Personal Patterns of Enlightenment: the chant styles of Buddhist Monks in South Korea

The Jogye Order is the biggest Buddhist sect in South Korea today, administering over 1700 temples spread across the country. In every temple, the daily services are delivered almost entirely through the medium of chant, led by an officiating resident monk. Rather than foster the exact same chant style, the monks tend to develop their own rather distinctive ways of chanting, characterised by certain tempi, musical modes, rhythms, ornaments, and timbres. In this talk, Professor Simon Mills (Department of Music) sheds light on the monks’ diverse personal styles and investigates how and why the monks develop their own preferred ways of chanting – drawing from an ethnographic study encompassing a wide range of temple practices and centring on the monks’ own testimonies.

Tickets are free. Please book using our Eventbrite page. 

This event is part of a project generously supported by the National Museum of Korea. 

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