유마경과 정토, 그리고 현대불교

Abstract

This dissertation, based on the idea of the Pure Land presented in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra, analyzes the stream of modern Buddhism. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra, which belongs to the scriptures of early Mahāyāna Buddhism, can be called a comprehensive scripture in which the overall teachings of Mahāyāna thought were dissolved. Particularly, various Pure Land thoughts which cannot be found in primitive Buddhism are developed within it. This point can be an important guideline in modern Buddhism which advocates the salvation of society. Accordingly, while this study sees that the Pure Land thought in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra gave a motivating power in the socialization of Buddhism during the Mahāyāna Buddhism movement, it examines the stream of modern Buddhism from the three perspectives of the Pure Land of only-mind, the purification of the Buddha land, and Pure Land in other regions. First, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra is about an only-mind Pure Land and the enlightenment of society. In the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra, the act of deliverance to see the world of sentient beings as the Buddha land of bodhisattvas can be described as a socialization of enlightenment. The engagement in society and history can be told as a process of practice. In modern times, Han Yong-un, Paek Yong-seong, Park Jung-bin and SeonoGiro, by taking as the foundation the jewel of the Buddha who realized enlightenment, transformed society through Buddhism. Their reformation of Buddhism may be the socialization of the jewel of the Buddha, and was to develop a movement that human beings, the principal agent who realize the jewel of the Buddha, revolutionize societies. Second, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra is about the purification of the Buddha land and Buddhism’s engagement in society. The ‘non-dual instruction’ as the core idea of the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra suggests the duty to purify society by the buddhadharma. It elucidates the point that the religious ethics which is accompanied by practice transcends general ethics, and its goal is the realization of happiness through out all of society. Such points are directly connected with the movement of Engaged Buddhism, which shows up in modern Asia and is reforming societies by interpreting the jewel of the dharma as doctrine from the perspective of modernization. Third, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra is about the relation between the Buddha land in other regions and the socialization of the Saṃgha. The idea of the Pure Land in other regions, which suggests the possibility to achieve the Buddhist path by all sentient beings, is the Pure Land which ideal societies reflected on collectively, and also is the socially realized body of the Saṃgha as a harmonious order. Vimalakīrtinirdeśa in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra is a bodhisattva who came from the Land of the Akṣobhya-Buddha and whose role is to realize oriental Pure Land which is the marvelous joy land where non-movement, non-duality and compassion are equal. The ultimate goal of the Saṃgha is to make this world a Pure Land and it is a community in which the buddhadharmas are realized. Thus, the three ideas about the Pure Land constituted in the spirit of reforming Buddhism to realize the Pure Land through interpreting the three jewels of the Buddha, dharma, and Saṃghacan be applied to a modern perspective.