Introduction: Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in Korean Philosophy and Religion

Abstract

This introductory chapter presents the editors’ comprehensive introduction to four interrelated topics: “Emotions in General, East and West” (Sect. 1.1); “Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in the Chinese Tradition: Textual, Philosophical, Ethical, and Religious” (Sect. 1.2); “Emotions in the Buddhist Tradition” (Sect. 1.3); and Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in Korean Philosophy and Religion” (Sect. 1.4). The first three sections of this chapter efficiently serve as a helpful textual, philosophical, ethical, and religious background of Korean jeong 情 studies. The fourth section introduces Korean Confucian, comparative, contemporary, and Buddhist perspectives according to their leading thinkers, ideas, and implications with respect to Korean life and experience. This last section also outlines all three main parts of the book as well as all chapters of each part.

The nature of emotions was generally criticized in the Western tradition of philosophy. This criticism of the emotional part of human nature and experience is known to have its root in the mainstream Platonic tradition. In other words, it has championed rationality/reason against emotionality/emotion, especially from certain scholarly standpoints. The Western dualism of reason and emotion is Platonic in the sense that it endorses the antagonism between reason and emotion, as Plato in the dialogue Phaedrus described emotion and reason as two horses pulling us in opposite directions. Plato and Neo-Platonism clearly placed the highest value on reason/thinking over emotion/feeling based on the mind-body dualism.

The philosophical and spiritual traditions of Asia have been described to embody a common emphasis on the suppression of or detachment from the emotional side of the self. For about twenty-five centuries, the Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist traditions variously taught against the “precarious,” “disturbing,” “afflicting,” “self-damaging,” or “poisonous” nature/potential/danger of most (ordinary) emotions, feelings, sensations, desires, or inclinations.

We have recently seen an increasing interest in the discussion of emotions by many scholars in various academic disciplines, which resulted in an impressive number of studies on emotion-related topics. It appears that in critical reaction to Platonic philosophy, theological ethics, the conventional wisdom of Asian religion and thought, or other related factors, contemporary philosophers and ethicists tend to pay more attention to the philosophical, psychological, or cognitive nature and role of emotions in personal cultivation, ethics, socio-political development, and so on. In other words, these scholars encourage the study of emotions for human knowledge, action, and experience.

What we call “emotion” in English can have several meanings, as articulated by various theorists and scholars. Its interrelated words are said to be “desire,” “feeling,” “sensation,” “sentiment,” “passion,” “affection,” “attitude,” “belief,” “judgment,” and so on, most of which will be discussed from various angles in the next section on emotions in general, East and West. As we know, emotions are universally what all human beings feel, experience, and/or know: hence, they enjoy or suffer; be compassionate or cruel; be pleased or angry; be happy or unhappy; be afraid or brave; be joyful or sorrowful (resentful); be proud or shameful; love or hate; like or dislike; be generous or greedy; believe or disbelieve; or hope or despair. Many of these emotional things also influence us to do or not to do good for someone or something, although people’s social and emotional lives are highly fluid because their emotions are intricate and dynamic.

Accordingly, the study of emotions is not just a branch of psychology or its similar field but, more importantly, a branch or even the heart of ethics as well as a vital component of comparative philosophy and religion for us. In this regard, the neglect of East Asia and especially Korea in emotion studies has inspired us to compile this book on the fascinating topic of emotions in Korean philosophy and religion.

In discussing the question “What is emotion?” Western scholarship has often underestimated other important questions about emotions: Why is an emotion aroused; why are emotions diverse; why nourish some emotions and suppress others; and how different groups/types of emotions relate to the heart-mind, the self, and the world? This introductory chapter and other chapters of this book will flexibly address these related questions in the interdisciplinary context of philosophy, religion, and culture.

The Korean and East Asian notion of “emotions” (feelings; jeong/qing 情)¹ is a manifold topic textually, historically, philosophically, ethically, and religiously. It is diverse, dynamic, and sophisticated in terms of meaning, experience, role, problem, and so forth. It is therefore important to study the way in which emotions are expressed, understood, accepted, promoted, or repudiated in all philosophical and spiritual traditions in general as well as by each particular tradition.

The multilayered and interdisciplinary meanings of emotions can generate certain theoretical and methodological questions that seem to have developed recent Western scholarship on various philosophical, religious, psychological, social, or cultural theories and definitions of emotions. Obviously, one single book like this one or another cannot satisfy all of the aspects of emotions. We, nonetheless, the authors in this volume are mindful of these issues centering around the dynamic and distinctive flow of emotions in the Korean framework of Confucian, comparative, Buddhist, and contemporary perspectives.

This introductory chapter therefore consists of four sections. The first section presents the general topic of emotions, East and West by briefly covering current scholarship in emotion studies. Several leading theories and perspectives and their related issues are discussed in terms of Western scholarship and East Asian thought. It also addresses the dichotomy of reason and emotion and the diversity of emotions according to the standard categories of emotions and feelings.

The second section discusses the Chinese Confucian and related traditions of philosophy and religion by covering their essential textual, ethical, and religious development with respect to the holistic notion, role, and problem of emotions and its related words. The third section presents emotions in the Buddhist tradition by covering Buddha’s teaching and Theravada, Indian Mahāyāna, and Chinese and Korean perspectives. The first three sections of this chapter are organized as follows:

• 1.1. Emotions in General, East and West

  • 1.1.1. Theories of Emotions

  • 1.1.2. A Fundamental Issue with Conventional Theories

  • 1.1.3. Dichotomy of Emotion and Reason

  • 1.1.4. Diversity of Emotions

• 1.2. Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in the Chinese Tradition: Textual, Philosophical, Ethical, and Religious

  • 1.2.1. Emotions in Early (Pre-Buddhist) China

  • 1.2.2. Emotions in Classical Chinese Confucianism

    • 1.2.2.1. Confucius: True Emotions and Human Character

    • 1.2.2.2. The Book of Rites and the Doctrine of the Mean on the Seven Emotions

    • 1.2.2.3. Mencius: Four Beginnings, Moral Emotions, and Self-cultivation

  • 1.2.3. Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism on Emotions, Human Nature, and the Four-Seven Relationship

  • 1.2.4. Wang Yangming on Selfish Emotions, Essence of Heart-Mind, and Moral Practice

• 1.3. Emotions in the Buddhist Tradition

  • 1.3.1. Buddha’s Teaching and Theravada

  • 1.3.2. Indian Mahāyāna Perspectives: Great Compassion and Ultimate Joy

  • 1.3.3. Chinese and Korean Mahāyāna Perspectives: Tiantai, Chan, Pure Land, Wonhyo, and Jinul

This structure and scope of our discussion are indeed necessary for this introductory chapter because of China’s strong influence on Korean Confucianism and Buddhism, which will effectively serve as a textual, philosophical, and religious background of Korean traditions and ideas. This section also considers certain comparative and cross-cultural perspectives as well.

As indicated above, this chapter does not offer a separate section on emotions in the Chinese Daoist tradition because this topic is historically and religiously beyond the key theme and scope of our book that focus on Korean Confucian, comparative, contemporary, and Buddhist perspectives.² However, we also note that some interesting Chinese Daoist perspectives are briefly mentioned here and there in Sect. 1.1 (Emotions in General, East and West) and Sect. 1.2.1 (Emotions in Early (Pre-Buddhist) China) of this chapter.

The fourth and final section of this chapter focuses on the topic of “Korean” jeong/emotions according to its philosophic, religious, and cultural contexts, traditions, and ideas. It is an integrated introduction to and summary of all three parts of the book as well as all chapters of each part. Each subsection of this section consists of two or three discussion items as follows:

• 1.4. Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in Korean Philosophy and Religion

  • 1.4.1. Korean Confucian Perspectives

    • 1.4.1.1. The Holistic Nature, Role, and Problem of Jeong: Emotions, Self-cultivation, Human Relationships, Ethics, and Beyond

    • 1.4.1.2. An Introduction to Part I, Chaps. 2–5: Korean Confucian Perspectives

  • 1.4.2. Comparative Korean Confucian Perspectives

    • 1.4.2.1. An Introduction to Part II, Chaps. 6 and 7: Comparative Confucian Perspectives

    • 1.4.2.2. An Introduction to Part II, Chap. 8 and Part III, Chap. 12: Confucianism and Social Emotions: Jeong, Han, Heung, and Women

  • 1.4.3. Korean Buddhist and Contemporary Perspectives

    • 1.4.3.1. Wonhyo and Jinul on Emotions and Emotional Control

    • 1.4.3.2. Great Compassion and Joy

    • 1.4.3.3. An Introduction to Part III, Chaps. 9–11: Emotions in Won Buddhism, Modern Buddhism, and Korean Buddhist Cinema

We present all of this introductory discussion in terms of the holistic, manifold, and dynamic nature, roles, and problems of Korean jeong. It also outlines the thematic scope and relevance of each part, summarizes the common or different aspects of all chapters in each part, and then emphasizes each chapter’s unique contribution to the discussion of “Korean” emotions. Key aspects of this holistic theme will be elaborated further in the concluding Chap. 13 of this book.

