyo. In this text, however, Wonhyo occasionally talks about specifc emotions. When he does, he repudiates certain emotions that hinder contemplative practice. For example, he explains the affictions of the mind as follows:

The mind that is startled is not at rest … "[This panting] is driven both internally and externally": the four drivers … have the sense of a personal self as their internal conditions; the six drivers of the mind-consciousness [that is, the *upakleśa* (six affictions) of craving, anger, ignorance, pride, doubt, and wrong views] have sense-objects as their external conditions. "[The affictions] fow along and form, following those drivers". (Buswell 2007: 194, 367)

Here Wonhyo highlights several afficting emotions: craving, anger, pride, and enmity (hatred) in particular. This is what he said in his *Ijang eui* as well: various affictions of the mind are caused by these unwholesome emotions and passions. In discussing "entrenchments" and "the entrenchments of emotion," Wonhyo also writes: "the emotive attachments are … included in the category of emotive mental functions. Therefore, they are also known as the entrenchments of the emotive category."156 Wonhyo basically means that these emotive attachments are "deluded" mental activities. Unwholesome emotions such as craving, anger, greed, hatred, jealousy, and pride therefore cause harmful affictions (*kleśa*), so one has to eliminate them in one's path of moral-spiritual cultivation.

In his *Susim gyeol* 修心訣 (*Secrets on cultivating the mind*), an infuential introduction to Korean Seon (Zen) practice, Jinul rarely discusses the problem of emotions or emotive attachments. He briefy mentions feelings (*jeong*) in relation to *deflements* and emotional suppression (Buswell

154 *Ijang eui* 4: 2; Muller and Nguyen 2012: 107.

155An annotated English translation of this text with an introduction is Buswell (2007).

156 *Ijang eui* 4: 6; Muller and Nguyen 2012: 114.

1991: 111). However, in his another major writing, *Jinsim jikseol* 眞心直 說 (Straight talks on the true mind), Jinul specifcally discusses the problem of emotions by pointing out that "the deluded mind" creates poisonous emotions such as "greed" and "hatred" and thus the affictions of the self. He writes:

When the deluded mind is in contact with the sense-spheres it knows through discriminative awareness: it gives rise to greedy or hateful states of mind depending on whether pleasant or unpleasant objects are present. . . . Since the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion are produced because of these objects, it is easy to see that the mind is deluded. (Buswell 1991: 138)

By contrast, "the true mind" (*jinsim*/*zhenxin* 眞心) is "impartial, quiet, and utterly radiant" and "since it does not give rise to [afficting] feelings of hatred or lust, it is different from the deluded mind." The true mind is "neither hateful nor lustful" (Buswell 1991: 135).

The practical meaning of Jinul's and Wonhyo's teachings is that the Korean Buddhist way of enlightenment is to be detached from and eliminate all unwholesome ("poisonous") emotions, passions, and desires, conquer the "deluded (impure) mind," and cultivate and then discover the enlightened self (buddha-nature). These "unwholesome" types of emotions are discussed by Chinul and Wonhyo in the traditional Buddhist context. Nonetheless, it is quite relevant to note that the Korean Buddhist teaching and practice of suppressing and eliminating these negative [selfish or potentially harmful] emotions is compatible with—or at least does not contradict—the Confucian way of emotional control and self-cultivation.

 Korean Buddhist monks are required to make a "departure" known as *chulga* (출가 出家). This Korean word literally denotes leaving one's family according the Confucian tradition. Some possible confict between Buddhist *monastic* practices and Confucian *family* values can exist; nonetheless, the act of *chulga* actually emphasizes Buddhist "detachment," the practice of *danjeong* 斷情or "cutting off" (eliminating) one's mundane attachments. This central teaching in Korean *Seon* Buddhism means "no thought" (*munyeom*/*wunian* 無念) and signifes the state of being "unstained" (*buran*/*bulyeom* 不染). It is to transcend one's selfsh thoughts, desires, and emotions so that one is no longer *deluded* by them. However, the great departure in the Mahāyāna context is neither a *completely* ascetic denial of reality nor a radically reactionary renunciation from the world. It is rather to realize the buddha-nature as the enlightened self by "emptying" selfshness and detaching oneself from worldly cravings and affictions in the endless cycle of suffering.

