Choe Je-u, who used the pen name Su-un (18 December 1824 – 15 April 1864), was the founder of Donghak, a Korean religious movement which was empathetic to the hardships of the minjung (the marginalized people of Korea), opposed Catholicism and its association with western imperialism and offered an alternative to orthodox Neo-Confucianism.
He combined Korean shamanism, Daoism, Buddhism and spiritual Neo-Confucianism in an “original school of thought” that valued rebellion and anti-government thought until 1864. He did not have a concrete nationalistic or anti-feudal agenda, rather: “His vision was religious, and his mission was to remind his countrymen that strength lay in reviving traditional values.” Nevertheless, Joseon authorities confused his teachings with Catholicism; and he was executed in 1864 for allegedly preaching heretical and dangerous teachings.
His birth-name was Choe Je-seon ("save and proclaim"). During his childhood, he was also called Bok-sul ("blissfully happy"). He took the name Je-u ("saviour of the ignorant") in 1859. His disciples called him Su-un ("water cloud"), which was the name he used for his writings, and also called him Daesinsa, the great teacher. His pen name Su-un is used hereafter.
Life
Su-un was born into an aristocratic (yangban) family on 18 December 1824 (the 28th day of the 10th month) at Kajong-ni, a village near Gyeongju, the ex-capital of Silla and now a city in the south-eastern province of Gyeongsang.
Silla which was the first unified dynasty on the peninsula and had a strong scholarly and Buddhist tradition. One of his ancestors was a famous scholar who had served in the Tang emperor court of China and had returned Silla. One of his contemporaries called him the "Confucius of Korea. In addition, he was considered the founder of Daoism on the peninsula.
His father Choe Ok was a scholar who had failed to obtain a post in the government, his clan not being in favor with those then in power. He had reached the age of sixty and had been married and widowed twice without gaining a son. He adopted a nephew in order to preserve his own line before marrying a widow named Han. Su-un was the result of this final union, but he was considered illegitimate in the Neo-Confucian system: the children of a widow who had remarried occupied a low position in the social hierarchy and could not, for example, take the civil examinations necessary to become a bureaucrat. Despite this he received a good education. However, Choe Ok certainly provided his son with a strong education, in Neo-Confucianism and perhaps other doctrinal traditions such as Daoism.
His mother died when he was six years old, and his father when he was sixteen. He married in his teens to Madam Park of Ulsan. He led an itinerant life before finally settling with his family in Ulsan in 1854. Although educated in Confucianism, he partook of Buddhist practices, rituals, and beliefs, including interacting with monks, visiting temples, and abstaining from meat. In 1856, he began a 49-day retreat in the Buddhist monastery of Naewon-sa, but had to leave on the 47th day to attend the funeral of his uncle. The next year he managed to complete the 49 days at Cheok-myeol Caves, but did not find the experience spiritually fulfilling.
In 1858 he lost his house and all effects in bankruptcy, and he returned with his family to the paternal household in 1859. While there, he spent his time in prayer and meditation. The discrimination and economic hardships he faced seemed to serve as stimulation for his "revolutionary" ideas. He later wrote that he lamented the "sickness in society since the age of ten, so much so that he felt that he was living in a "dark age". Su-un felt he was called to address the root cause of the "dark age" which he considered to be inner spiritual depletion and social corruption. He considered the enormous western imperial power was due to a combination of military and spiritual power. It seemed that Korean spiritual traditions, Confucianism in particular, had lost their power. In fact, Confucianism was a tool of the upper classes to maintain the status quo.
According to his own account, he was greatly concerned by the public disorder in Korea, the encroachments of Christianity, and the domination of East Asia by Western powers, which seemed to indicate that divine favor had passed into the hands of foreigners: