A scene from the SBS variety show ‘The Monk and the Guest’.
Remarks by Venerable Beopryun about children living in poverty in India are prompting a range of opinions among viewers.
In the series premiere on the 19th, the SBS variety show ‘Beopryun Road: The Monk and the Guest(The Monk and the Guest)’ showed Noh Hong-cheol, Lee Sang-yoon, Lee Joo-bin, and Lee Ki-taek, who had been invited by Venerable Beopryun, traveling to Kolkata, India.
They arrived in Kolkata at dawn. Homeless people were sleeping across the streets, and the cast came upon a scene where a five-star hotel and an impoverished neighborhood stood across a single alley from each other. The stark contrast in ways of life left the cast deeply shaken.
A scene from the SBS variety show ‘The Monk and the Guest’.
The next day, while checking out street food, the cast encountered a girl who was begging. When she reached out her hand, nearby vendors stopped her, and Venerable Beopryun also gestured for her not to come closer.
Afterward, once on the bus, Noh Hong-cheol expressed puzzlement, saying, “A little kid came over and held out her hand, but people were saying ‘No, do not’,” and Lee Joo-bin also said, “I wanted to give her something, but when the monk stopped us, she did not come. Looking into her eyes, I did not know what to do,” opening up about her mixed feelings.
A scene from the SBS variety show ‘The Monk and the Guest’.
In response, Venerable Beopryun said, “It is hard to watch. At first, I agonized a lot, sometimes giving and sometimes not,” while adding, “If you go to rural India, no matter how poor they are, there are no children holding out their hands. I came to realize that people do not become beggars because they are poor, but because others give.”
He went on to explain that handing over money out of a momentary sense of pity can instead teach children to adopt begging as a means of survival.
Hearing this, Lee Joo-bin also said, “For that child, asking could be a way to survive or simply a habit, but I think I only saw her as pitiable,” and confessed, “I wondered whether compassion and pity, in the end, might be for my own satisfaction.”
After the broadcast, viewers were divided. Some online users questioned, “Isn’t pity also part of the human heart?”, “Could a small bit of help let a whole family get by?”, “Buddhism has an alms-round tradition, so I do not understand,” and “Compassion is a Buddhist basic.”
By contrast, there were also reactions agreeing with the point Venerable Beopryun intended, such as, “When you travel in Southeast Asia, people often say not to give money to children who beg. If children earn money by begging, a vicious cycle arises in which parents do not send them to school,” and “It seems to mean that structural support matters more than short-term sympathy.”
Meanwhile, the SBS variety show ‘Beopryun Road: The Monk and the Guest’ airs every Tuesday at 9 p.m.
