Countercurrents from the West: “blue-eyed” Zen masters, Vipassanā meditation, and Buddhist psychotherapy in contemporary Korea.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion. American Academy of Religion January 1, 2011 Ryan Bongseok Joo
Between 1989 and 2009, South Korean Buddhism was reshaped by a wave of American and European Buddhist influences, including well-educated Western monastic residents featured in Korean media and translated bestsellers by authors like Thich Nhat Hanh and Jack Kornfield. This transnational exchange sparked a sudden growth of interest in vipassanā meditation as an alternative to traditional Kanhwa Sŏn practice and led to the emergence of Buddhist psychotherapy as an academic field. The influence changed how Koreans practice Buddhism, perceive their own history and identities, and provided a new rhetorical strategy to defend Buddhism against Korean evangelical Christianity by leveraging the perceived prestige of Buddhism in the West.