As indicated above, this introductory chapter does not offer a separate section on emotions in the Korean traditions of Christianity, shamanism, and “new religions” because this topic is beyond the key theme and scope of our present volume. The book therefore does not provide chapters on these other Korean perspectives.³ However, we also note that some interesting points about Korean theological, shamanistic, and Daoist perspectives are briefly mentioned in this introductory chapter, some other chapters (e.g., Chaps. 8, 11, and 12), and the concluding chapter.

1.1 Emotions in General, East and West

What is emotion? As the Asian and Western histories of “emotions studies” tend to indicate, we have no absolute or universal answer to this question. Both traditions of philosophy or religion have developed various perspectives and insights, each of which embodies its own context, emphasis, or examples. Whether we talk about Korean, Eastern, Western, or cross-cultural perspectives, the term “emotion(s)” would pertain to the many dynamic and related aspects of human existence and experience.

As Robert C. Solomon, an American continental philosopher, points out, in the Western tradition “the word emotion shifts its meaning from age to age, culture to culture …. The word emotion itself has been in common use (as opposed to the older word, passion) for only a few hundred years, and what counts as an emotion (and what does not) also changes” (Solomon 1995b: 257).⁴ Indeed, no particular philosophical, religious, or psychological category can sufficiently help us explain all (types of) emotions, including Chinese and Korean jeong/qing as well. In the West, emotion is flexibly defined or discussed according to different theories and approaches, whether classical or contemporary.

From a comparative and cross-cultural standpoint, we believe that “emotion” is not necessarily a uniformly one category like what Aristotle (1926) called a “natural” kind or does not pertain only to what the Buddha and Theravada Buddhism called venada (“sensation” or “feelings’).⁵ Nor is emotion something that is limited only to what William James, an eminent psychologist (of religion), calls physiological “sensations” (or the feelings of bodily changes) (1984, 1990)⁶ or what the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith calls “sentiments” (A. Smith 2009).⁷

It is therefore important to be open-minded to using an integrated, broad approach to the study of emotions, one that can handle not just a particular, specific theory or idea but also multi-philosophical, interreligious, or cross-cultural perspectives.

1.1.1 Theories of Emotions

One theory of emotions focuses on the link between emotions and the human body, according to which basic human emotions are identical or similar because of their common physiological functions. This commonality of emotions is therefore based on the human biological condition that human nature is basically shaped by our natural tendency of emotions and feelings. From a philosophical standpoint, this “natural theory” resonates with what Aristotle called the “natural” kind or even the Rousseauian view of “natural” emotions and feelings as the moral foundation of human life.⁸ Similarly, it is also somewhat compatible with the Confucian teaching of moral feelings that are innate in the human heart-mind. According to Mencius (372–289 BCE), this “innate goodness” makes human nature universally good and naturally enables all human beings “love their parents” and “be compassionate” to others (Mencius, 2A: 6; 6A: 6).⁹

On the whole, however, we know that emotions are not always limited to the category of being biologically natural/innate. As outlined below, there are certain emotions that appear to be morally motivated, socially shaped/constructed, culturally informed, or educationally learned. Overall, different moral, philosophical, and religious traditions have developed and still talk about different types of emotions. For example, some of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese jeong/emotions are based on their moral principles, human relationships (e.g., five human relationships in the Confucian tradition), social values, or cultural norms and expectations.

In some cases, emotions are also interpreted as “patterns of behavior” so “behaviorism” is claimed to be another contemporary theory of emotions. Behavioral expression is important because it is experienced or understood by the participants themselves. It is also argued that emotions are independent on the established cultural context of certain rules, norms, or expectations. To some extent, this theory does not contradict, for example, some moral emotions promoted by Confucianism in Korea and elsewhere in East Asia. Confucian culture informs, for example, the moral virtue of filial piety—or family love which includes both filial piety and parental love. Chinese or Korean moral culture therefore expects this kind of moral emotions from children in their proper behavior: Another key example is Confucian emphasis on the moral emotion of propriety (ye/li 禮), one of “the four cardinal virtues of Confucianism.”¹⁰

Human beings participate in society. All of us do this more or less, for which reason our emotions, feelings, desires, or inclinations assimilate to group (social) things and can eventually become socially conditioned or “constructed.” In other words, emotions are basically “the product of society,” which concurs with the behavioral theory as well. We can suggest that this theory is somewhat compatible with the Confucian emotion of shame, which tends to depend on established Confucian morality and social relationships as well. East Asian shame is not exactly the same as what a Westerner might personally feels shameful. The Korean emotion of shame is rooted in the Mencian Confucian doctrine on the innate “moral heart-mind (feeling) of shame-and-aversion” (suo ji sim/xiuwu zhi xin 羞惡之心), one of the so-called Four Beginnings that is identified as the moral root of justice (righteousness; eui/yi 義), another cardinal virtue (Mencius, 2A: 6; 6A: 6).¹¹ This tradition is still relevant or influential among contemporary East Asian people, including many Koreans.

We can argue that the social constructionist theory of emotions underestimates those emotions that are expressed through ethical thinking (reasoning) or one’s subjective intellectual motivation. It also tends to ignore the subjective or spiritual experience of certain emotions that are deeply rooted in religious faith (beliefs), for example, compassion in Buddhism. We will further discuss this below, as well as in Sect. 1.2.2 (Emotions in Classical Chinese Confucianism) and Sect. 1.3.2 (Indian Mahāyāna Perspectives) of this introductory chapter.

Another interesting (contemporary) theory of emotions is developed by Joel Marks, a specialist in the Western ethics of emotions, whose analysis of emotions focuses on what he calls the “strong desire component” of emotion. As he says, “emotions … are strong feelings” and “emotions or passions have a strong desire component” (1995b: 140, 2013).¹² Marks therefore theorizes emotions as desires and supports the “cognitive nature” of emotions. This is partly why he defends dispassion for one’s ethical life from his comparative Buddhist standpoint (1995b: 143).¹³ In Sect. 1.3.1 (Buddha’s Teaching and Theravada), this view is articulated a little further and also criticized by those ethicists of emotions who support passions for the ethical meaning of life.

In our comparative and cross-cultural view, even though some emotions may be desires or desire-based feelings, it does not follow that all emotions themselves are desires or have a “strong desire component” (Marks’s phrase). This theory can work with, for example, the Confucian emotion of compassion (sympathy), one of the Four Beginnings because according to Mencius, the moral heart–mind of compassion is basically an innate intuition and desire “to do good.” However, there are also good desires and bad desires. In our view, certain emotions are not considered as desires at all. For example, although everyone desires (wishes) to be happy or pleased, nobody ever desires sorrow (or suffering), a major emotion, and no one desires to suffer or to be sorrowful for no unfortunate or unavoidable reasons such as death, sickness, or similar tragedies. Likewise, no one desires (wishes for) anger, another strong emotion East and West, or desires to be angry without any good or justified reason.

Another contemporary theory of emotions emphasizes emotions as “judgments.” Its leading spokesperson is Solomon who argues that “emotion consists, at least in part, of ways of consciously being in the world, which I call ‘judgments.’ Judgments require concepts” (1995b: 253).¹⁴ In other words, emotions are aroused through reasoning and judging and thus can work with the human intellect (i.e., cognition) while engaging with subjective and personal experience. Furthermore, an emotional judgment is not a desire or belief; this is why Solomon opposes Marks’s desire theory. As Solomon writes: “[Emotions] are modes of construal ways of viewing and engaging in the world …. Like most judgments … they are culturally taught, cognitively framed, but implemented by the individual. They are … constitutive of the world, our world, as fearsome, offensive, appealing, hopeful, painful” (Solomon 1995b: 276).

This theory is interesting but also a naïve academic assumption. To some extent, it can be applied to some of East Asian emotions such as Confucian righteousness (eui/yi) and Buddhist wisdom that are both based on the moral discernment and judging of “right and wrong.” However, not all emotions are subjective emanations arising from cognitive judgments. For example, the heart-mind (moral emotion) of Confucian compassion, according to the idealist Mencius, is naturally “inborn (innate)” in the original “goodness of human nature”; in other words, it is not socially “constructed” or culturally contextualized or learned. It is rather a spontaneous moral intuition/emotion to do good for other human beings “without having to learn” or without cognitively “judging” others or their situations. In this regard, Solomon’s theory of emotions as nothing but judgments is certainly narrow and limited and does not accommodate these moral and spiritual kinds of emotions.

1.1.2 A Fundamental Issue with Conventional Theories

All of the theories of emotions we have outlined so far have more or less contributed to the ongoing development of emotion studies. Each of them is distinctive in its own way and can also apply to some of Korean East Asian emotions in relation to their Confucian, Buddhist, and related traditions and interpretations. On the whole, however, emotions are not just judgments, desires, natural innate feelings, physiological sensations, feelings of bodily changes, or certain behavioral patterns that are socially constructed or culturally contextualized. What we call emotions from a global standpoint or an anthropocosmic worldview exists at and also shapes the very heart of human life and experience in harmony or conflict with the mundane or transcendent dimension of the self and the universe.

