I decided to go ahead and put up all six week’s text and audio files of the text we’ll be starting with. After each week’s talk here at Anyang, I’ll be posting a recording of the English talk I gave the night before.
Here’s this weeks text and audiobook file for the Dharma talk. (From My Heart is a Golden Buddha.)
audio file – This is from the audiobook version of “My Heart is a Golden Buddha,” and read by Garan Fitzgerald. (He does a fantastic job!)
Letting Go
Long
ago, in the high mountains of Korea, a traveler was making his way
home along a mountain path.
Clouds
were drifting between the peaks, and the mountains seemed to vanish
into nothingness, only to reappear moments later. At times the clouds
would close in and turn his world into just a few misty paces in
front of him, with the only sound that of the river far below.
It
was all very beautiful in its own way, and his thoughts turned to his
family. No longer paying much attention to the path before him, he
stepped a bit too far off the trail; with a sickening rush, the
ground gave way under his foot.
Toppling
sideways into the abyss, he somehow managed to grab a tree root as he
fell. Clinging to it, he tried to pull himself back up, but there was
nothing above the root to grab on to.
He
was stuck there, hanging on the side of the cliff. The clouds had
closed in again and he couldn’t see very far, but he heard the
river and imagined the long fall to the rocks below.
He
gathered his strength and cried out with a wavering voice. “Help!
Is anyone there? Help me!”
Amazingly,
someone called back, and a moment later an elderly Buddhist nun poked
her head out over the cliff.
“Oh
thank goodness! Pull me up!” the man cried.
“I’m
not strong enough,” the nun replied, “but if you just let go,
you’ll be fine. The ground is right there below you.”
“Are
you nuts? I can hear the river! I’ll be crushed on the rocks—if I
don’t drown first!”
“No,
really!” she told him. “The ground is right below your feet. Just
look down.”
The
man glanced down, but between the heavy fog and his panic, he
couldn’t see anything.
“There’s
nothing there! What are you doing, trying to kill me?”
The
nun’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, you,” she said. “You asked me to
save you, and now I’m trying. Set aside your fear and let go of
that branch. You’re just wearing yourself out, clinging and yelling
like that. The ground is right below you.”
The
nun’s reproach gave the man a bit of courage. He was still afraid
of falling, but felt a bit less scared.
“Let
go? I still can’t see anything, but I can’t hang here much longer
anyway. That nun seems pretty confident that I’ll be okay….”
With that thought, the man closed his eyes and let go.
In
the next instant, he hit soft earth!
The
“cliff” he’d been hanging from so desperately was only a few
meters high. The whole time, his feet had been dangling just above
the ground!
∴
What
the man was clinging to, and what he let go of, wasn’t just the
tree root.
Behind
his clinging was much more than simply the fear of death. Mixed in
with that were all of his attachments to his possessions, his desire
for fame and recognition, his disappointments over the things that
didn’t go well, and of course his concern and love for his family.
So you can imagine how much courage it must have taken for him to let
go of that branch.
It’s
a lot easier to talk about letting go than it is to actually do it,
especially when it’s wrapped up with your family, your children,
your pride, and your self-respect. But this letting go is so
essential—it is the foundation of all spiritual practices.
Ironically,
we’re already letting go of every moment. We naturally let go of
every moment and go forward. Even with an act as simple as walking,
as soon as we take a step, we leave that behind and take another
step. Even when we’re breathing, as soon as we’ve finished
exhaling, we just naturally inhale. The reason we can let go like
this is very simple: because we deeply believe that we can. Not a
single cell in your body doubts for an instant that it is possible.
So
don’t get caught up in “I have to let go.” Just know that your
foundation, your true self, can completely take care of everything.
Thoroughly
trust your foundation. Keep working on this until it becomes as
natural as breathing in and breathing out, and you’ll know what it
means to live a true life!
