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An interview with Chong Hyup Sunim of the Tucuman and San Paulo branches of Hanmaum Seon Center. This interview was first published in the January/February 2007 issue of Hanmaum Journal.  

Hanmaum Journal: You lived overseas for quite a long time. Although you took it all as your practice, from the perspective of ordinary people, living in such distant, foreign countries is quite difficult.

Chong Hyup Sunim: At first I didn’t have any feeling that it was particularly difficult, but as time went by and I was living so far away from my teacher, I did occasionally feel that way. But even those kinds of feelings are something to be used for our spiritual practice. We need to practice taking those and completely entrusting them to our foundation, and then go forward while being aware. That’s an important aspect of spiritual practice that we have to learn. If we can transcend the things we think of as difficult, then we can learn to make a peaceful life for ourselves wherever we are. In a way, it’s like a test or a development stage to help us learn to go forward brightly into whatever we face. It’s just a matter teaching ourselves to be unhindered by these things through the process of taking what confronts us and entrusting it so that it can melt down.

If I’d let myself dwell on the thought that the situation was difficult, how could I have stayed there? If I’d let myself get caught up in ideas of “difficult,” those would have imprisoned me. Whenever I’d return to Korea, Kun Sunim would always say, “Think of that as a hermitage in the mountains.” Looking back now, I don’t think I really appreciated what she was saying. Only now does it seem like I’m beginning to have a sense of what that really means.

Hanmaum Journal: A lot of people would have tried to avoid those difficult circumstances, but it sounds like your practice actually flourished there?

Chong Hyup Sunim: Absolutely. Although that situation didn’t look promising to others, it forced me to practice harder, to learn to leap over those things, and, it broke up my fixed thoughts, and reformed my views of things, so it was definitely a great situation. Who would be unhappy about those benefits?

You all know what our goal is, right? It’s to be free. To be free from suffering, and to never be tangled up by any situation that we encounter. And in this way, to truly evolve. To truly evolve into what we are all capable of. Since we know our goal, and, thanks to Kun Sunim, we know what we have to do to get there, then the various circumstances we encounter aren’t anything to make a fuss over. Regardless of what arises in your life, there’s no need for disliking it, thinking of it as a bother, or blaming others for what’s going on. Everything is part of our practice.

            Even when something completely unreasonable or unfair stands up and whacks us across the face, that’s something I created in the past when I didn’t know any better. I likely created that without even realizing what I was doing. Even if it wasn’t something I’ve done recently, if you think about all we’ve gone through from life as microbe forward, how likely is it that we didn’t do some behavior like that? Even when someone thrusts a difficult situation upon you, how likely is it that you haven’t created even worse situations for others?

            When you look at your situation from that perspective, then instead of feeling resentful to others, you can’t help but feeling a bit sorry for what you’ve done. So when something like that confronts me, I feel like I have to work that much more diligently to raise and entrust to my foundation a compassionate and supportive attitude and thought for others.

Hanmaum Journal: How did there come to be a branch temple in Brazil?

Chong Hyup Sunim: Let’s see, I came to the Tucuman branch in the Spring of 1994, so it must have been around the end of 1995 when Hyewon Juji Sunim came to visit the Argentina branches. She brought it up that there were lay members in Brazil, and she was headed there to visit them next. She said that it would be wonderful if there was a branch in Brazil, but there wasn’t enough support to sustain a branch at that time.

Later, a member who’d lived in Argentina moved to Brazil for a while, and introduced Kun Sunim’s teachings to other Buddhists who were living there. Through that connection, in 2003 I began making trips to Brazil to visit the lay members there, and we began a lay members’ group that started having regular Dharma talks. That continued for a while, until we were able to open a center in March of 2005.

Hanmaum Journal: Living overseas like that, there must have been a lot of problems and difficulties related to the different languages?

Chong Hyup Sunim: Before I became a sunim, I’d often thought that I’d like to experience living overseas. And within months of being ordained, I got sent overseas! Thinking about this made it clear to me once again, that once you entertain a thought, events and your life will begin to flow in that direction, even when you’re not fully aware of what you’re thinking.

