Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

The emergency of Buddhism as a philosophy in modern Korea was an event that tried to align ancient Buddhist teaching with European enlightenment ideas on human rights. The Buddhist philosophy of that time predicated on the Western metaphysics and the German idealism. It accepted the metaphysical formula of appearance and reality, and understood the deployment of Buddhist doctrine as a development in idealist teaching. The theoretical background of this tendency was the Japanese idealism that began to emerge in Meiji, Japan. Among them, Inoue Enryō’s influence was especially noteworthy. He imagined a system of absolute idealism that overcame the binary opposition between matter and spirit. He considered the notion of ’suchness’ as an immaterial, absolute entity. It was both the base and the abyss of differential beings. Inoue tried to provide a philosophical explanation of the Japanese emperor or the state through this system. The Buddhist philosophy of colonial Korea also accepted the theory of the ’dependent arising of suchness;’ that is, the absolute in its causative or relative condition, from thereupon moved in an extremely political direction.