The Spring series of English Dharma talks is starting up on Thursday, March 14th! [We’ll meet at the 2nd floor Dharma hall at 8pm, at the Anyang Hanmaum Seon Center. It will be every Thursday, for six weeks.]
The text for this series will by the book “My Heart is a Golden Buddha.” I’ll post in advance each week’s story, as a link to the audio book version. In the week after the talk, I’ll try to put up an English-only version of the talk.
Week 1: The Greedy Daughter-in-law This is a fun, slightly weird story! (Audio file)
Here are the links for the entire audiobook:
(direct from us, via Gumroad) also available at Audible.com and iTunes
A Greedy Daughter-in-law
Deep in the mountains of Korea, there lived a young man and his elderly mother. They were very poor, and the son was always working at some job or another in order to take care of his mother.
One day, as the village elders sat around chatting, the conversation turned to the young man. They all admired how hard he worked to take care of his mother, and as they talked, they realized that the young man had no other family to arrange a marriage for him. Then and there, the village elders decided that they would find him a wife.
They searched throughout the district, looking for a woman of good character willing to marry a poor farmer. At last they found a woman who seemed like a good match for the young man. She appeared gentle and caring, and like him was from a poor family. The elders made the arrangements, and the two of them were soon married.
Not long after the wedding, the young man began to realize that his new wife wasn’t quite as kind and selfless as everyone had thought. She was never satisfied with the money he earned, and to make matters worse, when he was out working in the fields, she treated his mother harshly and often wouldn’t prepare proper meals for her. With each passing week, his mother was becoming thinner and weaker.
As the young man thought about his wife’s behavior and struggled with his anger, he tried to think about the situation from his wife’s perspective. “Well, it can’t be easy being the wife of a poor farmer, trying to make do when there’s never enough. At the temple they say that our basic nature is inherently good and compassionate, so if I treat her with compassion and caring, maybe I can draw forth those things from within her. Then, perhaps she’ll behave better towards my mother.”
He tried this approach, but instead of getting better, his wife’s behavior only seemed to worsen. Finally, he realized that he couldn’t wait for his wife to change her behavior; he would have to do something himself. He reflected deeply upon the situation for several days, until at last an idea occurred to him.
The end of the harvest season was approaching, and with it his yearly trip to the district capital to sell their grain. Normally, it took him over two weeks to make the round trip, but this time he hurried home, arriving a week earlier than expected.
He rushed into their courtyard, shouting for his wife. When she came out, he looked around to see if anyone else was listening and lowered his voice: “You won’t believe what I saw in the city! I stumbled into a side alley off the big market, and found a street where people were buying and selling grandmothers. The plump ones were going for a thousand strings of copper coins! Let’s sell my mother there! A thousand strings of coins, as easy as snapping your fingers!”
“Do you think we could get that much for her? She’s kind of scrawny….” “Hmm, you’re right. We’ll have to fatten her up first. But not a word to anyone. If other people start selling their mothers, we won’t get a good price.”
A thousand strings of coins was a huge amount of money, and the wife wanted it all. Late into the night all she could think about were ways to make her mother-in-law plump and healthy-looking. As the days went by, she experimented with different foods and medicines reputed to be good for the elderly. Eventually, she became obsessed with her mother-in-law’s health.
With this kind of care, her mother-in-law began to recover. One day, as she took her grandson for a walk, she met some old friends and spoke with amazement about how well her daughter-in-law was taking care of her. Over the next months, stories about how well the wife looked after her mother-in-law spread throughout the surrounding villages, and even reached the ears of the district governor.
Impressed, he ordered a stone monument to be erected, commemorating her behavior and holding it forth as a model of virtue for others.
The wife had started with the intention of getting rich, but as she spent day after day thinking about someone other than herself, her own greed and selfishness had begun to melt away. Seeing the stone monument was the final straw; she broke down into tears, determined to truly become the person described there.
