Keywords

The first, introductory chapter is the editors’ comprehensive introduction to four related topics: “emotions in general, East and West” (Sect. 1.1); “emotions in the Chinese tradition” (Sect. 1.2); “emotions in the Buddhist tradition” (Sect. 1.3); and “emotions (jeong 情) in Korean philosophy and religion” (Sect. 1.4). We hope that Chap. 1 as a whole has served well as a helpful textual, philosophical, ethical, and religious background of our studies of Korean jeong.

As the title of this book indicates, the editors and all chapter contributors have discussed the nature, role, and problem of emotions (jeong 情) in Korean philosophy and religion from diverse yet integrated perspectives—according to leading Confucian doctrines, traditions, and ideas as well as several comparative, Buddhist, and contemporary meanings, trends, and implications. We have endeavored to address this holistic theme of jeong emotions also in relation to the distinctively Korean experience and understanding of human life and culture. In addition to the introductory chapter, eleven individual chapters are dedicated to this entire, challenging topic.

This concluding chapter discusses “the diversity, dynamics, and distinctiveness of Korean jeong emotions.” We develop fruitful concluding remarks and engaging insights. First of all, jeong (C. qing 情) is a unique Chinese-Korean term consisting of three essential characters: 心 (sim/xin; heart-mind, mind, heart), 生 (saeng/sheng; life, creation, or arising), and 丹 (dan/dan; red). Etymologically and literally speaking, it is therefore a living, creative, and dynamic phenomenon that has something to do with the human mind-heart and the body. As discussed in the introductory chapter, in early (“pre-Buddhist”) China prior to the beginning of the Han dynasty, the Chinese word qing had two original meanings in Confucian and Daoist texts: “fact” (or factual), “situation,” and “reality” pertaining to the objective world of beings, phenomena, and things, on the one hand, and “emotion,” “feeling,” or “desire,” on the other hand.Footnote 1

For these and other related reasons, it is difficult to precisely translate the Chinese-Korean term jeong in any direct sense to one single English idiom. We also have to be mindful of the manifold nature, multilevel roles, and different types and problems of Korean jeong emotions. In a broadly inclusive context, jeong/qing can be translated or interpreted as emotion, passion, inclination, or desire. It can refer to basic natural feelings or sensations and also involves intuition, belief, judgment, motivation, attitude, and so on.Footnote 2

In some cases, jeong positively means or closely relates to moral sentiment, affection, compassion, sympathy, empathy, or the intimate heart, all of which are commonly admired as good (virtuous) emotions in the context of self-cultivation and ethics. Two examples are the Four Beginnings of virtue in (Korean) Confucianism and the (Korean) Buddhist virtuous emotion of compassion. However, not all jeong/qing emotions are positive or good (“wholesome” in Buddhist terminology). As presented in the introductory and other chapters of this book, there are many negative or “unwholesome” emotions; this is concurred by the philosophical and religious traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and others.

As far as Buddhism is concerned, Theravada, Mahāyāna, and Chinese and Korean texts criticize most jeong emotions as “unwholesome,” including desire (craving), grief, anger, greed, fear, hatred, passion, pride, jealousy, anxiety, attachment, delusion, and on.Footnote 3 Two leading Korean monks, Wonhyo and Jinul, strongly repudiate these unwholesome jeong emotions as “afflictions” (kleśa) associated with all mental and physical activities.Footnote 4 For self-discipline and enlightenment, these negative emotions have to be controlled and eliminated.

In the Korean (or Chinese) Confucian tradition as well, emotions such as anger, hated, and fear are strongly repudiated because of their distinctive (i.e., strong) characteristics. Craving (desire) is also viewed negatively. Other ordinary or potentially “selfish” jeong emotions such as pleasure and love (ae/ai) are also repudiated negatively. Leading Korean thinkers such as Yi Toegye, like the Chinese Neo-Confucians, strongly recommended control or suppression of these emotions through self-cultivation and moral practice. Bongrae Seok’s Chap. 2 introduced this topic in his discussion of the Four-Seven debate. Gabriel S. Choi’s Chap. 3 discussed it especially in terms of Toegye’s philosophy of gyeong (reverence).Footnote 5

Righteous anger or justified hatred (or resentment) is philosophically considered somewhat complicated from both Western and Eastern perspectives.Footnote 6 Yulgok and Dasan positively affirmed this emotion as a kind of moral indignation or a passion for justice. This interesting point is discussed in Edward Chung’s Chap. 4 and Don Baker’s Chap. 5 on these two leading Korean Confucian thinkers, respectively.

