Happy Lunar New Year!!
I hope everyone’s been doing okay. Here in Korea we just finished the celebration of 98th anniversary of Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s birth, as well as, three nights of candlelight ceremonies to remind us to focus on brightening our hearts.
She actually hated us greeting her on her birthday, saying that we should instead give our gratitude to her mother, who did all the work, lol. Still, she put up with us, and it was a nice excuse to see her and hear a Dharma talk!
One point she sometimes made was that reshaping this world wasn’t the ultimate goal. In fact, she would say, this world’s role was that of a sieve, helping people move to higher realms, or lower realms(!!), as they so chose.
The point I came away with, was that we first have to take care of our own spiritual development, while also not neglecting our responsibilities in the world. We have to respond wisely and kindly, and do what we can to help others live brightly, but without getting too caught up in what others are doing. Nor should we fall into hating or despising others, tempting though that may be.
I came across a nice verse from chapter 6 of her translation of the Diamond Sutra that touches on this point. (The Korean is at the end of this post.)
“Pay attention!
Inherently, every person has within them this eternal,
fundamental root.
So, too, does every life, every thing, and every buddha.
All have this wonderful root,
thus, there will be beings who,
after hearing these teachings,
will go forward becoming one with everything they encounter,
responding to it all through their own root.
“Subhuti,
Tathagata is the state where everything
functions as one,
and so perceives and understands all things.
Thus, I can tell you that
if people should realize that,
‘My presence creates the world that is unfolding in front of me,’
they will attain
truly endless
virtue and merit.
마땅히 알라.
모든 사람 마음속에
영원한 근본 선근이 본래 심어졌을 뿐 아니라
이미 일체 부처님께
만물만생에게
뿌리, 즉 선근이 심어졌으므로
이 말씀과 글귀를 듣고 나아가
한생각에 진실한 믿음의 마음을 내느니라.
수보리야,
여래는 다 알고 다 보느니라.
일체 중생들이
나로 하여 세상이 있는 것을 안다면
무량 공덕을 얻느니라.
Wake Up and Laugh! 
“My presence creates the world that is unfolding in front of me!” — this speaks to me! I hear this idea repeated in various forms, albeit far less eloquently than Daehaeng Kun Sunim puts it, as if it were a gentle wake up call.
Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer
It’s some tough medicine on the surface, but it also means that we have the ability to start changing what’s confronting us.