It really made me realize just how important it is that we work at maintaining positive thoughts during our regular, daily life. 

In Argentina, people speak Spanish, although in Brazil, they speak Portuguese. When I first went to Argentina, I learned Spanish by going to night school and private lessons from our laypeople, and after a while was able to get by in it.

For Koreans, Spanish is easier than English or German. It isn’t as complicated, nor is it as strict about the word order. You can be much freer in changing the order of the words, and the subject can be condensed or even left off. It’s a very flexible language. It’s relatively easy to learn, and it doesn’t take nearly as long to be able to freely converse with others. If you’re motivated, you can learn everything you need for daily life in a year. Fortunately, Portuguese and Spanish are fairly close to each other; it’s like the difference between standardized Korean and the Jeju dialect. If you can speak Spanish, you can pretty much get by in Portuguese.

Hanmaum Journal: So it sounds like you were able to communicate and teach Brazilians right away?

Chong Hyup Sunim: That’s right. The Brazil branch hasn’t been open very long, and we’re still working at making connections with native Brazilians, but the situation will improve in the future. There’s a lot of descendants of African slaves here, and among them are a lot of very kind people, with a lot of heart. Among the well-educated people who’ve come to the temple, most of them had studied Catholicism but felt limited by it. Eventually, they came across Buddhism as they tried to find something that could explain more about life. What could be more worthwhile than to help people like these encounter Kun Sunim’s teachings?

I didn’t appreciate it at first, but after I’d been here for a while, I began to realize just how important it is for everyone around the world to experience what Kun Sunim taught. Everyone needs to know about this ability we all have within ourselves to evolve and step forward, finding our own path forward.

Hanmaum Journal: Kun Sunim once said that no matter where else in the world you go, almost no one is teaching people how to truly practice going within themselves. You just made me realize that, in part, this may be simply due to language problems, and that so, what you’re doing in Brazil is so important.

Chong Hyup Sunim: We all have to become a guide who can help all the world understand about the functioning of this fundamental mind all beings have. Everywhere you go, people really are looking for the solutions outside of themselves. Few people have a sense of this nondual connection, and instead are focused on praying to some outer being to have pity on them, and, unconsciously perhaps, thinking of themselves as lives created and abandoned by some outer god. They don’t realize this inner connection we all have to the foundation of everything.

Those people who have a sense of it, have a duty to go forward in the world, being a light to one person at a time, and in this way, raising the spiritual level of the Earth. We absolutely have to do this.

If you look around, you can’t help but notice how many people’s lives are filled with suffering. How their circumstances allow little but suffering. Unfortunately, often times, no matter how much you try to help them, they quickly fall back into the same patterns and the same suffering. In those cases, it’s clear that the problem is the level of their minds, to use a Korean expression. The solution is likewise clear, to help them, we have to help them raise the level of their mind, or to put it another way, to deepen their spiritual functioning and perception of themselves and the world. As their perspective changes, as they experience this deeper level of connection and functioning, the things that caused them suffering will likewise begin to fall away.

Even though foreigners don’t have any knowledge of this or Kun Sunim’s teachings, when they begin to hear about it a bit and apply what she taught to their lives, they begin to experience this deeper awareness, and little by little things in their lives improve. What we have to do is increase the opportunities for this to happen.

Then, eventually they will realize that they are connected to everything and endowed with everything.

Because we are endowed with everything, there’s nothing to gain. Instead of gaining, it’s an issue of cleaning away. We have to take everything that’s accumulated and built up until now, and let it all go. Then what’s already there can shine forth. It’s all these acts of letting go that’s the hard part. Letting go as stuff confronts and hurts you is not easy. But when we let go of everything, we can discover what’s always been there. It’s because we didn’t know it was already there that we thought we needed to find it outside of ourselves. That’s why knowing about this fundamental mind and it’s functioning is such a precious treasure. This right here is the heart of teaching overseas. If you look around at the world, you can’t help but see how people need to understand this. People have been trying to live without knowing this. Not just in South America, but it Asia, Africa, and so on. Any place that speaks a foreign language needs to know about this fundamental mind and its functioning. 