In our view, these theories and opinions have a lingering tendency to neglect or underestimate the moral-spiritual experience of certain emotions that are deeply rooted in religious faith or spiritual practice. For example, “(great) compassion” in Mahāyāna Buddhism (Indian, East Asian, or international)—like Christian agape (love)—is ultimately not just human but also divine. It cannot be passionately practiced without religious faith in the Mahāyānist doctrine of karuna, the selfless and unlimited compassion of bodhisattvas. Likewise, the “ultimate joy” of Mahāyāna Buddhism cannot be attained without having this faith.¹⁵

Ancient Chinese Daoist masters such as Laozi and Zhuangzi harshly repudiated the selfishness and danger of worldly concepts, emotions, and desires for ruining the true self as well as natural order and harmony. For Laozi, the Daoist attainment of emotionlessness and desirelessness (mujeong/wuqing 無情) means the transcendent enjoyment of what Zhuangzi calls the utmost “joy” (rak/le 樂) of spiritual “freedom” and “supreme being.”¹⁶ This is not an ordinary emotion but rather a religious type of spiritual experience that engages a this-worldly type of mysticism. In other words, transcendence beyond the mundane world of ordinary knowledge and rationality is emphasized here in a religious, mystical context.¹⁷

In short, classical Chinese or later Korean debates—whether Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist—on emotions were very interested in understanding and teaching the quality, role, and problem of emotional experiences not just morally, psychologically, or socially but also spiritually and religiously in search for the transcendent (i.e., sagely or enlightened) reality of human existence.

1.1.3 Dichotomy of Emotion and Reason

In the Western tradition of philosophy, emotion (passion) was said to be the antithesis or opponent of reason. In other words, the emotional tendency of feelings and passions goes against or deviate from the intellectual (philosophic) enterprise of rationality. This century-old conventional criticism of emotions endeavored to defend the ultimate meaning of philosophy itself as the love of reasoning, not feeling.¹⁸ Notheless, philosophy (φιλοσοφία) means the love of wisdom (σοφία) in Greek etymology, and wisdom is not merely reason alone but also the creative outcome of experience that has become integrated together with our emotions enabling this process. Considering the fluidity of wisdom between feeling and thinking as an acquired outcome via balancing emotional and logical thinking, what has challenged the contemporary ethics of emotions seems to center around the so-called Neo/Platonic dichotomy of emotion versus reason.

Certain theorists of emotions have argued that emotion and passion are not in conflict with reason or cognition. For example, in his study of emotive rationality, Ronald de Sousa (1987), a leading philosopher of emotions, notes that the power of emotions enables the core purpose of philosophy with respect to our rational thinking about human nature life and experience (1987: 1–20). Furthermore, Marks’s theory of emotions as desires and Solomon’s theory of emotions as judgments all support the cognitive nature of emotions: in Marks’s case, desiring means cognitively knowing what to desire for; and in Solomon’s case, judgments “need concepts,” so one’s judging assimilates to some level of one’s reasoning (i.e., cognition).

These endorsements of the rationalistic relevance of emotions relatively fit in with the Korean and East Asian traditions of philosophy and religion that played an important role in developing the intellectual (cognitive), moral, emotional, and spiritual (religious) faculties of the entire human self. This topic will be addressed further in the next sections of this introductory chapter on the diversity of emotions, emotions in the Chinese traditions, and emotions in Korean philosophy and religion. The Chinese and Koreans have addressed whether emotions are morally good or bad (evil), human or inhuman, honorable or precarious, altruistic or selfish, or acceptable or unacceptable. In discussing human nature and the world, the Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist masters therefore articulated why emotions arise and how the emotions function in interaction with the body and heart-mind as well as in response to external stimulus by things and phenomena.

Commenting on emotions (qing) in early (pre-Buddhist) Chinese thought, Hansen argues that instead of having any serious interest in the conflict between reason and emotion, early Chinese thinkers focused more on the nature and role of qing, the “single faculty/organ,” the xin heart-mind … rather than separate faculties of heart and mind” (Hansen 1995: 183).¹⁹ Likewise, in her book, The Emotions 情 in Early Chinese Philosophy, Curie Virág keenly points out that early (pre-Buddhist) Chinese thinkers—including Mencius (372–289 BCE), Laozi (sixth century BCE), and Zhuangzi (late fourth century BCE)—believed that “emotion and cognition … were the domain of a single faculty—the mind/heart (xin 心) … accordingly, regarded the cognitive and emotive faculties as part of a fully integrated whole … emotions are indistinguishable from what one might, in the ‘West,’ refer to as ‘thinking’ or ‘reasoning’” (Virág 2017: 2).

This is also why in Korea eminent Neo-Confucians such as Yi Toegye (1501–1570) and Yi Yulgok (1536–1584) and famous Buddhist thinkers like Wonhyo (617–686) and Jinul (1158–1210) did not distinguish emotion from reason (cognition), and vice versa because they were informed by and used to their traditional belief and teaching that the heart-mind (sim/xin 心) is one single holistic faculty that coordinates, apprehends, or commands the entire self with respect to rationality, emotionality, morality, and spirituality.²⁰ Accordingly, Korean jeong/emotions are said to engage the entire self, including the body as well as the heart-mind, as in the case of Confucian or Buddhist philosophy and spirituality.

1.1.4 Diversity of Emotions

In many traditions of philosophy, religion, or culture, certain emotions are admired as moral and recommended to be cultivated, while some other emotions are repudiated, feared, or avoided. Some emotions are cherished as essential social virtues, whereas other emotions are believed to be selfish or potentially evil and therefore require to be controlled or eliminated.

Due to their manifold diversity and multilevel integration as experienced by human beings, we need to study how emotions arise and are understood. This study seriously considers textual, philosophical, and spiritual (religious) perspectives. As mentioned before, the term “emotions” would refer to an entire spectrum of interrelated emotive phenomena. Emotions are or related to: physiological sensations, physical responses to external stimuli, natural or biological feelings and inclinations, passions, affections, beliefs, desires, judgments, attitudes, behavioral patterns, innate moral feelings, moral sentiments/intuitions, and even “emotionless” (“desireless”) tranquility (emotion) in Daoism.

In current studies of emotions, we know that emotions like anger, hated, and fear usually get more attention probably because of their distinctive characteristics. Desire and love are also mentioned from different angels. Other emotions such as hatred, jealousy, and craving are repudiated negatively. Righteous anger or justified hatred is rather interesting but considered a little more ethically complicated as “moral indignation.” This topic will be discussed in Chaps. 4 and 5 of this book by Edward Chung and Don Baker according to Yi Yulgok and Jeong Dasan (1762–1836), respectively, two of the most eminent Confucian thinkers in traditional Korea.

Ironically, however, it is worthwhile to note that sorrow (grief), resentment (or lamentation), and gratitude are often ignored or get much less attention in Western scholarship without any clear reason. Nonetheless, these emotions are commonly experienced and talked about in other cultures such as Korea; this is partly why Chungnam Ha’s Chap. 10 of this book discusses the two religious and ethical emotions of “resentment and gratitude” according to modern Korean Won Buddhism.

By contrast, compassion and sympathy are frequently discussed with admiration or care, and other moral sentiments and virtues are regularly included in the Western or Asian category of emotions for their obvious significance in the study or practice of ethics and spirituality. As we know, Confucianism and Mahāyāna Buddhism are well known for these related virtuous emotions in two distinctive ways. Particularly in the West, the emotions of sympathy and compassion are also academically emphasized in the study of “virtue ethics” (e.g., Slote 2007, 2010).²¹ This is somewhat compatible with the Mencian and Korean Neo-Confucian interpretation of compassion (sympathy) as the emotive-moral root of the universal virtue of benevolence (in/ren).

In three parts of this book, we collectively address all these kinds of human emotions and feelings²² according to Korean Confucian, comparative, Buddhist, and contemporary perspectives, many of which are more or less related to Chinese origin or influence. Particular “regular” emotions and feelings are: pleasure (happiness; hui/xi 喜), anger (no/nu 怒), sorrow (ae/ai 哀), joy (delight; rak/le 樂), fear (gu/ju 懼), love (ae/ai 愛), hatred (dislike; o/wu 惡), and desire (yok/yu 欲).

Other Korean emotions such as resentment (won/yuan 怨), suffering (deep resentment/lamentation; han/hen 恨), and utmost joy (exhilaration; heung 興) are often noted, especially in Korean emotion talks regarding Confucian ethics, Won Buddhism, or “social emotions” in Korea. Don Baker’s Chap. 5 on Jeong Dasan’s ethics of emotions mentions resentment (won/yuan), an important but rarely discussed emotion in the orthodox Neo-Confucian literature. Chungnam Ha’s Chap. 10 presents the Korean Won Buddhist teaching of resentment and gratitude. Iljoon Park’s Chap. 8 on “[Korean] social emotions” discusses han suffering and heung exhilaration, two common psychological-social emotions in modern Korea.

