The Venerable Myeongjin, former abbot of Bongeunsa Temple, who died suddenly in Seogwipo on Jeju Island on the 22nd, will be laid to rest in a joint religious and civic funeral service as mourners continue to pay their respects.
According to the administrative headquarters of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism and funeral officials, the body, currently held at Seogwipo Medical Center, was transferred on the 23rd to Bongeunsa Temple in Seoul's Gangnam district. The remains showed no signs of external injury and no indication of foul play, so no autopsy will be conducted, sources said.
A wake was set up at the Seonbuldang hall of Bongeunsa Temple, where the monk served as abbot from 2006 to 2010. Mourners began arriving from the afternoon of the 23rd to grieve his passing.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on the 25th, and a cremation ceremony will take place at Beopjusa Temple, the head temple of the Jogye Order's fifth district, where the monk was ordained.
A funeral committee is to be formed shortly, centered on religious circles and civic groups. Given the monk's broad activities inside and outside the religious community during his lifetime, the committee is expected to include figures from other faiths, the arts and cultural sector, and political circles.
The monk was rescued the previous morning at 9:38 a.m. while floating in waters near Haye Port in Haye-dong, Seogwipo, on Jeju Island, and was taken to a hospital, but was pronounced dead at around 10:28 a.m.
The monk had been training in freediving on Jeju Island for several years and was wearing equipment including a mask, snorkel, diving suit and fins at the time of the rescue. However, Yu Byung-moon, a lay disciple of the monk who handled the response to the accident the previous day, said, "Given that he was found near the shore, it seems he was not diving in deep water but suffered cardiac arrest while swimming in the sea."
Immediately after news of Ven. Myeongjin's passing spread, messages of condolence followed from Buddhist circles, the political world and civil society.
On the 22nd, President Lee Jae-myung expressed his condolences through social media, saying, "I share with all citizens the sorrow of bidding farewell to a great elder of Korea's Buddhist community."
The Baek Ki-wan Nonamegi Foundation, of which the late monk served as co-chair of its supporters' association, described their ties, saying, "He had a special relationship with the late Baek Ki-wan dating back to the democratization movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and after his ouster from the Jogye Order, Baek Ki-wan led a gathering of elders to help restore the monk's standing." The foundation also conveyed that Ven. Myeongjin had, until recently, shared its commitment to protecting the socially vulnerable and resolving issues facing non-regular workers — temporary and contract workers — and industrial accidents, honoring him for "his unwavering path toward social justice."
Ven. Geumgang, chair of the Jogye Order's Seon meditation committee and a close associate of the deceased, expressed his condolences through social media, saying, "He had spoken of 20 meters in the sea without oxygen, and in the end he passed away in the sea."
Meanwhile, the monk, born in 1950 in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, was ordained in 1969 at Baengnyeonam hermitage at Haeinsa Temple and received the novice precepts in 1974 under the teacher Ven. Tanseong. He led reform of the Jogye Order in 1994 and served as a member of the 11th Central Council of the Jogye Order and as vice chair of the order's Central Council from 1998 to 2002.
After serving as abbot of Bongeunsa Temple in Seoul from 2006 to 2010, the monk continued to criticize the leadership of the order's administrative headquarters through interviews and Dharma assemblies, amid conflict with the headquarters over matters such as converting Bongeunsa into a directly managed temple. He was stripped of his clerical status in 2017.
He subsequently won both the first and second trials in a lawsuit he filed to nullify the disciplinary action, and the matter was concluded early this year when the Jogye Order and Ven. Myeongjin agreed not to appeal to the Supreme Court. His clerical status was restored.
Recently, as factional strife and disclosures over past disputes intensified ahead of the election for the 38th chief executive of the order's administrative headquarters, the monk pointed to fundamental flaws in the current election system and called for a shift to a nomination-based process.
