 The new dynasty of Chosŏn, which emerged after toppling the Buddhist Koryŏ dynasty, was strongly supported by the leading Confucian literati of the time. As I mentioned above, Chŏng Tojŏn in his Array of Critiques against Buddhism (Pulssi chapbyŏn 佛氏雜辨, 1398) launched the most extensive criticisms against Buddhism. But his contribution was not confined to a purely negative polemic. He was also an ideological architect of Neo-Confucian worldview with a full commitment to the order of universal principle in the world dominated by the ki force. But it should be mentioned that Chŏng’s diatribe against Buddhism did not go unanswered and was impressively answered by his Buddhist contemporary Kihwa in the Exposition of Orthodoxy (Hyŏnchŏng non 顯正論) where the latter offers alternative, Buddhist interpretations of the project of self-cultivation. Kihwa shows that the question of how most appropriately to cultivate one’s life can be safely answered from a Buddhist perspective in the context of issues of the reproduction of ethical life and established forms of social relationships, the moral psychology of the emotions, and questions of the meaning of suffering and evil. In other words, one can be a Buddhist without forsaking the moral value of benevolence or for that matter filial piety. His response shows a remarkably syncretic, inter-cultural, and ecumenical solution to the abstract problem raised by Chŏng. Buddhism is not nihilism.