As mentioned in the next sections on Chinese and Korean emotions, all chapters of this book discuss Confucian-influenced Korean moral feelings 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 commonly known as the Four Beginnings of virtue (sadan/siduan) in the Confucian textual and Neo-Confucian commentary tradition.²³ In the Korean Confucian tradition, compassion (sympathy; empathy) is an innate virtuous feeling, which is variously discussed in Part I of this book by Bongrae Seok (Chap. 2), Gabriel S. Choi (Chap. 2), and Edward Chung (Chap. 4), as well as in two comparative-theme chapters of Part II by Joseph E. Harroff (Chap. 6) and Hyo-Dong Lee (Chap. 7).

Other virtuous emotions such as gyeong/jing 敬 (reverence; mindfulness; respect) and xiao 孝 (filial affection) are honored and encouraged, especially by the Confucian tradition. Choi’s Chap. 4 in particular deals with Yi Toegye’s Korean ethics of gyeong reverence and emotions. Other moral virtues, including ren 仁 (benevolence; human-heartedness) and li 禮 (ritual propriety), are also mentioned in the next sections on Chinese and Korean emotions and frequently discussed in many other chapters.

The Buddhist practice of compassion is also very significant in Korea and East Asia, insofar as it is based on the Buddha’s teaching of nirvana and the Mahāyāna Bodhisattava’s doctrine of self-sacrificing compassion (karuṇā) for universal enlightenment. This is flexibly discussed in three chapters by Ha, Lucy H. Jee, and Sharon Suh on modern Korean Buddhist perspectives in Part III of this book.

Bad, selfish, or precarious emotions are repudiated and therefore required to be controlled or eliminated in accordance with moral principles and practice. For all Chinese and Korean traditions of philosophy and religion, this is an essential part of self-cultivation for the full realization and practice of human goodness. Confucianism and Buddhism each provided a well-known system of moral-spiritual practice as well. Daoism and Buddhism each emphasized its own distinctive way of detachment from all selfish emotions, desires, and cravings, thereby encouraging a naturalistic (or mystical) Daoist life away from society or a monastic Buddhist discipline.

1.2 Emotions (Jeong/Qing 情) in the Chinese Tradition: Textual, Philosophical, Ethical, and Religious

1.2.1 Emotions in Early (Pre-Buddhist) China

The Chinese word qing (情 emotions) has changed its meanings over many centuries in East Asia as its counterpart did in the West. Its manifold and multilevel meanings influenced recent scholarship on emotions in early China. The study of this topic therefore warrants an integrated approach that is not restricted to a specific philosophical or religious concept or one particular school of thought.

“Emotion” (qing) was a major topic of discussion among leading thinkers and spiritual practitioners in early, pre-Buddhist China prior to the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE). For example, Confucius and Mencius in the Confucian tradition and Laozi and Zhuangzi in the Daoist school all talked about emotions in their ethical and spiritual discourses and texts. Various interpretations eventually developed competing insights, ideas, or recommendations regarding sagehood, self-cultivation, moral action, and the ultimate meaning of life.

Current scholarship on the semantic origin of the term qing is quite interesting but not surprising. In his essay “Qing (Emotions) in Pre-Buddhist Chinese Thought,” Paul Hansen points out that the concept of qing had two kinds of original meanings in early China: first, “circumstances” and “facts of a case” (we can add “reality” and “situation” as well); and second, “affections, the feelings, desires” and “emotion and sentiment” (Hansen 1995: 182). Hansen’s study relied on and concurs with Graham’s pioneering work on the semantic origin of qing, according to which the meaning of this word as emotion (or passion) did not exist approximately until the Han dynasty (1986: 59–65),²⁴ and qing never meant “passions” in pre-Han (500 BCE–200 CE) literature because it rather referred to “facts” (as a noun), “genuine” (an adjective), and “genuinely” (an adverb) (Graham 1990: 59).²⁵

However, Christoph Harbsmeier (2004: 69–148) and Michael Puett (2004: 37–68), two more recent scholarly works, counter-argue that the very idea of qing did have a various range of meanings prior to the Han period, including emotions in this semantic range.²⁶ In tracing the emotive and other meanings of qing in pre-Buddhist Chinese literature, Harbsmeier also points out that classical Chinese thinkers updated an extensive list of semantics from facts and reality to emotions, feelings, and desires (2004: 69–148).²⁷ According to Virág’s study as well, the historical significance of this topic in early China means:

The mainstream vision of emotions … represented the characteristic patterns or dispositions within human beings, giving genuine access to the workings of the world …. When the mainstream thinkers argued that human emotions—qing 情—represented the characteristic inclinations of human beings, they were already taking for granted that nature itself functioned in certain intelligible ways. (Virág 2017: 4)

In other words, emotions ought to be harmonized with self-cultivation and one’s true understanding of the world. The ultimate meaning of life unfolds through the proper experience of emotions.

Confucian masters articulated the nature of emotions and its positive or negative roles in thinking, self-cultivation, or spiritual practice. They also criticized the potential selfishness and trouble of certain emotions while cherishing virtuous emotions in ethics, most of which inspired later generations of thinkers, including the Korean Neo-Confucians. The Confucian literature in particular began to develop its distinctive context and scope of qing 情 as emotions. An extensive vocabulary of its examples includes: pleasure (happiness; heui/xi 喜), anger (no/nu 怒), sorrow (ae/ai 哀), joy (delight; rak/le 樂), fear (gu/ju 懼), love (ae/ai 愛), hatred (dislike; o/wu 惡), desire (yok/yu 慾), and so on. Moral emotions such as “compassion” (cheugun/ceyin), “shame” (suo/xiu), “courtesy-and-modesty” (sayang/cirang), and “discernment of right and wrong” (sibi/shifei) are also emphasized in Confucian classics and ethics.

These types of qing were thought to be common to all human life and experience in relation to the world. Confucian thinkers in particular addressed them with respect to human nature (seong/xing), heart-mind (sim/xin), and innate physical and psychological dispositions. The goal was to articulate the totality of the self in terms of its intellectual, physical, emotive, and moral-spiritual faculties and dimensions. This is why the “holistic” reading of East Asian thought—whether Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist—is helpful also because of the integrated meanings of qing. Confucius and Mencius recommended the Confucian way to cultivate virtuous qing and regulate and transcend selfish and harmful ones through self-cultivation. Daoists emphasized why human beings should return to the natural freedom and creativity of Dao. Laozi recommended fewer desires, and Zhuangzi called for “no emotions/desires” (mujeong/wuqing 無情) and both emphasized a “non-active” (muwi/wuwei 無為), naturalistic, and tranquil (mystical) life beyond the ordinary.

1.2.2 Emotions in Classical Chinese Confucianism

1.2.2.1 1.2.2.1 Confucius: True Emotions and Human Character

Confucius’s talk of emotions is an essential component of the Confucian ethics and spirituality of self-cultivation. His ultimate vision of self-perfection (sagehood) points to the person who has not only perfected the cardinal virtues such as universal benevolence (human-heartedness; in/ren 仁) to the highest level but also attained the utmost emotional-spiritual fulfilment and harmony between oneself and the world.

In the Analects, Confucius discussed an ideal role model for the self-cultivated (authentic) person (gunja/junzi 君子) in terms of learning, moral practice, and emotional harmony. Regarding learning, Confucius says: “At fifteen I set my heart on learning …; at fifty I understood the Decree [Mandate] of Heaven; at sixty, my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed my heart’s desire [yok/yu 欲] without overstepping the line [propriety]” (Analects, 2: 4; Lau 1975: 63). As Confucius testified, self-cultivation makes one to follow the mandate of Heaven in order to fulfil one’s sincere desire in emotional harmony with the transcendent reality of human existence. For Confucius, then, truthful emotionality should be harmonized with moral life by properly integrating the body, heart-mind, and intellect.

As mentioned in the foregoing section (diversity of emotions), desire (yok/yu 欲) is a major example of emotions in Confucianism and other philosophical and religious traditions; in the Confucian literature, it is also one of the so-called Seven Emotions that all human beings have “without having to learn.”²⁸ As indicated above, the Analects portrays Confucius’s affirmation, if not appreciation, of the heart-mind’s desire as a good emotion when it is sincere and properly harmonized.

Confucius taught that true emotions are essential to human experience because they play a vital role in moral self-cultivation, personal conduct, social relationships, and even political ethics. He, therefore, recommended to make one’s emotions and feelings absolutely truthful to oneself and others while harmonizing the inner and outer aspects of one’s life. This insight consistently inspired later generations of eminent Confucians and Neo-Confucian thinkers, including Mencius, Zhu Xi (1130–1200), and Wang Yangming (1472–1529) in China and Yi Toegye (1501–1570) and Yi Yulgok (1536–1584) in Korea.