∴
Our fundamental mind, our Buddha-nature, contains infinite wisdom. However, this isn’t something you can find without making an effort. Like the young man, you have to diligently reflect inwardly and return your questions inwardly, while searching for a solution that will benefit everyone. If you do this, then the wisdom of your Buddha-nature can come forth.
However, no matter how great the wisdom, you won’t see any results from it without ceaseless effort and strong faith. If you want to achieve something in your life, throw away self-centeredness and greed, and then, with faith, entrust everything to your foundation.
While continuing to observe and being patient, use both your body and mind to put your understanding into practice. If you can make this kind of effort, you will certainly find the best way forward for a woman of good character willing to marry a poor farmer. At last they found a woman who seemed like a good match for the young man. She appeared gentle and caring, and like him was from a poor family. The elders made the arrangements, and the two of them were soon married.
Not long after the wedding, the young man began to realize that his new wife wasn’t quite as kind and selfless as everyone had thought. She was never satisfied with the money he earned, and to make matters worse, when he was out working in the fields, she treated his mother harshly and often wouldn’t prepare proper meals for her. With each passing week, his mother was becoming thinner and weaker.
As the young man thought about his wife’s behavior and struggled with his anger, he tried to think about the situation from his wife’s perspective. “Well, it can’t be easy being the wife of a poor farmer, trying to make do when there’s never enough. At the temple they say that our basic nature is inherently good and compassionate, so if I treat her with compassion and caring, maybe I can draw forth those things from within her. Then, perhaps she’ll behave better towards my mother.”
He tried this approach, but instead of getting better, his wife’s behavior only seemed to worsen. Finally, he realized that he couldn’t wait for his wife to change her behavior; he would have to do something himself. He reflected deeply upon the situation for several days, until at last an idea occurred to him.
The end of the harvest season was approaching, and with it his yearly trip to the district capital to sell their grain. Normally, it took him over two weeks to make the round trip, but this time he hurried home, arriving a week earlier than expected.
He rushed into their courtyard, shouting for his wife. When she came out, he looked around to see if anyone else was listening and lowered his voice: “You won’t believe what I saw in the city! I stumbled into a side alley off the big market, and found a street where people were buying and selling grandmothers. The plump ones were going for a thousand strings of copper coins! Let’s sell my mother there! A thousand strings of coins, as easy as snapping your fingers!”
“Do you think we could get that much for her? She’s kind of scrawny….” “Hmm, you’re right. We’ll have to fatten her up first. But not a word to anyone. If other people start selling their mothers, we won’t get a good price.”
A thousand strings of coins was a huge amount of money, and the wife wanted it all. Late into the night all she could think about were ways to make her mother-in-law plump and healthy-looking. As the days went by, she experimented with different foods and medicines reputed to be good for the elderly. Eventually, she became obsessed with her mother-in-law’s health.
With this kind of care, her mother-in-law began to recover. One day, as she took her grandson for a walk, she met some old friends and spoke with amazement about how well her daughter-in-law was taking care of her. Over the next months, stories about how well the wife looked after her mother-in-law spread throughout the surrounding villages, and even reached the ears of the district governor.
Impressed, he ordered a stone monument to be erected, commemorating her behavior and holding it forth as a model of virtue for others. The wife had started with the intention of getting rich, but as she spent day after day thinking about someone other than herself, her own greed and selfishness had begun to melt away. Seeing the stone monument was the final straw; she broke down into tears, determined to truly become the person described there.
∴
Our fundamental mind, our Buddha-nature, contains infinite wisdom. However, this isn’t something you can find without making an effort. Like the young man, you have to diligently reflect inwardly and return your questions inwardly, while searching for a solution that will benefit everyone. If you do this, then the wisdom of your Buddha-nature can come forth.
However, no matter how great the wisdom, you won’t see any results from it without ceaseless effort and strong faith. If you want to achieve something in your life, throw away self-centeredness and greed, and then, with faith, entrust everything to your foundation.