Hanmaum Journal: It seems to me each branch has it’s own, unique situation. What has been the hardest thing for the Korean members in Brazil?

Chong Hyup Sunim: A lot of them seem to have also had difficult circumstances in Korea as well as here. Coming to another country, man of them had to start with farm work, which isn’t easy. So often people have had a hard time earning a living, there’s the loneliness of living in a foreign country, and people often end up feeling like life seems to have no purpose. Not to mention all of the inner conflict over their situation and choices. So a large part of a sunim’s job is to be  source of comfort.

There’s also the difficulty of helping them to learn to rely upon and experience their own fundamental mind. Many of them have only experienced Buddhism as simply praying to the Buddha for good outcomes. They’re still locked into the idea of something outside themselves providing the help they need. There’s also a tendency, not that it’s really “wrong,” to look at the Seon Center as a place to connect socially with others, meeting and consoling and making friends.

All of these things colors their view of things, so it’s not easy to overcome this and get them to focus on going straight in and relying upon their foundation. It’s often hard for them to listen to Kun Sunim’s Dharma talks; it’s a topic that’s so different from how they’re used to living that they have a hard time even sitting through a long Dharma talk. However, as time goes by and they let the ideas sink down within them, they start wanting to hear more from Kun Sunim. As they start trying to rely upon their foundation in their daily life, they also begin to experience for themselves what Kun Sunim was talking about, and this gives them inspiration and direction going forward.

Hanmaum Journal: Thank you for helping me to understand the circumstances of people at the overseas branches, and to get a sense of the importance of helping people overseas experience Kun Sunim’s teachings. To conclude here today, would you say something about practice for those people already living in Korea?

Chong Hyup Sunim: Well, I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but Kun Sunim always talked about putting our understanding into practice and being there to experience what happens when we do this. It’s not easy at all!

However, if we don’t blame or resent others, and return everything inwardly, understanding that we are the source of what we’re experiencing, then little by little, we can advance and grow. Blaming others doesn’t help my own practice at all. Not even a tiny bit. Nor does is benefit others, actually. But when I return everything inwardly, as something I’ve made, then my past karmic chains begin to collapse and disappear, and I can go become aware of my foundation and go forward grounded in that.

I’d also like to encourage people to remember how they felt when they first started on the path of spiritual practice. What was it that seemed important to them? What were they feeling when they first became interested in spiritual practice?  Unfortunately, there are more than a few people who lose the sense of this after time goes by.

Then they fall into arguments more quickly, they blame or criticize others, they see people and things dualistically, and although their practice once seemed to be going well, at some point it seems like it went off course. Back when they first learned about this practice of relying upon their foundation, they weren’t pursuing things like position or role.

When someone cuts off their hair and becomes a sunim, they don’t put on these grey clothes hoping to be respected by others. They didn’t do it hoping to become well-known, or to live comfortably. Their initial purpose was to learn to be free, to connect with this greater thing they may have sensed. Their purpose was to take all they things they keep finding themselves caught up in or lead astray by, all of that gunk and random pieces, and completely melt it all down so that their inherent nature can shine forth. This was their purpose. Like this, regardless of who we are, lets remember our original intent, our original purpose. Let’s keep shining a light on our inherent nature.

Regardless of whether you’re a sunim or a lay person, remember why you began to practice, and don’t let the host and guest change places. Don’t let what’s unimportant act as if it was your owner. If you do this, if you can entrust even your body to this foundation, they you can go straight forward, without going astray, and without any huge roadblocks to your practice.

I deeply hope that everyone will fulfill their practice, and through one mind, as one mind, I truly feel grateful to every single one of you.

This is the last post for this week. Pay attention to how you feel when you quietly read these out loud. If you’ve missed some posts, don’t worry about trying to get caught up. Just look at the one in front of you.

The foundation of the Earth is our one mind,
The foundation of the sun is our one mind,
How could there be something
not taken care of
by our one mind?

The source of the entire universe is our one mind;
it guides every single thing
in this interconnected world.

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.

