Daesoon Thought as the Source of Daesoon Jinrihoe’s Social Work

Daesoon Jinrihoe likes to quote the words of its third leader, Park Wudang (1917–1995). He stated that,

This goal was never foreign to Daesoon Jinrihoe and its predecessor organizations. One century ago, they were already fighting illiteracy, which at that time was widespread in Korea. More recently, Daesoon Jinrihoe has established an accredited university and six high schools (Daejin High School, Daejin Girl’s High School, Bundang Daejin High School, Daejin Design High School, Ilsan Daejin High School, and Busan Daejin High School of Electronics and Telecommunications).

One unique institution is the Daejin Youth Training Center, opened in March 2013. It is both a physical place, i.e., a building capable of accommodating some 200 persons, and a set of programs that include youth camps and religious-cultural field trips. It also offers two certified training courses for adolescents, “Empathy and Sharing,” training the youth to become volunteers in various fields, and “Daejin Futsal (Indoor Soccer) Class.” The “Empathy and Sharing” program cooperates with other Daesoon Jinrihoe institutions. For example, participants can learn how to take care of the elderly and help them with their wheelchairs.

Daejin University in Pocheon City has an atmosphere that is both Korean and international. It is becoming more cosmopolitan, as the number of students who are not members of Daesoon Jinrihoe or come from abroad continue to increase. It also maintains two campuses in Mainland China, in Harbin and Suzhou, where some Korean students also study, supported by Daejin University scholarships. On the other hand, it maintains its roots in Daesoon values, and members of the religion are especially proud of it. It is also a local university, which exists in conversation with the institutions of Gyeonggi Province and Pocheon City. One of its most ambitious projects is the Gyeonggi-Daejin Techno Park, established in 2003 in cooperation with the province and city governments and with the approval of the South Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy, to boost the growth of local industry.

The history of Daejin University dates to 1984, when Park Wudang established the Daejin Hakwon educational foundation. Plans for the university were set in motion in 1989. Government approval was secured in 1991, and Daejin University was inaugurated in 1992. Since then, it has won numerous awards, including as a top-ranked university in South Korea (2006) from the point of view of a comprehensive academic assessment of its activities in 2005, and as one of the top ten South Korean universities in the field of intellectual property (2015, Korean Intellectual Property Office). It includes, after a reorganization in 2016, 5 graduate schools, 5 colleges, 9 divisions, and 26 departments. It has signed Memorandums of Understanding with several universities and institutions throughout the world.

As it is common in Eastern Asia, Daejin University defines its strategies through slogans. One is “Humanities education based on benevolence and righteousness,” which is strictly connected with the principles of Daesoon Thought. The second, which is self-explanatory, and alludes to the fact that today many college graduates remain unemployed, is “Practical education with focusing on employment.” The third is “Creating smart campus,” a commitment to state-of-the-art digital services, which however does not forget the importance of ecology in Daesoon Thought and calls for an eco-friendly environment. In fact, one of the most important international events co-organized by Daejin University was the Inaugural Yeoju Eco-Forum, held on October 3–5 2019 in Yeoju City. The fourth is “Strengthening the brand of global Daejin,” and alludes to the DUCC (Daejin University China Campus) project in Mainland China, and other projects abroad that may develop in the future.

Private higher education is expensive in South Korea, and in 1976 Daesoon Jinrihoe launched the Daesoon Scholarship Foundation. This corresponds to an idea of Park Wudang himself, and includes several different scholarships for excellent students whose families have limited financial resources. As of 2015, $43 million had been invested in such scholarships.

Daesoon Jinrihoe’s social welfare work includes three sectors: community, welfare, and medical. Community works include cleaning the streets and natural areas, assisting poor farmers, helping in finding missing children, and promoting campaigns for traffic safety and for the respect of the elderly.

With deep roots in the Korean tradition, elderly welfare is a special priority of Daesoon Jinrihoe. Daesoon Jinrihoe operates a geriatric hospital (capacity: 140), elderly nursing facilities (170) and an elderly welfare center (30). The nursing facilities are based on the principle of the Unit Care System, defined as an elderly nursing unit with multiple rooms to accommodate patients individually, thereby providing them with increased privacy and protection. One unit includes eight to twelve single rooms, and a large living room with a homelike atmosphere (AADDJ 2017, 81).

