Korean Culture and Sense of Shame

Korean culture was originally based on a Taoistic shamanism characterized by the mystic ecstatic experience of oneness with heaven, a symbol of the ultimate reality. The Taoistic nature of Korean shamanism is directly connected with a system of thought called ‘Sinsundo’ or ‘Pungyudo,’ a mysterious Tao, which is said to have existed since the foundation of Korea, as expressed in the old sacred texts such as Chunbugyung, Samilsingo and Chamzungegyung. This was expounded by Chi-Won Choi, the great Korean Confucian scholar of the Silla Dynasty, to be in the same line as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism (Song, 1987). Neung-Hwa Lee, a recognized ethnologist in Korea, considered Sinsundo or Pungyudo a Korean version of shamanism (N.H. Lee, 1991). Although Korean shamanism has undergone a gradual secularization throughout Korean history, Taoism has remained an underlying influence. Accordingly, Con-fucianism, Buddhism and Taoism which originated in China – whose common denominator is Tao – could all be easily accepted by and merged with Korean shamanism. Consequently, the early stage of Korean culture can be generally designated as Taoist culture.1 What then is Tao? The concept of Tao originally comes from the book Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu, a Chinese sage and philosopher.2 We are told in the opening sentence of Tao Te Ching: ‘The Tao that can be told is not the real Tao.’ This has been interpreted variously by different scholars.

 

However, whether the Tao can be translated into words and interpreted intellectually remains questionable. In the 14th chapter of his book, Lao Tzu identifies Tao as the One which is invisible, inaudible, unfathomable: ‘That which you look at but cannot see is called the Invisible. That which you listen to but cannot hear is called the Inaudible. That which you grasp but cannot hold is called the Unfathomable.’ The One which is invisible, inaudible and unfathomable, is reality itself from which all the phenomena in reality proceed. A story in the works of Chuang Tzu, a famous Chinese Taoist, illustrates the point. In Chapter 22 of his book, the Chuang Tzu: Tung Kuo Tzu asked Chuang Tzu: ‘Where is this you call Tao?’ ‘Everywhere,’ Chuang Tzu replied. ‘Where specifically?’ insisted Tung Kuo Tzu. ‘It is in the ant,’ Chuang Tzu answered. ‘How can it be so low?’ ‘It is in the earthenware Lee: Korean Culture and Sense of Shame 183 tiles.’ ‘Still worse.’ ‘It is in excrement.’ To this Tung Kuo Tzu did not respond. Chuang Tzu went on to explain, ‘your questions did not go to the heart of Tao. You must not ask for the specification of particular things in which Tao exists. There is no single thing without Tao!’

 

Accordingly, we can say that Tao is reality itself characterized by all-pervading and all-embracing nature. How can the Tao be understood then? The understanding of Tao is an inner experience in which distinction between subject and object vanishes. It is an intuitive, immediate awareness rather than a mediated, inferential or intellectual process. Tao is the ultimate reality appearing through immediate intuition, not through intellection. In the process of approaching the ultimate reality, we inevitably reach a stage which is beyond thought, where mere reasoning becomes fruitless and we can only intuitively experience it. The process is that of awakening a new consciousness. The new consciousness is always related to the disclosure of human nature, that is, the new consciousness of human nature (Z. N. Lee, 1992). What then is human nature? What is the disclosure of human nature?

 

In Buddhism, human nature is called Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is ‘emptiness,’ ‘´s¯unyat¯a’ in Sanskrit. ‘Emptiness’ does not mean nihilistic emptiness, but the complete reverse; namely, the light, as expressed in the word of enlightenment as a central concept of Buddhism which implies the illuminated or awakened state. Thus, disclosure of human nature indicates disclosure of the light, that is illumination. In illumination, reality can be immediately experienced without any medium of concepts and knowledge, namely, through ‘Taoistic understanding.’ The appearance of reality as such is just the immediate experience itself where the subject–object dichotomous relation is transcended, that is, the illuminating light as human nature and the illuminated as reality are totally congruent. As a Zen-master puts it poetically:‘when I draw water, the moon is in my hand; when I pluck a flower, my garments are of full fragrance.’ Hereby, he would like to say: when he draws water, he becomes water and reflects the moon, and when plucking a flower, he becomes the flower and is of full fragrance. This state is called ‘subject–subject oneness’ in contrast with subject–object dichotomy. In a similar meaning and context, human nature is perceived in Confucianism as illuminating virtue and in Taoism as ‘nothing’ as in ‘doing nothing,’ which is identical with ‘emptiness’ in Buddhism (Z. N. Lee, 1992).

 

This new consciousness of human nature is called ‘Yang-Sim’ in Korean, which literally indicates ‘bright mind’, connoting the light. Yang-Sim is, in my view,similar to the original meaning of ‘conscience’ in English and that of ‘Gewissen’ in German. The word ‘conscience’ consists of con and science. The prefix con, derived from Latin, signifies the whole and scienceis systematized knowledge in general. So, conscience etymologically indicates the Transcultural Psychiatry 36(2) 184 totality of knowledge. In a similar vein, the German word Gewissen is composed of ge and wissen. The prefix ge implies union or integration and wissen is knowledge. Thus, etymologically Gewissen denotes integrated or united knowledge. What does whole or integrated knowledge mean? It means knowledge as a whole obtained by disclosing human nature, which is closely related to self-realization. Knowledge of human nature here is construed as the sense of luminousness in eastern thought, the openness of Dasein in Heidegger’s daseinsanalysis, or the consciousness of self in Jung’s analytical psychology. Accordingly, such knowledge is quite different from intellectual knowledge rooted in the conscious ego. It is a higher and deeper form of knowledge. However, conscience or Gewissen in a real sense is distinct from the so-called moral conscience that everyday life demands of us as obligation. Real conscience is not identical with conscience or Gewissen in a worldly sense, which calls for following, for instance, the same path as one’s father or other exemplary figures. Such an earthly conscience or Gewissen does not correspond to self-determination, but to extraneously affected determination.

 

The phenomenon of shame in Taoist culture is comprehensible from this viewpoint of the real sense of conscience or Gewissen. That is to say, the sense of shame basically emerges from consciousness of the failure to fulfill self-realization. Perfect realization of oneself is unimaginable. Therefore, man is destined to feel shame until the end of his life. Such a fundamental shame is intimately interrelated with the guilty feeling intrinsic to human beings. The real sense of conscience, for instance, in daseinsanalysis is regarded as closely connected with the ontological sense of guilt, which is neither something accidental to man, nor an attribute of man, but is innately endowed. According to Heidegger (1976), the human being as Dasein is guiltily existent, which makes it an ontological condition that he is fundamentally guilty in his nature. This intrinsic guilt is originally the ontological condition of the morally good and bad, and of morality in general. The real sense of shame and its associated guilt are closely linked to the revelation of human nature as a bright light, a

 

Taoist concept. It has to do with the introverted attitude of Taoist culture which is subject oriented, in contrast with the extroverted attitude which is object oriented. In short, the sense of shame in Taoist culture is a reaction to the real sense of conscience, which is indispensable for the self-realization of man. In other words, Taoist shame comes from a comparison of the self to the ideal embodied in the purity of light as human nature. However, Koreans have developed a face-saving culture, which is contrasted with the Taoist culture in terms of human attitude and value. The conflicting cultures should have complemented each other. Instead, Lee: Korean Culture and Sense of Shame 185 Taoist culture has been repressed and used to support the face-saving culture.