### *<IP_ADDRESS> Great Compassion and Joy*

As a leading Korean Mahāyānist, Wonhyo liked the bodhisattva ideal of universal enlightenment, for which reason he highlighted the bodhisattvic emotion and virtue of "great compassion." For example, his *Geumgang sammaegyeong non* states that "the joint practice of concentration and wisdom" cannot be completed without compassion and

the cultivation of great compassion … inspires both oneself and others …. This is because, if one cultivates *samādhi* and wisdom directly but is devoid of great compassion, one will fall into the stage of two-vehicle adherents and fnd the bodhisattva path blocked. (Buswell 2007: 253–254)

Unlike the *Ijang eui*—which focuses on the Yogācāra school's interpretation of the mind, emotions, and affictive hindrances—Wonhyo's *Geumgang sammaegyeong non* emphasizes the cultivation and practice of "great compassion" as the most important moral-spiritual emotion for the bodhisattva path of Mahāyāna universal salvation. For Wonhyo, then, wisdom may be gained through meditation but enlightenment is to be found in the practice of compassion. Great compassion as a supreme moral virtue enriches one's wisdom and *inspires* one's holistic realization of the interconnectedness and interdependency of all beings and phenomena in light of the Buddha's universal teaching as well.

Jinul's *Jinsim jikseol* also emphasizes the practice of stopping "the deluded mind" and realizing "the true mind" as "the mind of great compassion":

The dust is deflement; the force of the polishing hand is the practice of no mind …. As it is said in the *Awakening of Faith*: "… the mind of great compassion … aims to establish the sufferings of all sentient beings." According to this explanation, bringing the deluded mind to rest is the primary practice and cultivating all wholesome dharmas is the secondary aid. (Buswell 1991: 135)

Note that like Wonhyo, Jinul emphasizes the bodhisattvic heart-mind (*sim* 心) of "great compassion" for the Korean Mahāyāna ideal of universal enlightenment for "all sentient being." The practice of "great compassion" is therefore the essential virtuous emotion for all.

Jin Y. Park points out that according to Korean Buddhist ethics, the noumenal requires wisdom, but to understand the phenomenal, one must cultivate "compassion" (2008: 219). In other words, compassion is the bodhisattvic recognition and practice of moral-spiritual love for others. The Latin etymology of the term "compassion" literally means "feeling with [others]." In accordance with the bodhisattva path of Mahāyāna and Chinese Buddhism, compassion in Korean Buddhism is also a selftranscending *jeong* to transform the world. In this regard, Sharon Suh's Chap. 11 makes some interesting point about bodhisattvic compassion and "interrelationality."

We are talking about the moral-spiritual emotion of compassion *jeong* in the Buddhist context. By removing selfshness, the heart-mind is flled with compassionate love and the individual self becomes an extensively interconnected self as "we" (K. *uri* 우리). Under Confucian infuence as well, Buddhist compassion is a shared *jeong* among and beyond Korean Buddhists. It heals *han* suffering and brings about utmost joy.

As Wonhyo and Jinul taught, *jeong* emotions can be poisons when defned by selfsh clinging and attachment. Emotional life can be turned into anger, greed, hatred, ignorance, or delusion. However, *jeong* can also be transformed and made sublime as the bodhisattva's selfess compassionate and caring responsiveness heals not only the self but also others in an entirely *enlightened* community with the *transcendent* power of life. Furthermore, this also points to the spiritual, religious signifcance of bodhisattvic compassion in Mahāyāna Buddhism and the mainstream Korean Buddhist tradition.

### *<IP_ADDRESS> An Introduction to Part III, Chaps. 9 –11 : Emotions in Won Buddhism, Modern Buddhism, and Korean Buddhist Cinema*

Part III of this book contains three chapters on emotions according to Korean Buddhism. These chapters are more interested in the contemporary Buddhist notion of *jeong* emotions by focusing on the idea of "one heart-mind" (*hanmaeum*) in the famous monk Wonhyo and the twentiethcentury nun Daeaeng (Jee's Chap. 9), the Won Buddhist teaching and practice of "resentment and gratitude" (Ha's Chap. 10), and "*jeong* and interrelationality "in modern Korean Buddhist cinema (Suh's Chap. 11).