In practice, this unique system works through seven programs: leisure and dementia prevention, medical treatment and rehabilitation, cultural services, counseling services, nutritional support, family support, and sanitation service. For leisure, the elderly are offered classes in appreciating and producing movies, singing, music, origami, and pottery, as well as games, outgoings, and birthday celebrations. Dementia prevention works through physical exercise, laughter therapy, block building, puzzles, and drawing. Feast days are celebrated through cultural events, special meals, picnics, and performances.

The principle of the “homelike atmosphere” is what mostly impressed me when I visited Daesoon Jinrihoe’s social welfare facilities, and is deeply connected with Daesoon Thought. It is important that the sick and the elderly do not feel marginalized in an asylum-like atmosphere, but perceive themselves as active participants in the life of the community. Daesoon Jinrihoe has built hospitals that do not look like hospitals, and nursing homes that do not look like nursing homes. This is appreciated by those who benefits of their services, but also by the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation, which from 2013 has consistently awarded its highest score to Daejin Elderly Nursing Facilities. Specialists from China and Vietnam also came to South Korea to study how the Unit Care System is implemented by Daesoon Jinrihoe.

The Daejin Medical Foundation dates to 1991. Daesoon Jinrihoe’s main hospital, Bundang Jesaeng Hospital, was built in 1998. It has currently 31 departments and 760 beds. The Daejin Welfare Foundation started its activities in 2007. In 2009, the Daejin Medical Care Institute was established. The Korean National Health Insurance Service recognized it as an A-level institution in 2012.

The Bundang Jesaeng Hospital has been certified by Korean medical authorities as a reliable, leading institution, equipped with modern, cutting-edge medical diagnostic and treatment systems The hospital uses volunteers to provide a better and wider range of services. While volunteers are mostly members of Daesoon Jinrihoe, medical care is offered to anybody who qualifies for admission, irrespective of religious affiliation. The hospital is based both on Western and Oriental medicine, and includes departments of surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, chest surgery, plastic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and adolescent medicine, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, dermatology, as well as centers for oncology, cardiovascular medicine, gastroenterology, hepatology, rehabilitation, the treatment of thyroid disorders, dentistry, an Emergency Medical Center, a Health Promotion Center, and a 24-Hours Stroke Center. An International Healthcare Center, established in 2012, cater to patients who speak several languages different from Korean. Two other hospitals, Dongducheon Jesaeng Hospital (1,500 beds) and Goseong Jesaeng Hospital (500) are currently being constructed.

Just as other activities of Daesoon Jinrihoe, health care is going through a process of globalization. In August 2015, the International Medical Volunteer Corps was launched, to offer medical services to ethnic Koreans and others living in poor conditions in Kyrgyzstan.

Park Wudang taught members of Daesoon Jinrihoe to “[…] do your best to give love and hope to people neglected from society, by helping them to rehabilitate and begin new lives on their own” (AADDJ 2017, 75). He founded the Daesoon Men’s Association and the Daesoon Women’s Association in 1981, both having within their respective mandates to assist the needy, the disabled, the orphans, and to offer relief to the victims of the floods, which are frequent and ruinous in Korea.

Not unlike education and health care, Daesoon Jinrihoe’s charity is being globalized as well. Humanitarian aid started being brought to Kenya and Ethiopia in 2009. Daejin International Volunteers Association (DIVA) was founded in 2013. Originally, it operated in Korea by delivering food and medicines to the elderly’s homes, and helping them with home repairs. Soon, DIVA started operating in Mongolia and Vietnam as well, to the benefit of both the elderly and disadvantaged children. DIVA’s activities in Vietnam include assistance to Vietnamese medical practitioners to improve their services, health care education classes, first aid education, cultural exchanges, scholarships offered to Vietnamese students from low-income families, and a Korean Language Center at Hanoi Nguyen Trai University. In 2019, Bundang Jesaeng Hospital established a sistership with Vietnam’s Hanoi Tumor Hospital, and in the same year the authorization allowing DIVA to operate in Vietnam was renewed for another three years.