While continuing to observe and being patient, use both your body and mind to put your understanding into practice. If you can make this kind of effort, you will certainly find the best way forward
We have a new book out! This is the combined English edition of “The Doctor is In” and “The Healing Power of Our Inner Light.” While the focus of these talks is awakening and realizing our true essence, they repeatedly touch on topics of health, illness, and using these as a way to deepen ourselves.
These were first published in Korean-English editions, and not widely available outside of Korea. Now they’re in one English edition, and available worldwide through Amazon in paper and ebook editions. (The ebook will be up on other retailers soon.)
Start where you are! Learn to rely upon your inherent Buddha-essence. Learn to apply its energy to the world around you. Every single one of us has this incredible, formless Buddha-nature, this one great pillar that encompasses everything. Take this pillar as your center, and strengthen your ability to let go. Develop your ability to entrust it with everything. In this way, take all suffering, all illness, and burn it all up! – Seon Master Daehaeng
At the center of our vast and completely empty mind, there is an eternal spark.
With my whole heart, I’ll take this spark as my guiding light. I’ll go forward sharing its light with all the world, traveling this path of endless compassion.
This one mind, deep, deep, so deep, so profound, so mysterious, there within this is the truth of “embracing everything.” From this one mind flows a great spring that has the power to save all beings.
I’ll drink deeply of this sweet water, and no longer be caught by life and death. Together with all beings, I’ll take this path, this truth, that transcends all fixed forms and ideas.
Here’s this week’s Dharma talk and reading of the text, “No River to Cross”
This isn’t a particularly long talk, but it does cover three huge points. Points that completely affect the direction our lives take. There are a hundred different ramifications for these, but rather than me talking for a week about them, just take one point that really clicks with you and, for one week, try to apply it every day.
Even if somebody is causing you great hardship, never see that one as being separate from yourself. Don’t distinguish between “me” and “others.” Don’t be blinded by beautiful appearances, and don’t be awed by great things. Because you exist, they also exist. Because you exist, all kinds of difficulties are able to arise. Because all things in the universe are working as one, as Hanmaum, all other people are also fundamentally yourself. Never be shaken. No matter whether you meet Buddha, or the King of Demons, or a Dharma-protecting spirit, everything is merely another shape of yourself.
When you face hardships, don’t become depressed, asking yourself “Why do such difficulties happen to me?” When these things happen, you should think “Now I have an opportunity to grow up.” Your future depends upon which way you choose. You have been given the authority to decide your future. Bad circumstances are, in fact, an opportunity to learn. When you understand that those things are Juingong teaching you, you cannot help but be thankful for even those circumstances. In fact, when difficulties come, you can make more progress in your practice. Thus, your practice deepens and you gain wisdom and strength.
“Quietly embrace your difficulties” does not mean to just endure them. It means knowing that the difficulties you face are inherently empty, and furthermore, that those difficulties can guide and train you. This is the attitude of practitioners who quietly embrace all things.
— Daehaeng Kun Sunim, “No River to Cross,” page 72
How do we become our full potential? How do we discover what it means to become a true human being? Well, the very first step is letting go of our fixed ideas. Just stop feeding them energy. It’s those ideas that push us into certain patterns and shapes, so when we start letting go of them, and trusting our inherent Buddha-nature, we can begin to discover our true shape.
You can roll a barrel only when you are outside of the barrel. When you are caught by fixed ideas, it is as if you are trapped inside of a barrel, so you cannot freely use your mind. If you escape from your fixed ideas, you will see that all of the thoughts and perspectives that you considered so precious are utterly ridiculous. Mind is formless and can freely go anywhere in the universe, so if you give rise to thoughts in a wise and all-embracing manner, you can escape from the barrel, from bondage, and from the prison that has no bars. How can you freely use your mind unless you first step outside of your own fixed ideas?