For Confucius, proper emotions should accord with the virtuous action. For example, if one does not truly feel sorrowful²⁹ when in mourning, this is unfortunately a moral failure in ritual conduct. As Confucius says, “What can I find worthy of note [at all] in a human being who lacks in … sorrow (ae/ai 哀) while performing a mourning rite?”³⁰ Furthermore, according to his disciples, “On a day he had wept, the Master did not sing [all day].”³¹ Being true to human emotions such as sorrow points to an exemplary feature of Confucius’s (sagely) character. The Analects emphasizes Confucius’s “emotional engagement” as a sign of virtue: “For Confucius … having emotions that are characterized by both appropriateness and depth is an essential attribute of the perfected individual” (Virág 2017: 41). One’s true human character is therefore represented by one’s genuine experience of emotions. The Analects tells us about Confucius of being deeply saddened by and mournful for losing someone he has loved. He is also portrayed of experiencing the emotion of joy (delight; rak/le 樂)³² with something or someone he really respected and cared about.

The opening passage of the Analects also tells us about Confucius’s pleasure of learning and his joy of having friendship: “The Master said, ‘Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try out at due intervals? Is it not a joy [delight; rak/le 樂] to have friends come from afar?’” (1: 1; Lau 1975: 59). In other words, it is the good character of an authentic person (gunja/junzi) to be pleased with daily self-cultivation and to truly delight in the joy of welcoming the best friends from far away (friendship is one of the five human relationships in Confucian social ethics). The true feeling of joy is therefore emphasized here. No doubt, Confucius’s passionate experience of joy to learn strongly inspired the later generations of East Asian peoples in the great development of self-cultivation and education for many centuries. As the German thinker Hegel said, “nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion” (1956: 23). From a comparative perspective, Confucius’s passionate desire for and true joy of learning and ethical life somewhat fits in with Marks’s theory that “emotions or passions have a strong desire component” (1995b: 140, 2013) and also supports Solomon’s thesis of “passions and [for] the meaning of life” (Solomon 1993, 1995b: 288–293).

Confucius subtly told his disciples how he wishes to be known to other people: “He is the sort of man … who is so full of joy (rak/le 樂) that he forgets his worries and who does not notice the onset of old age.”³³ This famous saying certainly concurs with his emotional joy of learning and good friendship. On a related note, we can also argue here that Confucius’s joy culturally resonates with Korean social emotion heung (utmost joy/excitement), one of “social emotions” in traditional and contemporary Korea.³⁴

It is interesting to note that when Confucius was asked about negative feelings like resentment (won/yuan 怨) and selfish craving (yok/yu 欲), Confucius simply confirmed his disciples that it is necessary but difficult to control such emotions (Analects, 5: 19, 14:1). Despite his positive recognition of the genuine emotions of sorrow and joy, Confucius basically taught a way of physical and mental self-control by means of following virtuous propriety and ritual conduct (Analects, 12: 1). In her study of Confucian emotions in relation to li ritual propriety, Mary Bockover points out that the virtue of ritual propriety (li) is not something that is merely “expressed” outside but it should rather be harmonized with one’s ritualistic, moral, and emotional behavior both internally and externally (1995: 168–174).³⁵

To conclude, the self-cultivated person’s moral worth is revealed when their heart-mind’s emotions such as sorrow, pleasure, and joy are naturally genuine in thinking and acting. Confucius confessed that at age seventy he has discovered his heart-mind’s desires and emotions in perfect harmony with his true self and the mandate of Heaven. The ultimate goal of self-cultivation is therefore fulfilled through one’s intellectual, moral, and emotional harmony with the transcendent reality of human nature and experience.

1.2.2.2 1.2.2.2 The Book of Rites and the Doctrine of the Mean on the Seven Emotions

The locus classicus for the Confucian term “Seven Emotions” (chiljeong/qiqing 七情) is the Book of Rites, one of the Five Classics: “pleasure (happiness; 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 basic human emotions that “are not acquired through learning from the outside” (Legge 1970: [1] 379). So nobody learns these feelings and emotions externally or “acquires” them from external things or phenomena. In other words, they are innate physical and psychological jeong/qing of human nature.

As the list of the Seven is somewhat lengthy, the Doctrine of the Mean (Chap. 1), one of the Four Books of Confucianism, gives special attention to the first three and added joy, representing the Seven as follows:

Before [the emotions of] pleasure (happiness; hui/xi 喜), anger (no/nu 怒), sorrow (ae/ai 哀), and joy (delight; rak/le 樂) are aroused (bal/fa), it is called equilibrium (centrality; chung/zhong). After they are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree, it is called harmony (hwa/he). Equilibrium is the great foundation of the world, and harmony is its universal way. When equilibrium and harmony are realized to the highest degree, heaven and earth will attain their proper order and all things will flourish.³⁶

The Book of Rites and the Doctrine of the Mean confirm that emotions arise from within the self. According to both texts, the Seven refer to common physical-psychological emotions and are understood as the aroused states of the mind in response to external things or phenomena. As mentioned in the Doctrine of the Mean,³⁷ mind cultivation therefore requires a measure of control over emotions, including the Seven. Leading Chinese Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming agreed on this point. According to this ethics of emotions, the goal of self-cultivation is to attain the state of “harmony” after emotions are aroused (bal/fa). This topic became a key topic in the Korean Four-Seven debate, which began in the mid-sixteenth century and lasted for three centuries.³⁸

Yi Toegye, Yi Yulgok, and other Korean Neo-Confucian basically confirmed that if the Seven are properly expressed or harmonized according to moral principles, they are potentially good emotions. However, as Toegye emphasized, any of these emotions like hatred can lead to evil due to selfish cravings. Sections 1.2.3 (Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism on Emotions …) and 1.4.1 (Korean Confucian Perspectives) present this topic further in terms of Zhu Xi’s system of i/li 理 (principle/ground of being; pattern) and gi/qi 氣 (vital/physical energy; material force) and good and evil. This part of Zhu’s philosophy is extensively discussed in current scholarship, so it does not need to be rehearsed here.³⁹

Overall, the key question was: How do the Seven Emotions relate to jeong/qing in general or differ from what Mencius emphasized as the Four Beginnings of virtue (sadan/siduan 四端) such as compassion? And how should they be understood in terms of the heart-mind (sim/xin)? The Korean Four-Seven debate rigorously discussed these key questions and issues regarding the Four-and-Seven relationship as well as its implications for moral cultivation, most of which were not explained clearly in the Chinese classics and Neo-Confucian commentaries.

1.2.2.3 1.2.2.3 Mencius: Four Beginnings, Moral Emotions, and Self-cultivation

Mencius was unaware of the idea of the Seven mentioned in the Doctrine of the Mean. Nor did he relate the moral significance of the Four to the nature of the Seven. In our view, the Doctrine of the Mean deals more with emotional control and harmony—as discussed above, whereas the Mencian ethics of emotions focuses on a theory of human goodness and moral practice.

The famous Mencian theory of original human goodness (seongseon ji seong/xingshan zhi xing 性善之性) emphasizes universal access to the virtuous practice of innate intuitions and emotions such as compassion (Mencius, 2A: 6; 6A: 6). This central doctrine believes in the foundation of natural moral knowledge and action, insofar as Mencius talked about moral emotions and especially in terms of the human “heart-mind” (sim/xin 心). It is a debatable but bold ontological and ethical claim on the innate goodness of human beings in the heart-mind, which, according to Mencius, universally justifies self-cultivation and self-perfection for everyone, as mandated by Heaven.

Mencius did not specifically explain what he meant by the heart-mind (sim/xin 心) in relation to moral emotions in particular. For example, the following passage from the Mencius (6A: 6) illustrates this ambiguity:

Regarding what is genuine in our emotions and feelings (jeong/qing 情), we are capable of being good. This is what I mean by [saying human nature is] good …. All human beings have the heart-mind (moral emotion; sim/xin 心) of compassion (cheugeun/ceyin 惻隱), the heart-mind of shame and aversion (suo/xiuwu 羞惡), the heart-mind of courtesy and modesty (sayang/cirang 辭讓), and the heart-mind of right and wrong (sibi/shifei 是非). The heart-mind [moral emotion] of compassion is [the beginning of] human-heartedness (benevolence; in/ren 仁); the heart-mind of shame and aversion is [the beginning of] righteousness (eui/yi 義); the heart-mind of courtesy and modesty is [the beginning of] propriety (ye/li 義); and the heart-mind of right and wrong is [the beginning of] wisdom (ji/zhi 智). Human-heartedness, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom …. originally exist in me [my nature].⁴⁰

Compassion, shame and aversion, courtesy and modesty, and discernment of right and wrong do not come from the outside because these moral intuitions and emotions are originally innate in the heart-mind. Mencius referred to these “Four Beginnings [roots]” (sadan/siduan 四端) as the fourfold foundation of what Confucius emphasized as the cardinal virtues of human-heartedness (benevolence), righteousness, ritual propriety, and wisdom. For Mencius, the heart-mind of compassion and three other beginnings are indeed moral emotions (jeong/qing 情) as well. They are the origin of original human goodness and the starting point of our innate moral virtues.

