The purpose of this study was to understand To-Jung Lee(李土亭), Ji-Hham’(之?)s spirit of desire-suppressing by connecting it with a variety of legends where the spirit was manifested. Including the spirit of desire-suppressing, he emphasized and also practiced several ideas and theories in his life. Among them, specially, he created a theory of desire-suppressing. Also, responding to the theory, unique legends have been left behind his theory, which allowed investigating the connection between them further in this study.
To-Jung had been known for his desire-suppressing disposition since his early childhood. In specific, what he had practiced in his life was featured in many different areas such as suppressing his selfish interests and desires, devoting himself to charities, helping his disciples, and carrying out his duty as a governor. As this was admitted by his close friends, he was deeply respected by his disciples.
In addition, the clue of a theory of desire-suppressing To-Jung held was basically based on Menciu(孟子)s’ one. To-Jung’s theory was, however, even more thorough than Mencius’ one as it was often called ‘a theory of no-selfish-interests-and-desire’. In fact, his theory emphasized faithfulness and infinity inside, while infinity of practice on the external surface, which made his theory very unique and special.
The characters expressed in the legends were featured as two distinctive images. The first character was a governor lecturing his subordinates and the second was a person on whom one’s family background was reflected. In specific, the former was connected with specific geographical region, with more features which could be found in local legends, while the latter occurred from the reflection of To-Jung’s and A-Gye Lee(李鵝溪), San-Hae(山海)’s family background, with more features on the character and its family background. Regardless of the types of the two, either type focused on person or one focused on family, it was common that they were based on To-Jung’s specific behavior and his experience.
Other than most of other legends about To-Jung’s spirit of desire-suppressing, there was a different version saying that he had one desire, whose figurational expression was able to be made because his desire was far from no-desire as a perfect altruism. For example, his filial behavior of building a tomb in a propitious site for his parents can be a reflection resulting from the general public’s point of view, regarding the behavior as far from perfect filing behavior without realizing it purposely.