2 thoughts on “Day 67 – How to look after all beings”
This I don’t understand, how is it taking care completely when there is so much insane suffering?? Can you pass by korean dog farms and markets and think that taking care is going on? So much suffering is in the world, from small suffering to hell horror, how it can be said that something/someone completely looks after all beings??
I don’t want to diminish anyone or any being’s suffering. That said, Kun Sunim often described this world as “the Middle World”, and said it’s function was like to help sift beings into higher or lower realms. She didn’t speak a lot about this, or in great detail, because she didn’t want to give people an excuse to behave badly or to look down upon others. I might say it’s a chance for people to sift themselves into higher or lower realms. They get to choose how to use their minds, how they will look at and treat others. I’m not sure if it’s completely related, but one time after a car accident involving our monks, I heard that she’d said, “I never save anyone from their own practice.” (No one suffered any major injuries, but there were some cuts and wrenched necks and knees.) But at the same time, she sent us something like ten pizzas delivered from Seoul! Lol. (She may have been thinking of me!)
It reminds me of the opening of her translation of the Heart Sutra (which we’ll get to, I promise!) “… inherently all beings share the same life, the same body, the same mind, work together as one, and freely give and receive whatever is needed. They change and manifest without ceasing, with nothing fixed and unchanging, but because they don’t know these things, they walk the path of suffering.” I suspect one way of looking at this is as a parent who always loves a child and is ready to provide a warm place for them to rest and eat, but the child has to stop running around outside, looking under every rock and log, and return home.
I can’t claim to know all the nuances of this passage, but it’s probably best to take it as a hwadu and entrust it, letting it quietly percolate down within us.
Wake Up and Laugh! 
This I don’t understand, how is it taking care completely when there is so much insane suffering?? Can you pass by korean dog farms and markets and think that taking care is going on? So much suffering is in the world, from small suffering to hell horror, how it can be said that something/someone completely looks after all beings??
I don’t want to diminish anyone or any being’s suffering. That said, Kun Sunim often described this world as “the Middle World”, and said it’s function was like to help sift beings into higher or lower realms. She didn’t speak a lot about this, or in great detail, because she didn’t want to give people an excuse to behave badly or to look down upon others. I might say it’s a chance for people to sift themselves into higher or lower realms. They get to choose how to use their minds, how they will look at and treat others. I’m not sure if it’s completely related, but one time after a car accident involving our monks, I heard that she’d said, “I never save anyone from their own practice.” (No one suffered any major injuries, but there were some cuts and wrenched necks and knees.) But at the same time, she sent us something like ten pizzas delivered from Seoul! Lol. (She may have been thinking of me!)
It reminds me of the opening of her translation of the Heart Sutra (which we’ll get to, I promise!) “… inherently all beings share the same life, the same body, the same mind, work together as one, and freely give and receive whatever is needed. They change and manifest without ceasing, with nothing fixed and unchanging, but because they don’t know these things, they walk the path of suffering.” I suspect one way of looking at this is as a parent who always loves a child and is ready to provide a warm place for them to rest and eat, but the child has to stop running around outside, looking under every rock and log, and return home.
I can’t claim to know all the nuances of this passage, but it’s probably best to take it as a hwadu and entrust it, letting it quietly percolate down within us.