 Those chapters of this book dealing with one or another topic on Korean Confucianism carefully articulate virtuous Confucian jeong such as “compassion,” “shame and aversion,” “courtesy and modesty,” and “discernment of right and wrong,” which are known as the Four Beginnings of virtue (sadan/siduan) in the Confucian tradition. They also discussed the so-called Seven Emotions as ordinary [physical-psychological] jeong: pleasure, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred (dislike), and desire. All of these jeong/qing emotions—whether they are presented with traditional, comparative, or contemporary perspectives—are directly or indirectly related to Chinese origin and influence. They are textually and philosophically discussed in all chapters of Part I by Seok (Chap. 2), Choi (Chap. 3), Chung (Chap. 4), and Baker (Chap. 5), as well as in three comparative- and contemporary-theme chapters of Part II and Part III by Joseph E. Harroff (Chap. 6), Hyo-Dong Lee (Chap. 7), Iljoon Park (Chap. 8), and Jea Sophia Oh (Chap. 12). Most of these chapters pointed to the significance of the Four-Seven Debate on emotions and its profound influence on the Korean understanding of jeong emotions ethically, socially, and politically. Chung’s Chap. 4 and Lee’s Chap. 6 in particular discussed moral jeong emotions in an ethical-political context of finding the compatibility of Confucian morality and modern democracy.

Other common Korean jeong emotions such as won (원 怨; resentment), han (한 恨; suffering or deep resentment/lamentation), and heung (흥 興; exhilaration or utmost joy) are often noted especially in Korean jeong talks. These significant emotions are judiciously explored in the several chapters of this book. For example, won (or wonmang 원망) resentment is infrequently talked about in the West.Footnote 7 However, it is said to be often experienced or expressed by Koreans morally, socially, or psychologically. Baker’s Chap. 5 on Dasan prudently discussed the justified emotion of resentment as a key Confucian term, even though it was rarely mentioned in the orthodox Neo-Confucian literature. Ha’s Chap. 10 meticulously presented the Korean Won Buddhist teaching of resentment (wonmang) and gratitude (gamsasim 감사심), which appears to be a distinctively Korean way of Buddhist ethics and soteriology.

Similar to won (怨), han (恨) is also translated as resentment/suffering in English and these two terms are often joined together as one word, wonhan (怨恨; resentful suffering, vengeance). Han is an interesting Korean emotion (jeong) from a historical and socio-cultural standpoint. It is carefully discussed in Chaps. 5, 8, 11 and 12 by Baker, Park, Sharon Suh, and Oh, respectively. Baker talked about Dasan’s exceptionally rare Confucian interpretation of han suffering (deep resentment) along with won resentment,Footnote 8 Park presented Korea’s “social emotions (jeong)” by covering han suffering and heung, two key psychological-social emotions in close relation to jeong. Oh also discussed the emotion of han in relation to jeong, Korean family, and women’s experience. In analyzing Korean jeong and interrelationality according to Korean Buddhist cinema, Suh’s Chap. 11 articulated the Korean han, making its connection to the Buddhist teaching of suffering (duhkha) and Mahāyāna compassion (karuṇā).

It is never surprising that the virtuous emotion of compassion is highly admired by the Korean people and other East Asians, insofar as it is deeply rooted in the Confucian, Buddhist, and other moral-spiritual traditions. Compassion is the first of the Mencian teaching of the Four Beginnings as the moral feeling (heart-mind) of universal Confucian virtue, in/ren (benevolence, human-heartedness). Thus, it closely relates to moral sentiment, affection, sympathy, empathy, and so on. Compassion or the bodhisattva’s compassion is also honored by all Buddhists, insofar as the Buddha’s teaching and key Mahāyāna scriptures highly cherish it (see Chap. 1, Sect. 1.3). Suh’s Chap. 11 mentioned the Mahāyāna compassion as the bodhisattvic virtue to relieve or cure Korean han suffering. “Great compassion” is honored and emphasized in leading Korean commentaries and essays by Wonhyo and Jinul.Footnote 9

As mentioned in Sect. 1.1 of the introductory chapter, there can also be other ethical, spiritual, psychological, or socio-cultural connotations of the term jeong. In the positive Korean context, jeong may well be a relational and interdependent embodiment of emotion with these dynamic connotations. By operating on its manifold or multilevel spectrum of mutual affection, attachment, or relationality, jeong also embraces the power or creativity of emotional intimacy but should not be conceived as being limited to this particular spectrum only because there are obviously other positive and negative aspects of jeong as we’ve seen in the foregoing paragraphs.

Now the question is, What’s distinctive about Korean jeong? Is there anything or something peculiarly “Korean”? This question therefore points to the “Korean-ness” or Korean distinctiveness of jeong in terms of philosophy, religion, and/or emotion studies.

