Myungwon(Myungwon Kim Mi-Hee, 1920-1981, called Myungwon after this) is considered as a master for tea who overcame periodical hardships in Korea from 1950s to 1970s and built a social foundation to develop Korea. She was a pioneer for Korean tea ceremony by building a cornerstone for popularization of tea culture and a feminist for extension of women's rights during her life when it was difficult for women to conduct social activities and even a social innovator who attempted to build an equal world through social welfares. She was also an activist for welfares by conducting the spirit of noblesse oblige when She was young and was on the front line for sharing.
Her spirit was expressed as restoration and distribution of Korean traditional tea ceremony with her all passion and wealth. She tried to restore Korean tea ceremony that declined during the Japanese Colonial Period.
Campaigns for restoration of Korean traditional cultures including Korean tea ceremony could be executed by Myungwon given the periodical situations. The campaign for restoration of Korean tea ceremony proved that Myungwon was passionate for escaping from cultural colony and inheriting superb cultural assets of our ancestors.
This study was designed to prove that Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony is closely related to executing social welfares and her spirit was based upon Buddhism, her religion.
Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony consisted of ancient spirits including the code of Shilla chivalry and Wonhyo spirit and latter ones including Chouiseonsa, Dasan Jeong Yak-Yong's spirit of tea ceremony and Chusa Kim Jeong-Hee's spirit of tea ceremony and fused them with Confucianism-Buddhism-Zen and arranged her own spirits of tea ceremony such as purity·thrift·neutralization·decorum.
Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony was expressed as a campaign for social welfare of Buddhism and purity was shown as mercy. Mercy was a principle to clean the world and expressed both as a Buddhist saint and as a humanism. Thrift is an action to realize mercy. Thrift is a basic spirit of tea written in 『Dagyeong』by Yukwoo and likely to be combined with mercy of Buddhism to maintain itself inside one's mind and be realized as a Buddhist saint to another's. Neutralization is a key spirit of Confucianism and also is a spiritual foundation of Myungwon's humanitarianism. It is also based upon the hypothesis that mental training is equal to physical harmony. Decorum is very important for tea ceremony. Every etiquette and manner is executed by decorum. Decorum is connected to inheritance of traditional cultures, sharing cultures and various supports of cultures. When Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony is connected to actions for social welfares, her spirit for welfares can be explained as three such as equality welfare· sharing welfare·culture welfare.
She thought that tea is equal to social welfare and both are based on mercy of Buddhism. Her Buddhism was realized by creating a mental support in Korea through tea and socializing mercy through actions for social welfare. Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony organized a stable triangle in general by maintaining both tea ceremony and social welfare with the peak of mercy of Buddhism.
In other words social welfare application of Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony was originated from mercy of Buddhism. On the application one was realized by tea ceremony and the other by actions for social welfare to build a whole big body.
Specific matters of Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony were to restore royal tea ceremony and to establish·distribute general tea ceremony. General tea ceremony contributed to popularization of tea ceremony in order to solve juvenile·family·social problems. Now we can have our pride and dignity as cultured men when we restore Myungwon's sprit of tea ceremony and settle the spirit.