Chapters 9–11 of this book endeavor to present this contemporary and socially engaging Buddhist theme as well as its implications for Buddhist self-realization, the interconnected self, and the transformative dynamics of *jeong* in Korean society and beyond.

In Chap. 9, "*Hanmaeum* (One Mind): A Korean Buddhist Philosophical Basis of *Jeong* Emotion (情)," Hyekyung Lucy Jee introduces Wonhyo's notion of "one heart-mind" (*ilsim* 일심 一心) and compares it with Daehaeng's (1927–2012) teaching of *hanmaeum* (한마음), an indigenous Korean word for "one heart-mind." Jee emphasizes that the Buddhist philosophical concept of "interconnectedness" can best be understood through the combination of *jeong* and *hanmaeum*. This is how Korean Buddhists share their *jeong* together. This chapter articulates that the concept of *hanmaeum* can provide a "Buddhist foundation of *jeong*." The non-dualistic notion of one heart-mind may indeed be the greater self extended to others according to Daehaeng's doctrine of *juingong* (주인공 主人空; emptied self or *sūnyatā* of the self). In cultivating and practicing *hanmaeum* and *juingong*, *jeong* is a crucial element as well as a collective power in the practice of sharing activities.

The frst section of this chapter deals with the basic notion of *jeong* according to some Korean psychological and Korean-American psychiatric works. It includes a detailed discussion of popular Korean words such as *jeong*, *miunjeong* (미운정; bad *jeong* or *jeong* from hatred), *gounjeong* (고 운정; good *jeong* or *jeong* with love), *mujeong* (무정 無情; no *jeong or* heartlessness), and *uri* (우리; we or our) "we-ness" and "we-ism." The second section presents a long list of *jeong*-related Korean words by relating it to Confucianism, thereby seeking a meaningful connection between the Korean idea of *hanmaeum* (one heart-mind) and the Confucian language and ethics of *jeong* emotions. The third section represents the focus of this chapter, gives a detailed discussion of Daehaeng's doctrine of *hanmaeum*, 157 and briefy mentions Wonhyo's teaching of *ilsim*. 158

157A good question beyond the focus and scope of this chapter is to ask what Deahaeng meant by *hanmaeum* specifcally in terms of *jeong* or whether she made any comments on *jeong* in the (Mahāyāna) Buddhist context of emotions, desires, attachments, affictions, and so on. This might possibly be a good research topic in the future.

158 It would be helpful to articulate Wonhyo's notion of *ilsim* (one mind; enlightened mind) further in close relation to his ethics and spirituality of emotions (*jeong*). Accordingly, editor Chung adds a supplementary point that regarding mind cultivation and self-control, Wonhyo rigorously discussed "affictions" (*kleśa*) and "the entrenchment of emotions (*jeong*)" and repudiated the psychological and moral problem of "unwholesome" [bad] emotions—such as craving, anger, greed, hatred, pride, and so on—for causing *continuous* suffering. This discussion appears in Wonhyo's two leading works: *Ijang eui* (*Doctrine of the two hindrances*), a detailed commentary on the *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* and other Mahāyāna

Jee makes a thoughtful point that *jeong*, "a moral, social, and cultural emotion of the Korean people," is strongly associated with the Korean Confucian notion of *uri* we-ness (our-ism), which concurs with Daehaeng's *hanmaeum* and Wonhyo's *ilsim* as well. Jee concludes that this Buddhist understanding of *ilsim* and *hanmaeum* supports the Korean culture of *jeong* in order to overcome the problems of our interconnected world and promote the present and future wellbeing of Korean and global society.

Chapter 10 by Chung Nam Ha is titled "Resentment and Gratitude in Won Buddhism." It presents the Won Buddhist ethics and spirituality of "resentment" (*wonmang* 원망) and "gratitude" (*gamsasim* 감사심). This chapter starts with the Won founder Sotaesan's teaching that the emotion of resentment is "the cause of all human suffering," individual and collective, and discusses why its religious ethics teaches the "removal of resentment" by practicing the virtuous emotion of gratitude through "benefcent requital." Ha explains how Sotaesan's doctrine of gratitude embodies a soteriological solution to heal suffering. Sotaesan strongly endorsed the Confucian teaching and practice of virtuous emotions such as benevolence. Ha also envisions that the Won Buddhist practice of gratitude can heal the illness of the world. She concludes that it can provide a possibly universal foundation of morality for the mutual beneft of the entire world. Specifcally, the frst section of this chapter introduces the emotion of resentment as "the main cause of discord and troubles."