For many centuries in Korean history, jeong has long been commonly recognized and practiced as mutual, lasting, or transformative emotions. Contemporary Koreans often talk about “family jeong,” “parent-child jeong,” “parental (grandparental) jeong,” “conjugal jeong,” “brotherly/sisterly jeong,” “fatherly/motherly jeong,” “friendship jeong,” “collegial jeong,” “school jeong,” “our (uri) jeong,” “business jeong,” “romantic jeong,” and so on. Throughout modern times, jeong culture has functioned as a distinctively Korean phenomenon within any given group of two or more persons who collectively share a close family or social relationship. In this regard, the basic Korean notion of jeong as mutual “affection” or “affective bond” echoes not only love (ae 愛), one of the Seven Emotions in the Confucian literature, but also compassion, the first of the Four Beginnings and the universal Confucian virtue of benevolence (in 仁).

Another distinctive dimension of Korean jeong emotions is the Korean Four-Seven debate and especially its profound and extensive influence on the Korean people’s understanding and practice of jeong emotions. This unique part of Korean emotion studies is comprehensively discussed by Seok, Chung, and Harroff in their chapters. Virtuous emotions such as “compassion” and “discernment of right and wrong” are articulated in relation or in contrast to ordinary emotions such as pleasure, anger, fear, hatred, and desire.

Seok’s Chap. 2 presented an overview of the Four-Seven debate from a moral psychology standpoint. Harroff discussed some Western comparative views of the “cosmopolitan” meaning of Korean jeong in the context of philosophical translation issues. Chung’s Chap. 4 focused on Yulgok’s unique interpretation of the role of emotions in self-cultivation, ethics, and political reform. It concluded that Yulgok’s distinctive Korean ethics of compassion and his passion for social justice and wellbeing are compatible with Western perspectives and especially Adam Smith’s moral theory of “mutual sympathy” and “benevolence,” Michael Slote’s virtue ethics of “empathy,” and Robert Solomon’s ethics of “passion” and “justice.”Footnote 10

Oh’s Chap. 12 reveals something unique about the social phenomenon of Korean jeong in terms of family life, women’s experience, and traditional Korean patriarchy. She argued that Korean jeong is entangled with the han emotive culture and uri (we or our) “relationality” and “dependency” that are found in pumashi (품앗이, working together) and dure (두레, collective laboring) as distinctively Korean experiences of sharing jeong. We can also talk the distinctiveness of Korean jeong also in terms of Baker’s Chap. 5 on Dasan’s Confucian discussion of wonmang (resentment, lamentation) and han (suffering or deep resentment) and Park’s Chap. 8 on the Korean social emotions of han and heung (exhilaration or utmost joy). As Park concludes, the Korean culture of jeong, han, and heung embody “a matrix to accept the Confucian understanding of being human”: for example, heung is compatible with Confucian rak (락 樂; joy) and hui/xi (희 喜; pleasure), two of the Seven Emotions, and han closely resembles ae/ai (애 哀; sorrow, grief), another example of the Seven.

Jee’s Chap. 9 also discussed the distinctive nature of jeong in relation to the Korean Buddhist teaching of hanmaeum (one heart-mind) and concluded that jeong, “a moral, social, and cultural emotion of the Korean people,” is strongly influenced by their Confucian language and ethics of uri “we-ness” (“our-ism”) as group belonging and interdependency. This is philosophically compatible with Daehaeng’s Buddhist idea of hanmaeum and Wonhyo’s teaching of ilsim. From a different Buddhist angle, Ha’s Chap. 10 confirmed that Sotaesan’s Won Buddhist ethics of gratitude (gamsasim 감사심) to heal the suffering of resentment (wonmang) is also inspired by the Confucian teaching of benevolence, moral action, and social wellbeing; in other words, this Buddhist practice tends to be a distinctively Korean way of soteriology.

Suh’s Chap. 11 on jeong and interrelationality in Korean Buddhist cinema makes an interesting conclusion that Korean jeong is not Buddhist in origin, but its Confucian foundation gradually accommodated with the Mahāyāna teaching of compassion, for which reason the two traditions “intertwine in the lived experiences of Buddhist monastics.” Suh’s “socially-engaged Mahāyāna” approach to jeong emotion as “affection,” “empathy,” “adhesive bond,” or “relational dependence” remarkably resonates with the Korean Confucian-based talk of humanism and human relationships in terms of sympathy (compassion) and moral jeong, affective heart-mind, emotional intimacy, and social interdependency.

The Chinese-Korean word jeong 情 is fundamentally Confucian in origin. Overall, the holistic nature, meaning, and role of Korean jeong emotions are influenced by and associated with the Confucian tradition of moral language, social interaction and harmony, and psychological-and-cultural interdependence. It is also reasonable to state that despite the mutual ethical integration between Confucian jeong affection (compassion) and Mahāyāna Buddhist compassion among Korean Buddhists, there is a little originally Buddhist about the humanistic and social context of Korean jeong expression and experience. This is one of the essential conclusions we collectively discover from reading all chapters of this book and especially Chaps. 9, 10 and 11 on the Buddhist perspectives.