The mind of all Buddhas functions together with my one mind.
Endowed with everything,
encompassing everything,
it is utterly complete.

My past, present, and future consciousness all become one.
Completely let go of everything,
and even this “one” disappears.

A little bit of a mystery in the last two lines. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, just let it sink down within you. Even if your brain doesn’t understand it, your body will begin to.

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 it truly is,
and by clearly seeing the dead,
fully understand the living.

Are you remembering to recite this before going to bed? Have you noticed any effects?

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!

Here is today’s section of the Thousand Hands Sutra. Try to recite it three times in the morning and three times before you go to bed.
I was so amazed when I first started to understand this sutra, because each little section is a treasure in itself. The entire sutra is great, but just one little piece has so much power. It can change our lives, break up a habit that was holding us back, and touch something deep and quiet within ourselves.
(I’m going to schedule these for Monday through Friday, to give people a chance to get to these without being buried in a pile of endless notifications. ~ CG)

This world we live in is none other than the realm of Buddha.
Here it is forever Spring, flowers bloom without end,
and the fragrant path is ever open.

All Buddhas throughout all realms exist at this very moment within my one mind, sincerely relying upon my one mind is itself a true mantra.

Hi, anyone want a do-over for March?! Wow, it’s been a rough one so far. Please stay safe, and take care of your fundamentals before anything else. In terms of spiritual practice, that’s trying to entrust everything to our inherent light, and to function from there. In terms of money, it’s Food, heat, and shelter. In that order. Credit card companies can go sit in the corner if you haven’t got the money. They’ll make all kinds of ugly noises, but tough.

Take care of your own heart first. That’s what really sustains you and your family. Do your best not to let worry control or dominate you. And don’t look at the news too often!

with palms together,
Chong Go

Some sad news here, Hye Ji Sunim of our Chicago center left her body today. She’d had cancer for a number of years, and was determined not to let it bother her. You can see in what she said that her focus was on how we can evolve, and helping others to evolve and grow to the best of their ability. Thank you, Sunim.
with palms together,
Chong Go

* This interview was given in Korean, and published in the January/February 2012 issue of Hanmaum Journal.

Where you are now! There! Free yourself!           
 (Hye Ji Sunim, Chicago Hanmaum Seon Center)

Bowing with my whole heart, from my head to my toes.
Melt it down, melt it down, change it into light, into light, into Bodhisattvas, into Bodhisattvas!
Now, here in this moment, this is all that needs doing.
Even if this were the last moment of my life, this is all I am working on.

From the time I was in middle school until I finished college, through all the vacations and the year I had to spend preparing to retake the college entrance tests, I was the one who determined my direction. Not one time did I ever ask anyone else what I should do. On one hand, I didn’t really feel the need, and on the other, I knew how the conversation would likely go, and I was sick to death of it.

Everything would start with, “Well, as a girl, you can (or can’t) ….” Always the same old limitations, the old customs of discrimination against women, the constraints , the oppression, which I’d hated from an early age.

By the end of my twenties, I had no idea at all about what I needed to be doing. Instead of a clear path, it seemed like I’d become even more lost. I felt like there was something I needed to be focusing on, but I was completely in the dark about what that might be. I began to wonder if going on a 100 day prayer retreat would help me find my path, and so began to look around at a number of places and practice centers.

Then one day in late October, 1985, I opened a newspaper, and an ad for a book jumped out at me. It was described as “A Story of Daehaeng Kun Sunim and Finding the Path.” I didn’t even see any of the other articles in the paper, and instead felt as if I was walking on springs. It was as if something had pulled me up out of my chair, and I headed for the bus stop near my house as if my body weighed nothing at all. Looking up, I saw two huge rainbows that seemed to be hugging the mountains on the edge of town.

After finding a copy of the book and returning home, I went straight to my room. And I cried and cried as I read. It felt like at last, someone had shown a light into a dark cave. There, in the book, was my path. I was overflowing with emotions, and cried even as I didn’t understand why I was crying so much. It took me a few days to read the book, because I kept jumping up and pacing my room, and then sitting down and reading the same page over and over. I found I kept standing up, facing towards Anyang city (where Kun Sunim was), and offering her a full bow. I hadn’t ever been a member of a temple, nor had I ever bowed to a sunim before. I guess I was just so grateful to have met my teacher, and so glad to have had a glimpse of how the world really worked. After finishing that book, I would find myself murmuring “Kun Sunim, Juingong,” when I was walking somewhere.