As Sotaesan said, "money illness" and "illness of resentment" are the most serious moral evil. The second section makes a thoughtful point that Sotaesan appreciated the Confucian moral-social teaching of benevolence (*in*/*ren*) and righteousness. Ha points out that Sotaesan's teaching also concurs with the original Buddhist doctrines of "three poisonous minds" (greed, anger*,* delusion) and "two hindrances." Craving and resentment are caused by delusion or ignorance and represent the so-called affictive (emotional) hindrance.159

texts, and *Geumgang sammaegyeong non* (Exposition of the *Vajrasamādhi-sūtra*). For more details on this topic, see Sect. <IP_ADDRESS> of this chapter: the editors' introduction to Wonhyo and Jinul on emotions and emotional control. Furthermore, the reader is also invited to relate this topic to the Korean Won Buddhist teaching of "resentment" and "gratitude," as presented by Ha in Chap. 10.

159Resentment is an emotion as affrmed in this chapter. However, the question for our further refection is how it pertains to the general nature and role of *jeong*. Resentment is said to be caused by mental delusion (pollution) and *kleśa* (affiction), so bad (unwholesome) resentment causes unjustifed blaming ("fnd fault with others") or hatred (a related emotion). However, is resentment always a bad emotion? Not always; it depends on *why* resent The third section discusses "how to recover moral sensitivity and friendliness." Proper moral actions should follow Sotaesan's teaching of "fourfold benefcence." The fourth section focuses on the life of gratitude and Won faith. This chapter thoughtfully concludes that Confucianism deeply inspired Won Buddhist ethical teaching, insofar Sotaesan emphasized the convergence between Confucianism and Buddhism and that Won Buddhism offers a moral foundation for universal wellbeing by transforming "the life of resentment" into "the life of gratitude."

There are two interesting questions for our further consideration beyond the limited scope and length of this chapter. Sotaesan's doctrine of resentment and gratitude is Buddhist and integrated with classical Confucian moral teaching. The frst question is how the Won Buddhist practice of gratitude as a virtuous emotion relates to the supreme Mahāyāna compassion that both Wonhyo and Jinul emphasized.160 It seems that to express gratitude is a way of being grateful or compassionate to others. Accordingly, the related second question is: What makes the Won Buddhist way of gratitude distinctively Korean? The Korean-ness of Sotaesan's teaching has something to do with the traditional Korean notion of resentment as *han or wonmang*—which is also more or less indicated in Chaps. 5, 8, and 12 by Baker, Park, and Oh, respectively. Similarly, the Won Buddhist practice of gratitude arguably concurs with the common historical and religious trend of Korean religion and philosophy that emphasizes the actual holistic practice of faith or spiritual teaching over abstract thinking or theoretical argumentation.161

In Chap. 11, "*Jeong* and the Interrelationality of Self and Other in Korean Buddhist Cinema," Sharon Suh discusses the role of *jeong* in

or what kind of resentment. For example, someone's wholesome (good) resentment may well be a moral passion (concern) for justice or respect when this suffering of resentment is caused by another person's immoral or wrong action. In other words, this would be the moral emotion of "justifed" resentment (or anger) or we call it moral indignation. As mentioned earlier in Sects. 1.1.1 and 1.1.4 of this introductory chapter, justice is a moral emotion of discerning right and wrong.

160 It seems that Sotaesan did not specifcally talk about "great compassion," the most important Mahāyāna virtue and emotion, insofar as it is not mentioned in this chapter.

161 In this regard, one's practice and experience of spiritual teaching is a unique and important feature of Korean religion and philosophy as a whole, regardless Confucianism, Buddhism, shamanism, or Christianity. For this theme of Korean religion and thought, see Buswell's edited *Religions of Korea in Practice* (2006); see also Buswell 1992 (a book about his experience of Zen monasticism in Korea) and Chung 2016, 2021 (a new book on Toegye's moral-religious Neo-Confucian thought).

