In January 2000, Ven. Ilmyeon stood at death's door. He had been battling liver cirrhosis, and his doctor told him he had only two months to live. The monk gave away what he owned, including thousands of books he had collected over the years, and prepared for the end. Then he received a liver from someone whose name and face he never knew. After a 22-hour operation, he regained consciousness and, relieved to find himself still alive, pulled the blanket over his head and wept for a long time. He then resolved to repay the gift of life he had received and threw himself into the organ donation movement.
Ilmyeon, a senior council member of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism and chairman of the Life Sharing Movement Headquarters, spoke at a press conference on the 31st at the organization's office in Jongno District, Seoul, marking the publication of his memoir "Life Sharing, This Is Ilmyeon." "Thanks to the donor's grace, I have lived 26 more years. In soccer terms, I am playing extra time," he said. "I have vowed to devote what remains of my life to saving even one more life, until that extra time ends."
Because of the nature of organ donation, the identity of a donor is not disclosed as a rule. After the transplant, all the medical staff told him was that the donor had been a 22-year-old man. The monk gave the unnamed donor the name "Seonjae," meaning someone exceedingly good, and said he holds a memorial tablet for the donor and offers prayers himself on Lunar New Year, Chuseok and other holidays each year.
Since 2005 he has served as chairman of the Life Sharing Movement Headquarters, the Buddhist community's leading organ donation advocacy group. The group has covered medical costs for about 1,300 patients and has campaigned on organ donation, hematopoietic stem cell donation and suicide prevention. Ilmyeon argues that organ donation must be expanded. "In our country the organ donation rate among the brain-dead is around 5%, while in advanced countries it is said to be 37% to 40%," he said. "If a healthy person donates organs, up to nine lives can be saved."
He also described a case involving a young man that he handled after taking up the chairmanship. Ilmyeon met the parents and wife of a 32-year-old man who had been declared brain-dead after an accident. "Your son, your husband, has come to the end of his ties to this world and must leave it," he told them. "But his organs can become the organs of someone who is dying, and let a second life bloom." After hearing him, the family consented to donation, and five lives were saved.
The forms of donation he now considers most important are hematopoietic stem cell donation and cornea donation. "What matters is registering as a prospective stem cell donor while healthy, between the ages of 18 and 40, by drawing just 3 cc of blood," he said. "And even when you leave this world in old age, cornea donation can restore light to someone who has lost their sight." The Life Sharing Movement Headquarters treats about 50 children with cancer each year through stem cell transplants.
The monk is now preparing for the end of his life. He said he is drawing up a will leaving what he owns to those who need it, and that in looking back on his life he has already composed his nirvana verse, the short poem a monk leaves before death. "I came according to karmic ties, lived carelessly by the Buddha's grace, and go according to karmic ties."
Looking back on 80 years, he gave himself a stingy score of 59 out of 100. "There have been parts of my life where I only kept up appearances," he said. "I am ashamed to ask whether I have truly lived as a practitioner in my heart. So I intend to live earnestly in the time I have left, to turn that 59 into a 60."
Ilmyeon has served as abbot of Bongseonsa Temple, head of the Jogye Order's education and judicial affairs bureaus, the first head of the order's military chaplaincy diocese, and chairman of the Gwangdong Educational Foundation and Dongguk University. He was named to the Jogye Order's senior council in 2018, rose to daejongsa, the order's highest clerical rank, in 2019, and has served as vice chairman of the senior council since 2022.
