“The Doctor is In” (new book)

Just in time for Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok), we have a new Dharma talk out! This is a Korean-English edition of a Dharma talk by Daehaeng Kun Sunim, in which she talks at length about health and spiritual practice. Currently this book is only widely available in Korea, but we’re publishing this talk in an English collection called “Standing Again,” which will be out in the next month or so. “Standing Again” will be in print and ebook formats, and available through Amazon.com and other worldwide book stores.

Here’s an excerpt: 

Regardless of who you are, regardless of your position in society, education, gender, or age, every one of you has this incredible fundamental mind within you. If you just have faith in this essential Buddha and rely upon it, you can move mountains, penetrate the secrets of the universe, and stop army tanks in their tracks. But if you don’t have faith in it, if you try to ignore it, then life is like trying to walk through an endless field of mud. Or flailing through the air, unable to get your feet under you. Please work on firmly trusting this inherent foundation of yours, so that you will be able to step beyond the boundaries of this middle world and become forever free.

Know that this inherent mind can take care of whatever you are going through! Believe in your inherent essence! [Thrusting her fist in the air.] This is where you can find courage! And vision and determination! Here is the power to turn the world upside down or to set it right! Right now we are lame in one leg, blind in one eye, and deaf in one ear. Even the most advanced technology in the world can’t compare to this ability of your inherent essence. Why? Because those are limited to the material world, to only one side of things. But this light within you is connected to both sides, as well as all the energy of the universe.

So leave behind thoughts of social status or judgments about others, and work together as brothers and sisters in the Dharma. The Buddha awakened to the reality that everyone else was also himself, so even cleaning someone else’s bottom after a bowel movement was no more than cleaning his own. Should even a dog, sick with disease, raise from its foundation a deep desire for help, Buddha transforms into a dog and helps cure the disease, or frees the dog from its ignorance. Here, “Buddha” does not refer to an individual, but rather to the great pillar of energy that is the whole.

Every single one of us has this incredible, formless mind, this one great pillar that encompasses everything, which the ancients called the “Highest Heaven of Mt. Sumeru.” Take this pillar as your center, and strengthen your ability to let go. Develop your ability to entrust it with everything. In this way, let’s take all suffering, all illness, every kind of karmic state of consciousness, and burn it all up!