Fixed ideas are like a wisp of cloud or smoke, but nonetheless people find themselves blocked or captured by these. You would laugh if you saw someone tripped by a cloud, or if someone claimed that they were imprisoned by the air. But, in fact, people are endlessly being trapped by things no more substantial than air or clouds. They make a wall with their mind, and then it imprisons them. Inherently, there is no wall or anything to trip over. These things are mirages they’ve created from the thoughts they gave rise to.
Do not insist upon your own fixed ideas. Your persistence is your own narrow mind. If your mind is broad, it can easily embrace the entire world. However, if your mind is narrow, even a needle cannot enter. You have to keep letting go of your stubbornness, and always be deeply respectful of all life and things. This is returning to and relying upon the Buddha-Dharma. This is also how to become a free person. Always be humble. Be humble. The fragrance of your broad and generous mind will warm other’s hearts.
Hi everyone! We just finished up a series of English Dharma talks here about living with joy and confidence, and some of the things that go into that. We started with readings from “No River to Cross“, with a different page (roughly) every week. The talks were usually a mix of Korean and English, which can make for difficult listening if your Korean isn’t up to speed, so I decided to rerecord these and put one up each week for the next five weeks. There will be a recording of me reading the text, as well as one of a short talk (10 minutes or so). The thing about these is that as part of the Joy and Confidence thing, I’m not being over perfectionist about them. I’m trying out a simpler microphone solution, and if I flub a sentence while reading from the book, I’m just going to leave it in! Let’s move forward! (I’ll try this for a while, so let me know what you think. If there are problems with the sound or whatnot, we’ll try something different.) So go ahead and take a listen, and if something clicks with you, try to put that into practice.
UNCEASING PRACTICE The Correct Attitude for Practicing
You must not try to search outside of yourself. Take your inherent nature as your teacher. Because your inherent nature exists, everything in the universe functions together, so take your inherent nature, your fundamental mind, as your teacher.
In this practice, you teach yourself and you learn from yourself. You let go and you receive. You surrender and you accept the surrender. Spiritual cultivation is done like this, between you and your true self. Don’t be caught by outside things.
God, Buddha, and Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva all exist within you. If you would find and know them, start by brightening your own inner light. Then you will also be able to correctly perceive yourself and the world around you. However, if you abandon your own inner light and search for Buddha and God outside yourself, you will not find them, and little you do will turn out well.
Flowers bloom naturally when the conditions are right. People should learn about the conditions that cause flowers to bloom, and then create those conditions. Instead, they often wander around trying to find some unique and astonishing method. Instead of searching outside of yourself, you should first center your mind, and then take those thoughts that are focused on outward things and return them inward. Do not be dazzled by or chase after other people’s enlightenment. Instead, create the conditions that will allow the flower of enlightenment that is within you to bloom. You’re already endowed with it, so just help it to bloom naturally.
There’s a story in the sutras of a woman who was so filled with resentment over the way she was treated that the Buddha remarked she wouldn’t be able to become enlightened until her next life, when she would be reborn as a man. Some people have wildly misunderstood this to mean that women can’t become enlightened. (“Urm, don’t we all have the same Buddha-nature? Isn’t it equally present everywhere?”) But the key here isn’t that she was a woman, but that she just couldn’t let go of her resentment as long as she was still being treating unfairly.
Male, female, justified, unjustified, isn’t the point: It’s things we aren’t letting go of, things we aren’t trusting our inherent Buddha essence with that are keeping us from moving forward. It could be resentment at how we were treated, anger, lust, love, or sadness. It could also be an unwillingness to let to of feelings of joy and the thrill of a spiritual experience. And it could be concerns about politics.
Be responsible, take care of what needs doing, but we need to entrust even that as well. As the Bible says so well, we own only our labors, not the fruits of those labors. Let go of even politics, of even justified resentment, and trust that our true nature is sorting it all out, if we just take our fingers out. Let’s not become people who can only make progress in our next life, at some place where things would (hopefully) be better.
