“Let’s Propagate the Dharma”: A Critical Survey of the Activities of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism’s Seventh Dharma Propagation Bureau

Abstract

The Jogye Order has been facing a deepening crisis since the turn of the millennium. The rapid decline in membership had been compounded by a growing loss of confidence in the order’s monastic leadership following a succession of scandals in the 1990s and 2010s involving sectarian infighting and high-level corruption. While the practice of “Dharma propagation” (pogyo) has been critical to Korean Buddhism’s revival over the twentieth century, the Jogye Order’s steadily worsening membership crisis has revitalized institutional interest in Dharma propagation. With the independent establishment of its “Dharma Propagation Bureau” (Pogyowon) in 1994, the order has steadily increased its financial and practical support of a diversity of propagation efforts as, over recent decades, the order knows that its long-term survival might very well depend on these efforts’ success. Given the crucial nature of the Jogye Order’s current propagation efforts, this article will conduct a critical examination of the recent history of the JO’s Dharma Propagation Bureau, with a particular focus on the Bureau’s activities under its seventh director, Ven. Jihong (in office 2016 through 2021).