If we look at the history of Buddhism or Christianity in Korea, each of these religions had to go through one level or another of cultural integration by adjusting itself to Korean Confucian language, mentality, and society: in other words, Korean people’s “cultural DNA” is embodied by the Confucian-oriented tradition of basic human bonds and their reciprocal emotions (injeong 人情). The holistic nature of Korean jeong eventually became a multidimensional and interreligious phenomenon: it ethically, religiously, and socio-culturally integrated with (1) Mahāyāna Buddhist compassion and care, (2) Korea’s shamanistic folk talk of han resentment and heung joy, and (3) Daoist influence in terms of pungnyu naturalistic freedom and heung joy. Of course, we cannot ignore the Christian influence of love and forgiveness as another dimension that has likely been incorporated into modern Korean jeong especially among the Korean Christians.

From a different angle, it was subtly suggested that the modern usage of two Korean terms jeong and injeong (human emotions)—both of which we have discussed extensively in this book—is probably “influenced by the Japanese tradition [of Confucian language and modernity] since the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945).” This suggestion was given partly due to the debatable argument that the Tokugawa Confucian thinker Itō Jinsai (1627–1705)Footnote 11 spoke of two Japanese Confucian terms jo 情 (jeong/qing; emotions) and ninjo 人情 (injeong/renqing; human emotions) and the Japanese historian Masao Maruyama (1914–1996)Footnote 12 pointed out that Jinsai’s talk of ninjo likely influenced Japan’s modernization in the eighteenth century.Footnote 13 Given Japan’s colonial rule over Korea (1910–1945), one can see why this suggestion was made: Japanese Confucianism might have contributed to Japan’s colonial influence on, for example, Korea’s political and economic modernization during this period. However, in the context of what we have concluded above, the editors as well as our chapter contributors (including those authors of several chapters on contemporary perspectives) have agreed that two Korean words jeong and injeong are not directly influenced or “colored” by Japanese Confucian language and moral psychology in relation to either Jinsai’s Kogaku talk of ninjo emotions or Maruyama’s point about its political impact on Japan’s modernity.

In other words, traditional Korea developed its own Confucian and related understanding and culture of jeong and injeong for many centuries textually, philosophically, ethically, religiously, and socially, insofar as our book has discussed comprehensively in the introductory and eleven chapters. That is to say, Koreans had already developed their jeong tradition, along with original Chinese influence, a long time ago prior to Itō Jinsai’s seventeenth century and the Japanese colonial period. It is more likely that the humanistic and philological (or philosophical) Confucian influence of jo (jeong) and ninjo (injeong) emotion talk would rather be the other way: Korea influenced Japan. For example, under Korean influence through reading the Korean Neo-Confucian letters and essays and especially those by Yi Toegye, Japanese Shushigaku (Zhu Xi school) Neo-Confucians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries talked about emotions such as the Four Beginnings and the Seven Emotions in their own discussions of emotions, self-cultivation, and ethics. In other words, it is possible that Itō Jinsai and his Kogaku Confucian thinkers were also motivated (influenced) by this textual and intellectual trend of Korean impact on Japanese ethical and practical discussion of jo (jeong) and ninjo (injeong) human emotions.Footnote 14

In the final analysis, there is still more work to be done regarding the study of emotions in East Asian philosophy and religion; however, thinking through jeong in a variety of Korean philosophical and religious contexts, as we have done in this book, is certainly a good place to start exploring the transformative potential of this fascinating topic both within and beyond Asian thought and comparative philosophy and religious studies.

Overall, we hope the reader will find this book a ground-breaking discussion of Korean philosophy and religion vis-à-vis its dynamic topic of jeong through our diverse, balanced, and integrated interpretations. The book has focused on the meaning, role, and problem of jeong emotions—which we can consider the heart of Korean thought—and thereby informing and directing one’s life and emotional experience as a scholar, an ethicist, a spiritual practitioner, or an average person.

What we discover through this study is a healthy philosophy of human nature and emotions, East and West. This holistic system of teaching and practice is deeply grounded in the traditional and contemporary trends of Korean philosophy and religion, most of which represent the intellectual, moral, and spiritual vitality of East Asian thought as well.

To conclude, by shedding new light on the breadth and depth of Korean Confucianism, Buddhism, and comparative and contemporary thought, we hope to have provided not only a pioneering, introductory anthology on the enthralling theme of jeong based on our collaborative and extensive efforts, but also an important scholarly source for Korean Confucian and Buddhist studies, comparative philosophy and religion, and beyond.