(This text is from a new Dharma talk we’re working on) People need to working at relying upon their foundation, but instead they spend their time complaining about what other people are doing, or meddling in other’s lives. Do you really have time for that? The house is on fire! You have only a few moments to find a way out! Are you really going to spend them standing around criticizing others? … So you must let go of everything, and just rely upon this one pillar of mind. In truth, everything is already flowing like that, so just don’t try to cling to ideas or events. If, with a wise thought, you can leap over these things, your life and family will be relaxed and comfortable. Wouldn’t this be a better way to live? What I’ve just said is the most important thing I’ll say all day. It’s so precious! Our lives continuously circle this fundamental mind, as fast and ceaseless as a propellor spinning around its drive shaft. If you let your life flow like this around your fundamental mind, there will be no place for illnesses and such to stick onto. I wish people would take this fact and treat it like the jewel it is, cultivating their faith in it and entrusting everything to this pillar of mind. But they don’t seem to do this. I’m just telling you about how the world is working, nothing more, and yet still people don’t work at living in accord with this. Instead, they follow distorted paths, living upside-down lives, and so experience every kind of hardship. If they could just live in tune with this truth that everything is already following and moving according to their fundamental mind, then they would radiate joy and wisdom, and would live out their full, proper, span of years. Even though everyone is inherently free, you have to know how to act free in order to actually be free. You have to keep taking what you understand and putting it into practice. Start with where you are. Look at how we build a house: you start with leveling the dirt and building a solid foundation. Then you need to know how to build the walls, floor, and roof. You have to figure out how to do all of this to end up with a useful building. You have to practice like this, taking one thing after another as they come to you, combining them with your fundamental mind, and then observing and putting the results into practice. Then you’ll be able to freely move between higher and lower realms, going wherever you’re needed. This is why the Buddha asked, “Who has my skin?” “Who has my flesh?” “Who has my bones?” and “Who has my essence?” Seon masters have said similar things to their students. Also, you shouldn’t concern yourself with other people’s level of spiritual practice. Or compare yourself to them. Just focus on putting into practice what you’ve learned and then leap over the things you’re stuck on. If you keep doing this over and over, eventually you’ll naturally understand everything about different levels of spiritual awareness.
We’ve finished and uploaded to YouTube another two videos of Daehaeng Kun Dharma talks. The video’s pretty old (analog tape), but you can hear the power in her voice for yourself.
from the “beam raising” ceremony, celebrating the midpoint of construction of the Tong Yeong Hanmaum Seon Center. The completion ceremony/celebration will be held this Saturday (Oct 13) from around 10am, so if you’re in the 통영 area, stop by!
I suppose for the sake of making things easy to understand, “judgement” has almost always been described as someone else looming over us, checking our deeds and misdeeds in a ledger or book. That works well enough, I guess, to get the point across that our actions will have consequences we’ll have to account for, but it also has the effect of making those effects seem utterly fixed and unchangeable on the one hand, and the whole effect being easily discredited for it’s implausibility on the other hand. In the excerpt that follows, Daehaeng Sunim describes the situation a bit differently.
It is not the Buddha who awakens you and raises your spiritual level. Buddha doesn’t bring you happiness, nor does he take it away from you. Nor is it the case that someone comes to take away your happiness because of the bad karma you’ve made. Nor will making lots of good karma cause someone to bring you happiness. Everything comes to you according to your own thoughts and actions. It comes according to the decisions you have made.
Further, everything is flowing by so quickly that there’s no moment for someone else to step in and try to change or affect something. Everything you see, hear, and do just flies past in that instant. It’s already long gone by the time you could say, “That’s what I’ve done,” or “I couldn’t do that.”
You, yourself, can’t even reach in and grab hold of it, so how could anyone else find a place they could step in and do something for you? Or something to harm you? It’s all flowing and changing every instant in response to what you are doing and thinking.
Wake Up and Laugh! 