May I uphold the principles of the unseen realms, as well as the rules of society.
세상 계율 무위법을 벗어나지 않게 하옵소서.
This is quite an interesting verse, in that it specifically mentions upholding the standards of society. Of course, this doesn’t mean some society where people have gone off the deep end in a sea of blood and murder. But that in regular normal, decent-ish society, we should try to follow the rules.
Daehaeng Kun Sunim once described this as “upholding trust between people,” and in sociological terms (?) it’s what’s called “civil society,” that is, a collective society that generally has trust as it’s basis.
This is somewhat different than a certain stereotype of the “Zen” monk, who runs around creating chaos and upsetting people. “Oh, he’s trying to shake them loose of their fixed ideas.” Maybeee. But you better have the spiritual ability to see where you harmed others, and the spiritual ability to repay any harm you caused them, and frankly, there aren’t many who can do that.
If you truly understand the truth of nonduality, then only in rare instances, where you can clearly sense an intervention is necessary, would you cause anything like shock or harm to others. As for upholding the truths of how the unseen realms function, that’s to help you move in tune and learn to see these for yourself. (Among any number of other things, I suspect! There’s also the entire issue of not creating harmful karma that will hold you back.)
The memorial pagoda of a 9th century Korean monk
Wake Up and Laugh! 