In light of Confucius’s teaching of genuine human emotions, the Mencian doctrine of original human goodness is a bold moral-spiritual belief in the heart-mind of innate intuitions toward fellow human beings. As Mencius said, every human being naturally possesses “the heart-mind of compassion” that “cannot see the suffering of others” (Mencius, 2A:6). With this good heart-mind (sim/xin), all human beings spontaneously and immediately feel compassionate to save “a little child who was on the verge of falling into a well” (Mencius, 2A:6).

For Mencius, the “original goodness of human nature” consisting of the Four should therefore be “fully developed” for self-cultivation; “neglecting your own potentials is to destroy yourself.” (Mencius, 2A: 6).⁴¹ Mencian belief is that the Four are innate moral emotions in the heart-mind for self-cultivation and the ethical life. Furthermore, this bold ontological-ethical claim is also backed up by the child metaphor of the pure heart-mind regarding the Mencian doctrine of “innate knowledge [of good]” (yangji/liangzhi 良知) and “innate ability [to do good]” (yangneung/liangneng 良能).⁴²

This teaching is religiously grounded as well. Original goodness in the human heart-mind is bestowed by Heaven’s will (cheonmyeong/tianming 天命). As Mencius confessed, “To preserve the heart-mind (sim/xin) and to nourish human nature (seong/xing) is the way to serve Heaven (cheon/tian 天),” a sagely human way (Mencius, 7A: 1),⁴³ which therefore accords with Confucian religious belief in the harmony [unity and oneness] between Heaven and human beings (cheonin habil/tianren heyi 天人合一). “To serve Heaven” and other human beings faithfully is simply to follow moral feelings (the heart-mind of the Four) and practice heavenly mandated innate knowledge and ability to do good.

Leading Chinese Neo-Confucians such as Zhu Xi and the eminent Korean thinker Yi Toegye discussed Mencius’s teaching of self-cultivation. In particular Toegye frequently quoted not only Mencius’s doctrine of original human goodness and the Four but also his moral-spiritual talk of “Heaven” and “serving Heaven”; this is what Toegye emphasized in developing a sophisticated “religious” style of Neo-Confucian ethics and spirituality (see Chung 2016, 2019c, 2021 for details).

In Ming China, Wang Yangming (1472–1529), the founder of the School of the Mind (simhak/xinxue 心學), also cherished and polished the Mencian teaching to the extent that his entire ethics and spirituality of mind cultivation were largely based on the original Mencian thinking.⁴⁴ For Wang, the Four Beginnings as virtuous emotions confirm the innate knowledge and ability to be sincere and do good, which universally enables the spiritual path to sagehood (for more discussion, see Sect. 1.2.4 of this chapter on Wang Yangming).

Given our discussion of Mencius thus far, the conventional dichotomy between cognition (reason) and feeling (emotion) in Western thought does not apply to the Confucian case either directly or efficiently. Mencius, like Confucius, was not interested in such dichotomy, insofar as traditional Chinese thought—whether Confucian or Daoist prior to the coming of Buddhism from India—had not known or developed it. In discussing the Four as genuine moral emotions, Mencius intended to mean natural, innate feelings as well as one’s “knowledge” and “ability” to do good based on some level of cognitive awareness and judgments regarding one’s discernment of right (good) and wrong (evil).⁴⁵

In this regard, Mencius saw no strict division between emotion and reason; that is, both are fully expected to be integrated and harmonized because of holistic Confucian belief in the rational, moral, psychological, and spiritual interaction of the sim/xin heart-mind as a whole. Furthermore, this dichotomy issue also becomes irrelevant if we care about the spiritual-religious dimension of the Mencian teaching in terms of original human goodness, sagehood, and Heaven as discussed above.

At this point of discussion, we can make some comparative reflection on this topic. As mentioned in Sect. 1.1.4 (Diversity of Emotions), one branch of emotion studies in the West has treated compassion and related moral sentiments with repect to “virtue ethics.” In our view, Mencius established the foundation and rationale for the Confucian virtue ethics of emotions. Likewise, two eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers, David Hume (1711–1776)⁴⁶ and Adam Smith (1723–1790), keenly argued that human nature embodies certain moral essence (or inclination) such as sympathy (compassion), a moral feeling with/for others.⁴⁷ This Western ethical view basically resembles the Mencian view of compassion. Nor does it contradict the Mahāyāna Buddhist karuna (compassion), an interesting topic we will discuss in Sect. 1.3.2 (Indian Mahāyāna Perspectives) and Sect. 1.4.3 (Korean Buddhist and Contemporary Perspective). For both Hume and Smith, sympathy—or compassion or whatever we call it (like empathy or altruism)—is an innate and universal feature of moral inclination. In particular, Smith identified the virtuous significance of “mutual sympathy” with “universal benevolence,”⁴⁸ which also happens to be the most important among the four cardinal virtues of Confucianism. More recently, Michael Slote interpreted “virtue ethics” on the basis of the moral and psychological power of “empathy” and “care.”⁴⁹

Smith’s and Slote’s insights into sympathy and empathy relatively resemble the Mencian and Korean Neo-Confucian interpretation of compassion (one of the Four) as the emotive foundation of universal virtue in/ren (benevolence; human-heartedness). On the whole, however, our comparative opinion on the ethical link between Mencius, on the one hand, and Hume, Smith, and Slote, one the other hand, would be less meaningful or insightful if we ignore the spiritual-religious dimension of the Mencian doctrine of compassion, the heart-mind, and Heaven as discussed above.

1.2.3 Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism on Emotions, Human Nature, and the Four-Seven Relationship

Neo-Confucian masters in Song China transmitted and expanded the Confucius and Mencian line of classical Confucianism by articulating its philosophy of human nature, emotions, and self-cultivation. They also developed new metaphysical and ethical ideas and concepts partly in criticism of and competition with Daoist and Buddhist influence. The idea of jeong/qing (emotions and feelings) continued to receive some more sophisticated discussion as well as new interpretation at an advanced level.

For example, Cheng Yi (1033–1107) briefly said that love (affection; ae/ai 愛), one of the Seven, is an emotion (jeong/qing), whereas benevolence (human-heartedness; in/ren 仁) is human nature (seong/xing 性).⁵⁰ He generally meant in the Mencian sense that “the mind-and-heart of compassion” is an innate moral beginning (sprout) of benevolence inherent in what Mencius calls the “original goodness of human nature” (seongseon ji seong/xingshan zhi xing). However, Cheng Yi did not explain it further. For example, he made no comments on the Four Beginnings and/or the Seven Emotions specifically; neither did he clarify any connection, compatibility, or conflict between the Four and the emotions like love. However, one noticeable statement Cheng Yi made is: “In human nature there are only the Four Beginnings without any form of evil …. Similarly, without human nature, how can there be emotions (jeong/qing 情)?”⁵¹ This passage implies that the Four are the defining moral characteristics of human nature. So self-cultivation involves the Mencian teaching of nurturing the Four and has to maintain “[emotional] harmony after pleasure, anger, sorrow, and joy are aroused,” as taught in the Doctrine of the Mean and quoted by Cheng Yi.⁵² This line of reasoning became an important topic in the Korean Four-Seven controversy.

The whole subject matter became more complicated in Zhu Xi’s thought. The great Neo-Confucian synthesizer Zhu Xi (1130–1200) commented on Mencius’s notion of the Four (Mencius, 2A: 6) as follows:

Compassion (cheugeun/ceyin 惻隱), shame and aversion (suo/xiuwu 羞惡), courtesy and modesty (sayang/cirang 辭讓), and [discernment of] right and wrong (sibi/shifei 是非) are emotions (jeong/qing 情). Benevolence (human-heartedness; in/ren 仁), righteousness (eui/yi 義), propriety (ye/li 義), wisdom (ji/zhi 智) are human nature. (seong/xing 性)⁵³

In other words, the Four represent our innate moral “emotions” aroused from human nature; they are therefore “illuminating virtues.”⁵⁴ Zhu Xi also mentioned that “the Seven Emotions cannot be separated from the Four Beginnings,” and “the Four Beginnings can be understood from the standpoint of the Seven Emotions.”⁵⁵ So Zhu Xi probably meant that the Four do not belong to an entirely independent group of human feelings and emotions (jeong/qing 情). Interestingly, Toegye, Yulgok, and others in Korea did not quote these two statements at all in their Four-Seven philosophies. One key issue in their debates was whether or not the Four such as compassion belong to a special group of moral emotions independent of the Seven.

