Teaching Buddhism through Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. Ethics, Impermanence, and Monastic Practice in Korean Cinema

This open-access teaching guide shows how Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring (2003), directed by Kim Ki-duk, can be used to teach Buddhist ethics, impermanence, and monastic practice in undergraduate and graduate courses. Designed for classes in Buddhism, religion and film, Korean religions, and Buddhist ethics, the guide emphasizes seasonal structure, visual symbolism, embodied discipline, and karmic consequence rather than doctrinal exposition. The guide is intended for classroom adoption and instructional reuse, offering scene-based discussion prompts, learning goals, and teaching strategies that help students engage Buddhist moral formation through cinematic form. This resource supplements: Ronald S. Green and Chanju Mun, “Representing Buddhism through Mise-en-scène, Diegesis, and Mimesis: Kim Ki-duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring,” International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture (2019), DOI: https://doi.org/10.16893/IJBTC.2019.06.29.1.177