The activities abroad do not mean that DIVA stopped taking care of the poor in its core area of the Gyeonggi Province. Free meals are provided to needy families in Yeoju and Pocheon City, together with clothing, coal and other supplies for heating, medicines, and school supplies for the children. DIVA volunteers, when visiting the poor and the elderly, also check on their health and fitness, and refer them to public health officials when needed. DIVA also supports festivals promoting the local culture.

Daesoon Jinrihoe is proud to report that DIVA was selected as one of the outstanding volunteering organizations of 2014 in Gyeonggi Province. It was also chosen as a Designated Donation Body by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance in 2015. Next year, it was registered as an NGO with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (AADDJ 2017, 77).

Tzu Chi, founded by the female Buddhist master Cheng Yen, is currently one of the largest Buddhist charities in the world (Yao 2012). It is well-known in Taiwan and beyond for its recycling activities, which are both ecological (for example, Tzu Chi recycles millions of plastic bottles every year) and charitable, because the recycled products, everything from clothing to shoes to furniture, are either distributed to the poor or sold to benefit them. As of 2016, Tzu Chi operated 548 main recycling stations and 10,204 “recycling points” in 16 different nations (Tzu Chi 2017, 110). Tzu Chi also operates two hospitals and a university.

The story of how Tzu Chi was born is particularly interesting. Master Cheng Yen sees as its foundational event her meeting in the mid-1960s, when she had just been ordained as a Buddhist nun, with three Catholic nuns from an order called the Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres. Reportedly, the nuns tried to convert Master Cheng Yen to Catholicism. They eventually gave up, but the Buddhist nun was impressed by the usual missionary argument, that

There was a reason why Master Cheng Yen was receptive to this argument. She was already a somewhat anomalous Buddhist nun, and had experienced some trouble being ordained, because she found traditional Taiwanese nuns were fixed in “traditional female roles,” while she wanted both to be a nun and to engage in an active life “to serve the needs of a wider population” (Yao 2012, 60). She “became convinced that Buddhists should perform charitable acts just like Catholics” (Yao 2012, 66), which eventually led to the foundation of Tzu Chi.

Master Cheng Yen proposes a radical approach to Buddhism, which is critical of Soka Gakkai (discussed in the next sub-paragraph) and other groups in the Lotus Sutra tradition, to which Tzu Chi is sometimes compared by scholars. They do engage in social activities, but also teach the importance of chanting and reciting sutras. Master Cheng Yen disagrees, and claims that,

For Tzu Chi, traditional Buddhist practices such as temple worship, prayer, and chanting are not important, while the key to Buddhism is altruism and good deeds:

Master Cheng Yen teaches a way of salvation she calls xing jing, “acting according to Buddhist teachings,” which in Christian terms one could see as similar to the Catholic “salvation through works” as opposed to the Protestant sola fides, the salvation through faith only. Giving alms and serving as volunteers in hospitals and recycling activities is the basis of altruism, and altruism according to Tzu Chi is the core teaching of Buddhism.

This is not to say that self-cultivation is not important in Tzu Chi, but it is seen in moral rather than religious terms. The Ten Precepts of Tzu Chi indicate what one should not do and forbid

While the Ten Precepts include a conventional Taiwanese morality and express Tzu Chi’s support for Taiwan government’s campaigns, including those against chewing betel nut, dangerous driving, and compulsive gambling, they also try to prevent members from wasting money that can be better employed to support the movement’s charitable activities.

Yet, Tzu Chi is by no means a purely secular organization. Some see Tzu Chi mostly as just a pro-ecology and charitable group, but Taiwanese scholar Yao Yu-Shuang has described it as a full-fledged new religious movement. While casual visitors may be mostly told about the social work, Tzu Chi defines its activity as “putting the Buddha’s teaching into action,” although adding that its charitable activities do not serve any proselytization purpose (Tzu Chi 2017, 124–125). Yao found that those who devote their lives to Tzu Chi regard Master Cheng Yen as “the embodiment of Guan Yin” (Yao 2012, 164) and regard her interpretation of Buddhism as normative.