Of course, I went to Anyang as soon as I could, and met Kun Sunim, and cried during her Dharma talk. I had such an unquenchable thirst to listen to every one of her Dharma talks. After meeting Kun Sunim, all my old feelings turned to gratitude. My feelings about having been born during such a grim time in Korea, about having been born as a woman(and discriminated against), and all the unhappiness. I saw that there was a reason for it all. It was all stuff I had to go through in order to be able to meet Kun Sunim.

As I cried and my nose ran, my first impression of Kun Sunim was shockingly clear, “She’s a true Revolutionary!” I wanted to shout it out! The feeling that came from her was beyond just “equality between people,” more than “equality between all life.” It was equality where all beings are share the infinite potential of  a Buddha. My understanding of these two points became the basis for fundamental changes in my life. I began to taste true freedom, and unimaginably deep compassion! Experiencing this equality was so far beyond everything I had thought about “equality.”

For the first time in my life, I asked someone else, “What should I do with my life?” Kun Sunim just smiled and laughed, because I already knew that I wanted to become like her. This was the very best possible life! In order to find it, I had to lose what I’d thought of as the life I should be living. To find this path, I had to lose track of my old path. And in order to continue along this path, I had decided to become her student.

I knew that by becoming this sort of a person, I could do more to help my parents than anything else, so I didn’t even feel any guilt as I left home to become a sunim. One day, I said goodbye after breakfast, and then as I left it was like moving out of a vague, unremembered dream to one that was incredibly clear and specific.

            A while after I entered the temple and became a “haengja” (a bit like a postulant, most people spend six months to a year or so before being ordained as a Buddhist nun or monk) I had a dream where I saw a rope stretched out above a vast ocean, and I could see there there was someone walking on it as easily as if they were walking on flat ground. I really wanted to follow whoever that was, so I stepped up onto the rope. But I sure couldn’t walk comfortably on it. My body was swaying back and forth, and my arms were flailing in the air. Then, my hand found an unseen, higher rope to hold onto. Stepping carefully, and holding on to the second rope, I was just barely able to get across that ocean.

The person ahead of me had already started up a steep set of stone stairs that seemed to go up and up. So I blindly followed them up the stairs. Finally, at the top, there was a small pavilion. After I rested there for a bit, the person started down the stairs on the other side, so I too started down.

The stairs ended at a shore line that stretched out in the distance. The person I was following continued walking along the shore line. They didn’t say a word, and I followed without saying a word. After a long time, I heard the sounds of a large bell coming from somewhere. “Bong…, bong…, bong….”

            Then, the person I was following turned to me and told me to go back the way I’d come, by myself. I was a bit stunned and not sure where to go, because I had only been focused on them. But I turned back, and with one stumbling step after another, started back. By following the shore, I eventually came back to the stairs, went up them, rested for a bit in the pavilion, and then went down the other side.

I finally came back down to the ocean that I’d crossed on the rope. As I came down the last stairs, I inexplicably found myself on a boat with other people. The boat was sailing, and from the upper deck, off to the left side I could see beautiful twin rainbows shining in the sky. Off to the right sight of the boat, I could see a shore with huge, rounded boulders at its edge, and hear the sounds of the waves breaking upon the boulders. As I stood there silently watching the waves and rocks, every time a wave hit a boulder, it left behind an image of a Buddha. The waves were carving the stones into Buddhas! It was such a sight!

LEAP AS FAR YOU CAN!