Korean Buddhist flms to explore the Mahāyāna premise that "ultimate freedom (*nirvāṇa*) is not to be found in an escape from the world of suffering (*saṃsāra*), but rather in its compassionate embrace." Focusing on Im Kwon-taek's flm *Aje Aje Bara Aje* (아제 아제 바라 아제 [Come, Come, Come Upward]), this chapter argues that *jeong*/*qing* (정 情; affection) fused spiritual kinship facilitates "the Buddhist disciple's recognition and embrace of the abject as none other than the self." Suh frst relies signifcantly on a post-colonial Christian theological interpretation of *jeong* and then explores Im's flm about "Buddhism's responsiveness to the embodied suffering of *han* (resentment) through the affective dimensions of *jeong* and Buddhist compassion." The chapter also suggests "*jeong* as an ethical response to the other that fnds striking resonance with the Buddhist teaching of emptiness and interdependence."

 Following an introduction, the second section assimilates "the expression of *jeong* in Korean Buddhist flms" with W. Anne Joh's postcolonial *theological* (Christological) analysis of Korean *jeong* as "stickiness," "affection," "affective … relatedness," and "deeper adhering" (Joh 2006, 2007, 2011)162 as well as with the Korean notion of monastic life as a new "dharma family." The detailed third section is titled "A Buddhism for the People—*Aje Aje Bara Ajei*." It is an interesting story-telling analysis of two young nuns' experiences and especially Sun Nyeo's "*han*-flled suffering," "grief," and "somatic compassion" in dealing with her men outside her monastery. The next section discusses "Buddhism, *han*, and *jeong*" by covering Korean Buddhist ability to manage *han* vis-à-vis Sun Nyeo's "bodhisattvic compassion." It also affrms her *jeong* as an "affection," "empathy," "adhesive bond," and "relational attachment." *Jeong* is "a relationality that has the power to transform relationships and fnds striking resonance with the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and interdependence." Suh thoughtfully concludes that *jeong* is "Confucian in origin" but "not a discrete emotion that runs parallel to the Buddhist ethic of compassion."

For our further discussion, three engaging, related questions emerge out of this chapter within or beyond its intended focus and scope. The notion of "somatic compassion" is repeatedly mentioned in describing Sun Nyeo's experience of "*han*" and "grief." The question is whether the deeper meaning of the Korean nun's experience is not merely a form of somatic compassion but, more likely (signifcantly), her selfess and

162For details on Joh's analysis of this topic, see Suh's Chap. 11.

self-sacrifcing compassion on a spiritual and religious level. This supreme compassion represents the key Mahāyāna vow of *karuṇā* with its spiritual and religious faith. Suh's chapter mentions the Mahāyāna teaching of *karuna*163 as "bodhisattvic compassion" briefy (in the third and fourth sections); therefore, we can ideally elaborate this key point further with its scriptural support by citing some primary Buddhist sources.164 In this introductory chapter,165 the reader will therefore fnd the editors' discussion of Mahāyāna and Chinese and Korean texts on the bodhisattva's "great compassion" and "joy."

Dealing with Sun Nyeo's *han* suffering and grief in relation to *jeong* emotions, we need to think of this following question for further refection: Is the Korean nun's experience compatible with the term *jeong/qing* (情) as discussed in relevant Buddhist scriptures? As this introductory chapter and many chapters of this book indicate, *jeong* or Korean *jeong* as a whole is not necessarily positive (good) emotions. As far as the entire Buddhist tradition is concerned, *jeong* emotions, except boddhisattvic compassion and utmost joy, are mostly negative in relation to selfsh attachment and craving unless they are overcome and transformed into "compassion": Theravada, Mahāyāna, and Chinese and Korean texts strongly repudiate most emotions as "unwholesome," including desire (craving), suffering, grief, anger, greed, fear, hatred, passion, pride, jealousy, attachment, and on.166 Chapter 10 by Ha mentions some of these examples according to Theravada. In fact, the word *jeong* occasionally

163 It might also be more interesting to relate the scriptural doctrine of *karuna* compassion to the six *pāramitās* (virtues) or ten perfections of being a bodhisattva, especially generosity, patience, and loving-kindness that seem to resonate with the Korean nun's moral dilemma and religious experience. Regarding philosophical research on Korean Buddhist nuns' life, Jin Y. Park's *Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryop* (2017) articulates Korean Buddhist nuns' *karma* in relation to contemporary issues in the particularly Korean Buddhist context of practices. This is discussed in a comparative philosophical and dialogical way.