Soka Gakkai is believed to be the largest Buddhist movement in the world, with some twelve million members worldwide (McLaughlin 2019). It has been successful in several Western countries, particularly in Italy, where it had in 2019 more than 90,000 members (Introvigne 2019). Soka Gakkai was born in Japan in 1930, and its two founders, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944) and Josei Toda (1900–1958), experienced the tragedy of World War II. Because of their pacifist attitude and opposition to Japanese militarism, they were arrested, and Makiguchi died in jail. Like most Japanese, Toda went through the deep trauma of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When, from the teaching of the Lotus Sutra in the tradition of the Japanese monk Nichiren Daishonin (1222–1282), Soka Gakkai expanded its scope to social activism, not surprisingly Toda’s first campaign was for nuclear disarmament, a theme that has remained crucial for the movement to this day (Šorytė 2019).

Based on personally lived tragic events and the deep Buddhist perception of the world, already since 1957, his second leader President Toda, who died in 1958, had started an active anti-nuclear campaign. The same year, he issued his first declaration calling for the total abolition of nuclear weapons, grounded in his convictions as a Buddhist. When, in 1958, Daisaku Ikeda succeeded Toda as President of Soka Gakkai, the fact that the fight against atomic weapons was not humanitarian or secular only, but was grounded on Buddhist values, became even more clear.

The same year 1958, Ikeda had published a text called “A Way Out of the Burning House,” based on a Buddhist parable, and very interesting for understanding the basis of Soka Gakkai’s social activism. The “burning house” was our world, threatened by “unprecedented dangers.” Ikeda found the “way out” in the Buddhist text that is at the very center of Soka Gakkai’s religious experience, the Lotus Sutra.

According to that parable, a wealthy man’s house suddenly catches fire but, because the house is very spacious, his children who are inside remain unaware of the danger in which they are placed and show neither surprise nor fear. The father then finds ways to entice them to come out of their own accord, thus enabling all to exit the burning house unharmed (Ikeda 2019, 4).

Coming out of the burning house, here, involves something more than a mundane strategy. The children trapped into the burning house need a conversion of the heart, which goes beyond politics and is rooted in spirituality. Soka Gakkai Buddhists believe in the possibility of an inner transformation of individuals. We can change ourselves not only by ceasing hostile acts, but orienting our existence toward saving lives, thus transforming our societies at their core.

In 1996, Ikeda founded the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research. Since 1983, on January 26, including in 2020, in commemoration of the creation of Soka Gakkai, Ikeda wrote every year a Peace Proposal to the United Nations. 2020 was a significant year, as Soka Gakkai celebrated the 90^th anniversary of its founding and the 45^th anniversary of the establishment of Soka Gakkai International, and of course the 75^th anniversary of the end of World War II. In his 2020 message, Ikeda discussed the situation of multilateral treaties for nuclear disarmament, noting both stalemates between United States and Russia, and signs of hope (Ikeda 2020).

Ikeda’s Peace Proposals demonstrate a very good understanding of the political dynamics of the world and the United Nations as a universal organization per se. This was confirmed when, in 2006, Ikeda wrote a detailed proposal for a reform of the United Nations. He wrote it cautiously, trying not to challenge directly the members of the Security Council. However, the text makes it clear that without a deep reform of how the United Nations work, its noble humanitarian aims cannot be achieved.

The 2006 proposal for United Nations reform should be read together with what is perhaps the most important text by Ikeda on Soka Gakkai’s core theme of nuclear disarmament, the 2009 five-point plant for nuclear abolition. In this text, Ikeda went back to the very roots of Soka Gakkai, remembering that,

The world is of course not close to global nuclear disarmament and peace, although Soka Gakkai’s efforts did result in some international documents and recognition. Yet, Ikeda’s vision is based on a humanistic Buddhism, teaching devotees never to lose hope. In his 2019 and 2020 Peace Proposals, Ikeda places nuclear disarmament within a larger framework based on “people-centered multilateralism,” going beyond the concept of national security, a “global compact on refugees,” and efforts to fight climate change. There is a clear sense that the campaign for disarmament cannot be disassociated from a wider global effort for peace, solidarity, ecology, and justice. Ikeda invites to “cultivate a mutual recognition of this pathology [of ‘peacelessness’] and join in search of a cure. In other words, we must develop a common vision for a peaceful society” (Ikeda 2019, 6).

Ultimately, Soka Gakkai invites us not to lose hope:

Once again, this effort is grounded on Buddhism.