In my dream, I could only see the back of the person I followed across the ocean and up the mountain, but it was clearly Kun Sunim. Her back pointed out the direction for my life. Thinking of that dream, if I hadn’t seen even that vague glimpse of Kun Sunim, I don’t think I could have seen or been able to find the path I needed. When I faltered, when I stumbled, there was Kun Sunim moving ahead of me. This somehow let me see myself as I was, which in turn made it possible for me to center myself and stand up again. Following after my teacher like this, single-mindedly, has formed the basis for everything I attained in my spiritual practice. Without her vast and deep teachings, would I still be breathing? Without her compassionate hand up, would I have been able to stand on my own now?

What has to change isn’t other people. It’s my own thoughts. It isn’t the world I have to change, it’s my own inner existence that needs to change. This is the awareness that can start a great revolution! I’d always thought of myself as a basically good person, and before I met Kun Sunim, I think it was that pride that had sustained me. However, as I followed behind Kun Sunim, walking in the path she was setting, I began to see aspects of myself that I didn’t want to admit. I started seeing the things about myself that I had denied. I began to realize that beneath my sense of superiority and confidence, there was a sense of inferiority, and beneath that was arrogance and pettiness, stinginess and argumentativeness, seeing others as separate from myself, and getting caught up in very strong opinions of right and wrong. It was like a huge, multi-colored piece of embroidery that covered everything.

As my faith began to deepen, it became clearer that what I saw in my teacher, was also my true essence. Understanding this, I began to face all the awkward, ignorant consciousnesses within me, without embarrassment. In fact, I was born for the sake of meeting them. All the waves and storms arising from within me, as well as the waves that seemed to come from outside, weren’t different. I began to get the message that I was supposed to help transform all of those consciousness, to help them become Bodhisattvas. All of this was an opportunity. Nonetheless, I often alternated from seeing them and maintaining a critical distance, to being deceived and caught up in them, to seeing them clearly again. Time after time this happened. My anger or suffering due to an illness wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I got completely caught up in those and didn’t return them back to my foundation. To consistently see what is truly going on and return it to this essence is no easy thing!

When Kun Sunim first came to the Chicago branch, I asked her if I could leave, and return after my practice had deepened. She replied, “Sure. Pack your things, lock the building, and come back with me.” This startled me, and got me to thinking; “If I leave, then all the people here won’t have a place to practice and gather together,” and so I decided to stay where I was. Of course, now I realize that Kun Sunim wasn’t really so casual about closing the center. She was just trying to get me to think a little deeper.

Anyway, a few years later, on a visit to Korea, I went along on her early morning walk and asked her again, “Sunim, would it be okay if I came back to Korea to live?”

“Chicago too is a good place to practice. Right here, at the place you are now, free yourself! Wherever you happen to be!”

Ah! Right! The whole point of being anywhere is to practice. Not guiding others or being a “teacher.” Now. Here. The whole reason I’m living in this world is to free myself from “I.” I have a teacher within me who transcends time and space; how could I practice if I’m getting caught up in ideas of this place or that place?

I feel so grateful, and apologetic as well, to all the practitioners at the Chicago center. As I grow up, I will repay their many kindnesses. This is how I can begin to repay the unfathomable help I have received from Kun Sunim, as she guided me and helped me up.

I sometimes wonder if our new building and land weren’t arranged by her in order to help us grow. I can almost hear her saying to us, “Here’s a giant springboard; use it to leap as high and as far as you can!”

Here’s a great Dharma talk from Kun Sunim about how the intentions we give rise to give direction everything. They give direction to the lives that make up our body, and they give direction to this whole that we are part of. The only “catch” here, is that we have to completely entrust those, and we have to work at letting go of “me” and “I” as we do this, otherwise those intentions would be no more than a reflection of our dualistic desires and thoughts. Because these are one-sided, even if we were able to entrust them them to this foundation of ours, the results would be fairly limited, because we’d be trying to use this non-dualistic whole to achieve a dualistic result.

I’m posting the text and a recording of me reading it today, and will post a Dharma talk on this in a few days after people have had a chance to go over this first. If you have any questions, post them in the comments and I’ll go over them in the talk.

There’s quite a bit of nuance to this topic, (and I’ll try to go over some of it later,) but to sum up, when the situation is urgent and it feels like something bad is coming, completely entrust that to your foundation, knowing that since it arose from there, your foundation can take care of it and turn it around into something that doesn’t cause harm. More on this later!