Zhu Xi did not articulate the Four and the Seven specifically. His Zhuzi yulei (Classified conversations of Master Zhu) gives a brief statement in terms of their origins: “The Four Beginnings are manifestations of i/li (moral principles); the Seven Emotions are manifestations of gi/qi (vital energy; material force).”⁵⁶ It can also be translated as follows: “The Four Beginnings are aroused by i/li; the Seven Emotions are aroused by gi/qi.” Does this unexplained statement imply some ontological and conceptual distinction between the Four and the Seven? This question was rigorously debated by Korean scholars. Zhu’s philosophy of i/li and gi/qi is a well-researched topic that does not need to be rehearsed here.⁵⁷

Zhu Xi’s ambiguous comment on the Four-Seven relationship was discussed by Korean Neo-Confucians in terms of moral “purity,” distinction, or continuum between the Four and the Seven. Toegye emphasized that the Four are aroused by moral i/li, whereas the Seven are aroused by gi/qi because they are our ordinary emotions and feelings that can potentially lead to evil due to selfish cravings. According to Yulgok, however, Toegye misinterpreted the Four and the Seven as two distinctive and separate groups of feelings.⁵⁸ Yulgok insisted that in the arousal of all emotions and feelings, including the Four and the Seven, gi/qi is what actually becomes manifested.⁵⁹ These aspects of the Four-Seven relationship in terms of i/li and gi/qi are discussed in Seok’s Chap. 3, Chung’s Chap. 4, and Harroff’s Chap. 6.

Another controversial Four-Seven issue focused on the Song Neo-Confucian 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 short, Zhu Xi explained the original human nature with respect to i/li, and the physical human nature as that which is conditioned by gi/qi; therefore, the former is purely good, whereas the latter can lead to good or evil. There are just two different “names,” not two “separate” natures having their own ontological grounds.⁶⁰ According to Zhu Xi, then, Mencius and Cheng Yi referred to “human nature in itself,” unmixed with the physical dispositions of gi/qi, so they specifically meant the “original human nature” before it is disturbed by external stimuli involving gi. However, when it is “mixed with gi/qi” in concrete things, it is what Zhang Zai called the “physical human nature.” As Zhu stated:

Original human nature is purely good. This is the nature described by Mencius as “good.” Master Zhou [Dunyi] described it as “pure and perfectly good,”⁶¹ and Master Cheng Yi called it “the fundamental character of our nature”.⁶² … If one learns to return to the original human nature endowed by Heaven and Earth, one will preserve it.⁶³ Accordingly, any discussion of human nature must include physical human nature, so that the discussion can be complete.⁶⁴

However, Zhu Xi did not apply this topic to the Four and the Seven. As a result, this part of his thought became a key issue in the Four-Seven debates, insofar as Korean scholars endeavored to interpret the Four and Seven in terms of the two interrelated realms of human nature, respectively. Toegye and his followers generally agreed that original human nature means innate moral virtues (e.g., human-heartedness/benevolence) and moral emotions (e.g., compassion), whereas physical human nature pertains to our ordinary physical or psychological feelings, sensations, emotions and desires.

Another key component of Zhu Xi’s philosophy that stimulated Korean emotion talks is about the “[Dao] moral mind” (dosim/daoxin 道心) and “[ordinary] human mind” (insim/renxin 人心) in detail. Zhu Xi explained that the moral mind is aroused from “the correctness of Heaven’s principle (cheolli/tianli 天理),” and the ordinary human mind from “selfishness (sa/si 私) identified with physical form (hyeonggi/xingqi 形氣)”: accordingly, the former is “impartial” and “good,” whereas the latter is “partial” and “prone to error,” involving both good and evil.⁶⁵ The moral mind pertains to moral virtues such as benevolence, whereas the human mind pertains to our ordinary physical desires and cravings.⁶⁶

However, Zhu did not articulate this topic in terms of the Four-Seven relationship. Can emotions such as the Four and the Seven be understood according to these two related aspects of the mind? This issue became important in the Korean debate. Korean thinkers eventually debated questions regarding Zhu Xi’s conception of emotions, his metaphysics of i/li and gi/qi, his ethics of good and evil, and his dualism of the moral-and-human mind. They developed creative ideas and insights and thereby accomplished a highly advanced and sophisticated philosophy of Four-Seven emotions (jeong/qing) and its implications for Confucian ethics and spirituality.

1.2.4 Wang Yangming on Selfish Emotions, Essence of Heart-Mind, and Moral Practice

Like masters of the rival Cheng-Zhu school, Wang Yangming (1472–1529), the leading Neo-Confucian of Ming China, addressed the essential topic of emotions (jeong/qing) in his own way by discussing the aroused mind and the Four and the Seven. Wang’s Four-Seven thesis is a key to understanding his doctrines of the heart-mind, innate knowledge, simhak 心學 mind cultivation, and moral practice.

In his most famous work, Chuanxi lu 傳習錄 (Instructions for practical living),⁶⁷ Wang states that cardinal virtues such as “benevolence (human-heartedness), righteousness, propriety, wisdom” are “the [moral] qualities of the heart-mind after the feelings [jeong/qing] are aroused.” The heart-minds of compassion (cheugun/ceyin), shame and aversion (suo/xiuwu), courtesy and modesty (sayang/cirang), and [discernment of] right and wrong (sibi/shifei) are therefore “manifestations of human nature.”⁶⁸ In other words, Wang, like Zhu Xi, basically confirmed the Mencian doctrine that the Four Beginnings are the emotive moral expression of four cardinal virtues: for example, the moral emotion (jeong/qing) of compassion is the beginning of human-heartedness (benevolence).

According to Wang, “the equilibrium [jung/zhong] before the feelings [jeong/qing] are aroused involves the harmony after the feelings are aroused and each and all attain due measure and degree.”⁶⁹ By quoting the Doctrine of the Mean (Chap. 1) here, Wang, like Zhu Xi and Korean thinkers, pointed out that emotions refer to the “aroused” (bal/fa) states of the mind. Self-cultivation therefore requires a measure of control over these emotions after their arousal.

Wang was asked whether the joy (delight; rak/le 樂) of Confucius’s and his beloved disciple Yan Hui’s learning is the same as “the joy (rak/le) in the seven feelings [Seven Emotions]” and “if … there is a true joy, then is it present when sages and worthies meet with [other emotions such as] great sorrow, great anger, great terror, and great fear?” Wang eloquently replied:

Joy [rak/le 樂] is characteristic of the original substance of the mind [sim ji bonche/xin zhi benti 心之本體]. Though it is not identical with the joy of the seven feelings [Seven Emotions; chiljeong/qiqing]. Sages and worthies have another true joy, it is true, but it is shared by ordinary people except that these people do not realize it though they have it. Instead they bring upon themselves a great deal of sorrow [ae/ai 哀] and grief and, in addition, confusion and self-abandonment.⁷⁰

This passage is self-explanatory and also creatively stated. Note that sorrow and joy belong to the Seven Emotions, as mentioned in the Book of Rites and the Doctrine of the Mean. Here Wang positively affirms Confucius’s true joy of “learning” or of “[having] friends come from far away”; his “joy of knowing …”; and his character “full of joy that he forgets his worries and does not notice the onset of old age.”⁷¹ Wang also reconfirms Confucius’s highest praise of his beloved disciple Yan Hui’s “joy of learning” and self-cultivation despite Yan’s “hardship” and impoverished life. As confirmed by Wang in the quoted passage above, Confucius’s and Yan’s virtuous emotion of joy represents the ultimate goodness of the heart-mind’s “original essence” (bonche/benti 本體). In other words, this is not the same as ordinary emotional joy partly because ordinary people’s selfishness eventually generates more delusion, sorrow, and grief. Self-cultivation is therefore emphasized.

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 selfish emotions neglect the original purity of the mind. Therefore, the idea of controlling and overcoming selfish 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:

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 selfish attachment to them. When there is such an attachment, they become selfish desires and obscurations to innate knowledge.⁷⁴

In this passage, Wang gives a complete list of the Seven Emotions and confirms 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 selfish 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 “selfish” 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 rectified.

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 [selfish] 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 selfish emotions and desires but also perfect their heart-minds as the “bright mirrors” without any impurity or selfishness. 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 confirm 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 officially 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.

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 specific 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 unprofitable; and the pursuit of pain and hardship, which is grievous, ignoble, and unprofitable. 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 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 first 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 five 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 selfish or self-indulging emotions, passions, and desires and to eventually become completely “emancipated” and gain nirvana.

Selfish 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 selfishness, clinging, or defilement. The Buddha taught a true understanding of the existential human conditions of suffering, including emotions and desires in their interdependent, dynamic nature.

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-afflicting 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 affirming 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; 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 selflessness (anatta) can provide a rich array of philosophical and spiritual resources to help us to distinguish selfish emotions from self-less (or self-emptying) emotions. The so-called three poisons of clinging attitudes are greed, hatred, and delusion. These are classified as unwholesome states of the mind, and suffering is generated by these afflicting 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 selflessness (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 final teaching therefore reiterates the practice of self-control by controlling all ordinary feelings and removing all selfish 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 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 influenced 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 affirms 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 identified with “the destruction of emotion.” This is because “wholesome emotions are an integral part of refined 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:Verse

Verse 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.Footnote

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 filled 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 selfish 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 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 filled 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 selfless and transcendent (divine). Many passages of the Mahāyāna texts talk about the bodhisattva’s solemn religious vow of self-sacrificing 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 find 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-sacrificing 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, afflict me, beat me … or take my life—may they 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 field 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

Verse

Verse “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.”Footnote

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

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.