Conversely,

In his 2020 message, Ikeda also discussed the U.N. role on global natural disasters, and urged member states to “take joint and constructive action rather than just communicating a shared sense of crisis.” These look like prophetic words in view of the global coronavirus crisis, that hit the world days after the 2020 message was published.

Even in this case, this project was based on Buddhism, and on the Buddha’s teachings that what causes evil is arrogance. The way out of evil is to experience the suffering of others as our own. This is, Ikeda wrote, “the essential spirit of Buddhism.” Ikeda is of course aware that in the international situation one can find ample cause for pessimism. He, however, mentions the example of Nichiren Daishonin, the originator of the Buddhist tradition to which Soka Gakkai belongs, when confronted with a deep national crisis in Japan in 1260.

Tzu Chi and Soka Gakkai are private organization. Bhutan is a sovereign state, whose king Jigme Singye Wangchuck (born in 1955 and still alive, although he abdicated in 2006 in favor of his eldest son) coined in 1972 the expression “Gross National Happiness,” stating that this was more important for his country than the Gross National Product.

He did more than launch a slogan, as he created a Gross National Happiness Commission that oversees several institutions throughout Bhutan. He also enlisted the help of the University of Oxford to promote the idea of Gross National Happiness internationally, particularly through the United Nations (Schroeder 2018).

Controversy followed. For some, Gross National Happiness is simply political propaganda. They point out in particular the problems Bhutan has had with its non-Buddhist minority of ethnic Nepalese in the South of the country, where the conflict of the 1990s generated more than 100,000 refugees, who either fled Bhutan or were forced out of it. Others believe that the policy has indeed achieved results, which by definition cannot be measured in economic terms, yet can sometimes be assessed objectively. For example, Bhutan has rapidly improved its education system and has been recognized as one of the eco-friendliest countries in the world. It also takes great care in controlling tourism, so that it can develop in a way respectful of both ecology and traditional cultural values.

The reason I mention here Gross National Happiness is that Bhutan is an officially Buddhist state and, as Canadian scholar Kent Schroeder emphasized in 2018 in one of the few Western books on the topic, the policy cannot be understood separately from Bhutanese Buddhism.

How is this implemented in practice? On the one hand, Buddhism teaches to the Bhutanese a Middle Way path, where happiness lies in moderation and in being satisfied with a modest, yet harmonious life (Rinzin 2006). On the other hand, the institutions set up by the government are supposed to be continuously tested against Buddhist principles. They are not asked to create happiness, as Buddhism posits that only individuals can create happiness for themselves. In Schroeder’s words,

Ultimately, Bhutanese Buddhism teaches, nobody can really make another person happy. Happiness comes from inside, not from the outside. However, an appropriate context outside can create conditions where happiness can be cultivated inside.

Tzu Chi, Soka Gakkai, and the Bhutanese project of Gross National Happiness all belong to the category of humanistic or activist Buddhism. Soka Gakkai and Bhutanese Buddhism (Kumagai 2014), different as they are, give more importance to rituals such as chanting, prayer, and worship, while Tzu Chi is more radical in prioritizing social work. However, Soka Gakkai and the Bhutanese project for happiness give great importance to the principle of “Buddhism in action” in their social activities, and Tzu Chi, when examined more closely, appears to be a Buddhist new religious movement and not simply a charitable institution.

Both Soka Gakkai and the authorities presiding over the Gross National Happiness project in Bhutan regard interaction with the United Nations as important, with Ikeda directly addressing the internal problems of the U.N. and Bhutan trying to promote its project as a model through U.N. events. Tzu Chi also sought and achieved, in 2010, special consultative status at the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (Taiwan Today 2010), a recognition Soka Gakkai International had obtained in 1983 (Soka Gakkai International 2010).

Soka Gakkai, whose leaders are at the origin of a political party, Komeito, currently part of the governing coalition in Japan, is more directly involved in politics than Tzu Chi, which however tend to support some governmental campaigns in Taiwan. Despite these differences, all these three projects have in common the core idea that Buddhism need to actively engage with the world’s current problems and that to be a good Buddhist, meditation and chanting are not sufficient, but one needs to show compassion in practice, by working for the poor, ecology, and world peace.