Taking Care Problems Before They Arise

Whatever kind of problem arises, whether it’s in your family or something in the larger society, whether it’s crime, or some issue that keeps persisting, then, so that the problem won’t arise, you have to firmly entrust it inside, with the thought, “Hey! You’re the one that can solve this! You’re the one that can cause this to not arise!”

          When you do this, you’re setting up a shield. It’s as if you’ve set up a radar or a defense network. All the lives within your body are part the Dharma Realm, and all function together in your body like the Dharma Net. Their consciousnesses continuously leave your body and return, working like a radar net, detecting whatever might be coming your way, and now you’ve told them how to respond to it. They respond as the Dharma Realm, and take negative or harmful things, and turn them into good things.

With a bit of wisdom, you can set things up ahead of time to take care of all this stuff. Then later, even though you aren’t fussing over every little thing, this network responds to it all, and keeps things from becoming problems. Each of you are capable of experiencing how this works and protects you. Though, it doesn’t just happen by accident.

          Nothing in our world just happens. Not even little, tiny things. Not even things that flash into existence, and are gone in that moment. None of it is random. None of it happens by chance. Something had to go forth in order for something to come back. So don’t let yourself think that things just happen. It all starts from you, yourself. That said, the fact that something has begun with you also means that you have the capacity to solve it. You’re the one who can make it into something clear and bright.

          What do I mean about clear and bright? The whole. I’m talking about the whole. Regardless of whatever you face, of whatever you need, return it to the whole. Entrust it all to your foundation, your one mind.

Pain, loneliness, desire, genetics, ghosts, and so on, cause so many difficulties in people’s lives. They cause problems to arise from the outside, as well as from the inside. They arise within and lead people astray. They distort people’s perspective, and cause them to do things that lead them towards hellish states of existence. They cause people to stumble, and they cause them to be easy marks for con artists.

In order to avoid being hurt by these things, entrust them all to your Juingong, your foundation. Do this and make your mind bright again. Then your eyes will become clear, and you won’t be led down dark paths.

You have to give rise to an intention in order for that to manifest. If you don’t raise a thought like this and entrust it, then there’s nothing for your foundation to respond to. It just remains calm and quiet. To put it another way, when no thoughts arise, it’s the “father, ” when thoughts arise, it becomes the “son.” When no intentions are raised, the son, your present consciousness, joins with and becomes one with the calm, quiet father, the foundation. But when an intention is raised, the foundation joins with your present consciousness. That is to say, your intention is energized by the foundation, which works as one with that intention. As one.

This unseen realm, this unseen foundation, is the source of all life, and because it exists, we can give rise to intentions, and because we can give rise to intentions, we can move our bodies, and so create things, and explore and affect the world around us. This is how we’ve existed, and why nothing’s random, why what we experience is the result of our own actions. Some kind of input went into this unseen essence, where it functioned with the whole, and then produced a result.

Thus if you sense a problem coming, you can take that feeling and entrust it, thinking, “Okay, true self, foundation, work to keep these things from happening” and trust it to work that way. If you input the intention that those problems shouldn’t arise, then this whole will work towards that end. But this has to be accompanied by real, unconditional trust. Trust where you turn this over to your foundation and walk away without looking back, without constantly worrying about whether it will really work or turn out well.

If your faith is indecisive, then even though you entrust something, it’s like you submitted the paperwork for something, but then pulled it back at the last moment. And then pushed it forward, but pulled it back again. If you’re doing this, it’ll never get processed and there will be no result.

Thus, everything depends upon how much you trust your foundation. However, instead of decisively entrusting this, sometimes people only mess around on the edges, and so they don’t see any results. Then they come to me and beg me to solve the problem, saying “Letting go and entrusting never seems to work for me.”

But, how you use your own mind is what everything depends upon. Truly. The kinds of results you eventually experience depend upon your faith in your own foundation. There’s no one else to blame or depend upon. It’s all up to you and the unseen source of all life you’re endowed with.

– Daehaeng Kun Sunim, October 31, 1993