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 influenced 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 selfish 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, reflective practice aimed at “somatic” self-improvement (Shusterman 2012: 45). Chan (Zen) Buddhism warns against the distracting nature and afflicting 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 craving that ultimately cause suffering. Selfish emotions, passions, and desires have to be completely “transcended” in the process of “self-emptying” and for the final 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 afflictions 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 afflictions 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 first poison nescience that conditions negative emotions. Afflictive (Skt. kleśa) emotions are the reason for suffering.

Similarly, Jinul 知訥 (1158–1210), the most influential 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 afflictions.¹⁰¹ By contrast, “the true mind” “does not give rise to [afflicting] 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 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 influential 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-influenced Korean jeong emotions.

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 efficiently 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.

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

1.4.1.1 1.4.1.1 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 self-cultivation and ethics. It championed virtuous emotions while repudiating the potential problem or selfishness of negative emotions, and this mode of reasoning consistently influenced 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 influence 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

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 influenced 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 self-cultivation, 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 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.

Korean thinkers cited the Confucian term “Seven Emotions” (chiljeong/qiqing 七情) according to the Book of Rites, one of the Five Classics: “pleasure (happiness; 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 basic human emotions that “are not acquired through learning from the outside” (Legge 1970: [1] 379). They also discussed the Doctrine of the Mean (Chap. 1), which gives attention to the first 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 self-cultivation 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 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 significant 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; human-heartedness), ye/li 禮 (ritual propriety), and xiao 孝 (filial 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 selfish 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.

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 confirmed 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 self-cultivation; “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 significance 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 definitely 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, 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 selfishness 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 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 confirmed 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 heart-mind. 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 selfishness (sa/si 私) of physical 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 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 ontological-ethical 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 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 first Korean Confucian thinker who formally talked about these “significant” 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.

1.4.1.2 1.4.1.2 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 heart-mind (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 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 specifically 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 selfish 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 敬 (C. jing; translated as “seriousness,” “reverence,” “reverential concentration,” “reverential seriousness,” “mindfulness,” etc.) is one of the most significant 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 self-cultivation,” including an appropriate control of emotions and feelings. It keenly identifies gyeong as “the emotion of reverence” [and] self-reflection 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 unified self,” in controlling or transcending (eliminating) “selfish cravings” (sayok), the potential origin of moral evil? This is because Toegye emphasized gyeong in terms of contemplative “self-reflection,” emotional control, and “self-rectification.” 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 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 briefly 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 cross-cultural study of emotions.

Chung argues that Yulgok’s view of emotions (jeong) as “desires” (yok/yu 欲) to fulfil the specific “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 filial 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.

Yulgok strongly advocated political reform actions to bring about economic and cultural benefits 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 field 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 selflessly.”

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 human emotions, for which reason Dasan discussed them as “significant” emotions. Another interesting point discussed in this chapter is that certain emotions and inclinations inspire one’s effort to overcome selfishness 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

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 confirm either desire as one of the Seven Emotions or the mainstream Neo-Confucian view that the desire is a potentially “precarious” [selfish] emotion that should be suppressed. However, unlike other Neo-Confucians, including Toegye, Dasan strongly affirmed 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 influenced 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 (final 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.

1.4.2.1 1.4.2.1 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 final 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 confirms 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 clarification.¹⁴²

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 flourishing, 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 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.

1.4.2.2 1.4.2.2 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-influenced 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. 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 officials, 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 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 flow 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 briefly 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 fifth section discusses social emotions such as jeong, han, heung, musim, miunjeong (미운정; hateful jeong), wonsugatun jeong (원수같은 정; “enemy-like 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 scientific understanding of emotions.” Park keenly concludes that Korea’s emotive-social culture of han, heung, and jeong has become “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 benefit all humans accordingly.” Emotions seek to find 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 final 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 mystified as passive and compliant housewives while at the same time sexually objectified and fetishized along with other Asian women.”¹⁴⁸

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

1.4.3 Korean Buddhist and Contemporary Perspectives

1.4.3.1 Wonhyo and Jinul on Emotions and Emotional Control

The Buddha’s teaching, Indian Mahāyāna, and Chinese Buddhism generally influenced 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 influenced 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 reflecting 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 heart-mind (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 figure 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 (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 “afflictive 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 afflictive hindrances (kleśa-āvarana), according to which suffering is caused by certain phenomena that delude the mind to see things untruly. These afflictions (kleśa) are believed to involve all mental activities associated with nescience, delusion, anxiety, and so forth. The term kleśa also means pain, trouble, or defilement. The so-called six afflictions (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 afflictions 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 afflictive hindrances.¹⁵³

Wonhyo continues to articulate: “The confusions in regard to the Truth of Suffering within the desire realm include the ten afflictions …. Eliminated in the Path of Cultivation are the anger of the desire realm and the three afflictions of greed, pride, and nescience in all three realms.”¹⁵⁴ Certain examples of these afflictions 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 specific emotions. When he does, he repudiates certain emotions that hinder contemplative practice. For example, he explains the afflictions 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 afflictions) of craving, anger, ignorance, pride, doubt, and wrong views] have sense-objects as their external conditions. “[The afflictions] flow along and form, following those drivers”. (Buswell 2007: 194, 367)

Here Wonhyo highlights several afflicting emotions: craving, anger, pride, and enmity (hatred) in particular. This is what he said in his Ijang eui as well: various afflictions 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 afflictions (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 influential introduction to Korean Seon (Zen) practice, Jinul rarely discusses the problem of emotions or emotive attachments. He briefly mentions feelings (jeong) in relation to defilements and emotional suppression (Buswell 1991: 111). However, in his another major writing, Jinsim jikseol 眞心直說 (Straight talks on the true mind), Jinul specifically discusses the problem of emotions by pointing out that “the deluded mind” creates poisonous emotions such as “greed” and “hatred” and thus the afflictions 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 [afflicting] 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 conflict 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 signifies the state of being “unstained” (buran/bulyeom 不染). It is to transcend one’s selfish 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” selfishness and detaching oneself from worldly cravings and afflictions in the endless cycle of suffering.

1.4.3.2 1.4.3.2 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 find 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 afflictive 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 defilement; 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 self-transcending 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 selfishness, the heart-mind is filled with compassionate love and the individual self becomes an extensively interconnected self as “we” (K. uri 우리). Under Confucian influence 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 defined by selfish 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 selfless 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 significance of bodhisattvic compassion in Mahāyāna Buddhism and the mainstream Korean Buddhist tradition.

1.4.3.3 1.4.3.3 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 twentieth-century 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 first 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 (고운정; 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 briefly mentions Wonhyo’s teaching of ilsim.¹⁵⁸

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 “beneficent 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 benefit of the entire world. Specifically, the first 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 afflictive (emotional) hindrance.¹⁵⁹ The third section discusses “how to recover moral sensitivity and friendliness.” Proper moral actions should follow Sotaesan’s teaching of “fourfold beneficence.” 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 first 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 Korean Buddhist films 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 film 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 first relies significantly on a post-colonial Christian theological interpretation of jeong and then explores Im’s film 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 finds striking resonance with the Buddhist teaching of emptiness and interdependence.”

 Following an introduction, the second section assimilates “the expression of jeong in Korean Buddhist films” 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-filled 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 affirms her jeong as an “affection,” “empathy,” “adhesive bond,” and “relational attachment.” Jeong is “a relationality that has the power to transform relationships and finds 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 (significantly), her selfless and self-sacrificing 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 karuna¹⁶³ as “bodhisattvic compassion” briefly (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 find 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 reflection: 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 selfish 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 appears along with these examples of emotions in leading Korean Buddhist texts compiled by Wonhyo and Jinul (see Sects. 1.3.3 and 1.4.3.1).¹⁶⁷

The end of Chap. 11 briefly comments that, although Korean jeong is “Confucian in origin,” it compatibly works with the Buddhist doctrine of compassion. It would be more engaging to elaborate this interesting point further. Throughout the history of Buddhism in Korea, the nature of Korean jeong gradually accommodated the Mahāyāna teaching of compassion and interdependence that continues to inspire contemporary Korean Buddhists. The Korean Buddhist notion of monastic life as a “dharma family” or family bond also accords with the Confucian tradition of family life and group relationships. Suh’s “socially engaged Mahāyāna” approach and Joh’s Asian or “postcolonial” theological theorization of jeong emotion as “affection,” “empathy,” “adhesive bond,” and “relational dependence” remarkably echo the Korean Confucian-based talk of human values, relationships, and bonds in terms of universal benevolence (human-heartedness; in), sympathy (compassion) and moral jeong, affective heart-mind (sim 心), emotional bond/intimacy, and reciprocal respect/role in traditional and contemporary Korea. This echoing therefore confirms the humanistic, moral, and social context of Korean jeong expression and experience, thereby pointing to holistic Confucian influence on Korea’s moral language, humanistic culture, and social and psychological interdependency. This point is discussed further in our (editors’) concluding chapter at the end of the book.