I’ll be giving a series of (English) Dharma talks about Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s translation of the Thousand Hands Sutra here in Anyang, every Thursday, starting next week, so stop by if you’re in the Seoul area. They run 7:30pm- 8:30(ish), and if you don’t know how to get here, send me a message. The talks will run for 12 weeks, until the Buddha’s Birthday in May. I am going to try to post each week’s text here, as well as a link to the audio recording. (cross your fingers!)
— Every week I’ve been messaging people with a verse from the sutra. Here’s this weeks verse; try to recite it out loud a few times, as well as write it out. You will feel it deep within you! —
The minds of all Buddhas are my one mind, so I ask my one mind
to take care of everything in my life
Avalokitesvara,
the Bodhisattva of Compassion,
who hears the cries of all the world,
resides within my one mind.
How can I express my gratitude?
The great saving power of all Buddhas
becomes the saving power of my one mind.
With it I can live every day free of entanglements.
So wonderful!
The compassionate hands of all Buddhas
are the hands of my one mind.
Their touch harmonizes all seen and unseen realms.
How can words express my gratitude?
The bright eyes of all Buddhas
are the eyes of my one mind.
Through their vision
see the entire universe as truly is,
and by clearly seeing the dead,
fully understand the living.
The deep sincerity of all Buddhas
is the sincerity of my one mind.
It always brightly leads me
using all manner of seen and unseen methods.
With infinite compassion
it reveals the precious truth
of how everything in the universe flows.
Wake Up and Laugh! 
English Dharma talks in Korea, but no English Dharma talks in Canada – it is upside down.
I didn’t find Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s precious teachings until a couple of weeks ago and yours a few days ago, but am deeply thankful because it’s “better late than never”. I’m a bit lost as to instructions on reciting the verses, though. Probably still too literal-minded so can’t see the forest for the trees. To practice this at bedtime and on waking up, are we supposed to recite all that is printed in each lesson, or only the verses in bold type? And is there a way to access each week’s lesson in order? So far being able to find them is hit and miss. Thank you for any help you can provide. (I already receive daily posts by email, so can’t tell if signing up for the blog below brings anything different,) Again my thanks for receiving Daehaeng’s teachings in my life, and yours as well. Carla
Hi Carla,
Glad to have you here! So, just recite the verse in regular type, not the italics. That’s just my commentaries and reminders, so no need to do anything extra with that. This series started with this post: https://wakeupandlaugh.com/2020/09/14/day-1-opening-a-thousand-hands-of-compassion/
I’d done this starting with Buddha’s Birthday in May, but had used bigger chunks of text from the Thousand Hands Sutra. By the time I got to the end of it in September, I just felt that we should do it again, but the second time, I tried to keep from including more than one theme/idea in the verse, so they tend to be short.
This post that you found is from a similar English talk series that I held here in Korea in 2016. If you follow this order, you can see the text in longer sections, with a link to a shortish (10-15 minute) audio talk about the topic that I did at the time. You can listen to those if you want, but it’s not necessary. I just spoke about whatever touched my heart, so it’s not very formalized.
If you’re already getting the daily (Mon-Fri) emails, then there’s nothing else to do, you’re already subscribed to the blog. Reciting the text in the mornings and evenings is perfect. If you want to do more, that’s also great, but the real goal is to let these sink down within us and guide the lives that make up this body of ours. It really is like we’re helping to elevate the whole. Not to mention, that it seems like it helps to break lose areas that I’m stuck in my practice.
Thanks for your efforts! The world needs everyone to brighten their hearts, now more than ever.
Chong Go
Dear Chong Go Sunim,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it more than you may know, but for something that may seem contradictory. I’m not sure I can articulate it without seeming to disrespect or be ungrateful for your advice (because neither is true), but I feel that because of your kindness in offering help, it’s only right that I at least try to explain.
I was drawn to Kun Sunim’s teachings after literally a lifetime of lurching from one teacher, or tradition–”religious”, “spiritual” or otherwise–to another until I finally found in her teaching a way to live that makes sense to me.
In the short time between writing to you, and receiving your reply, I felt I had no choice but to continue with her books and other materials, struggling and often failing to apply her instructions to entrust everything to Juingong. Then I realized that adding the “Thousand Hands” practice was–for me–the same old mistake on a different scale.
Yes, I’m finally content to stay with Kun Sunim’s teaching and do my best to go deeper and learn from my mistakes rather than blaming the teaching and changing again. But within this path, I began to switch from one aspect of practice to another. I absolutely do not deny the wisdom and value of the sutras, or suggest that any of them are “wrong”, but I didn’t realize I was repeating my same old mistake, not accepting the wisdom of just entrusting everything to Juingong and observing the results, as Kun Sunim teaches, but partially dropping what she says (and thus failing to strengthen my faith and ability to entrust) and switching to practicing a sutra, after which my old pattern would be to switch to doing prostrations or some other external practice, still looking for that illusory and false something “better”. Or even going from each of the books of her teachings to the next and when I reached the end of those, then switching to somebody else’s teaching, assuming I’ve enough time left “on the planet”!
The fault lies entirely within my mind, my long-lasting immaturity, but I did finally understand that I was still looking for an external savior. I then realized I needed to grow up, to once and for all give up “learned helplessness”; then I found Kun Sunim, who speaks to exactly those issues, and I finally had a way to do it.
(I don’t mind if you don’t find this suitable as a public comment. It’s really more a personal reaction but I didn’t see how to reply privately and certainly understand it would be difficult and unfair for one person to take up much of your time (because the more I study and practice, the more questions, mostly practical ones about Seon Buddhism, arise) when you have so many followers, obligations and your own practice. And again, it’s my responsibility to actualize the teachings, and to turn within for answers to any questions that may arise.)
PS, I did get the Kindle version of Like Like Lions Learning to Roar last night and from the first line of the Hanmaum International Culture Institute introduction plus Kun Sunim’s first words am so glad I did. The point, though, is in that perennial lesson not to mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. And to smile at the flower constantly being held up in front of us.
Okay. I’ll stop now. Too much “yadada” can be a distraction for me. But thank you again, and for what I now think I responded to most of all in your answer, the part not expressed verbally, the entirely self-evident compassion in your even replying.
No problem, Carla! We’re all trying to find our way. We’re all trying to go forward to where we’ve never been while dealing with habits of body and mind that were best suited to where we were back in the past. So there’s lots of clunkiness, lol. But even that is when we compare it to what we know now. At one point, those habits and knowledge were, perhaps literally, life savers. So as we try to find our way forward, we need to let go of the old stuff, but we need to to it while being gentle and kind and grateful for the help those things once provided.
I don’t know if this has any use to you, lol, but if you need them, here are some random thoughts from a gray day in Korea!