Wake Up and Laugh!

Here’s the readings and Dharma talk for the second week of this series of talks about what our karma is and how we can overcome it.

 
Audio file: Chapter 2 of the Diamond Sutra 

Audio file: Dharma talk by Chong Go Sunim

 

 

2) A Wise Man Asks for the Dharma

At that time,
the elder Bhikkhu, Subhuti,
arose from his place among those gathered near the Buddha.
He swept his robe over his right shoulder,
placed his right knee on the ground,
and kneeling thus with his palms together,
spoke.

“How rare, oh World-honored One!
nondually does Tathagata guide and manage
the innumerable transformation bodhisattvas arising from one mind,
nondually does Tathagata direct and make use of all
the response bodhisattvas of one mind!

“World-honored One,
if I have understood correctly,
you have taught us that
when men and women awaken to the highest truth,
they are able to respond
positively, wisely, proactively,
to the impermanence of every place and thing,
of every life and creation.

As they become one with the unenlightened beings within their body,
all of those beings naturally surrender and follow one mind.
When nothing is not themselves
this nondual mind
is able to instantly manifest and send forth whatever is needed.”

“Excellent, Subhuti! Excellent!” replied the Buddha.
“It is as you have said.
‘Tathagata’ means the mind where
inside and outside are already one,
and so the Tathagata guides and controls
the transformation, response, and manifestation
of all the innumerable bodhisattvas existing within.

Now, listen carefully, and I’ll tell you something special:
Wise women and men
who want to awaken to the highest truth,
have to manage the lives within themselves
by becoming one with them.
They have to take these consciousnesses,
these inner lives of one mind,
which aren’t yet moving in accord with one mind,
and cause these lives to surrender
and follow one mind.”

“Thank you, World-honored One!
Your words fill me with joy!
Can you please speak more about this?

As this course of talks continues, I’ll talk more about how to dissolve karma, and why that’s possible, but to begin with, I need to start with the questions of what is our karma, and where is it? (The following paragraphs are taken from Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s Dharma talks about this topic. Pay attention to the underlined parts, and try to reflect upon those.)

I’m rerecording these talks in order to get an English-only edition (otherwise half the talk would be in Korean), and what this means is I’m doing it without anybody listening at the time, so I don’t have a strong a sense of what people need to know about. If you have questions about karma or its functioning, be sure to leave them in the comments, and I’ll talk about them in next week’s talk. Thanks! 

Audio files:
Readings from Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s Dharma talks (me reading the text below)

A brief talk about the nature of karma

     As you’ve heard me say before, your body is composed of billions of unenlightened beings. Of course, there’s nothing that’s not a Buddha, but before attaining enlightenment, we are all unenlightened beings. These unenlightened beings gather together, according to their karmic affinity, into one large collection of karma. They gather together and form this lump of flesh that gets called “me.” And then this same principle of gathering together according to karmic affinity caused all of us to gathered here today for this Dharma talk.

      We’ve gone through life after life with untold different bodies, passing through light years of eons, so think about all of the karmic states of consciousness that we’ve created, and all of the chains of cause and effect those have led to.  Think about all the interactions and all the karmic affinities that must have been created over those light years. And now, as we’ve reached the human level, all of those have gathered together as our physical bodies.

     Passing through all of those lives, we’ve created karma of every stage. We’ve created karma at the level of bugs, at the level of animals, at the level of birds, and again at the level of human beings. All of this karma comes out one after another according to circumstances, and sometimes as if they were your own thoughts, and bringing all kinds of hardships and suffering. They pop up out of the blue and make our lives harder. If we let ourselves be fooled by theses, we’ll make our situation worse. A few of you may have heard of the hell of darkness or the snake-pit Hell, right? Well, if we live at the level of a snake, we’ll end up being reborn in a snake’s den. If we live at the level of a worm, we’ll end up living in the darkness underground.   

      What can we do, then, to be free from this suffering? Start by reflecting on what your body is. Karmic states of consciousness became actions and karma, which led to chains of cause and effect, which I in turn caused the formation of this body of you have. For 30 minutes or so in the evenings, try to reflect upon the fact that your body is composed of all your karma and karmic connections. Those are what formed it. Thus, for spiritual practice, you don’t need to be looking around for some other place. This is the very first thing you must remember if you want to be free.

 

Hi everyone! We’ve put up a new subtitled video Dharma talk from Daehaeng Kun Sunim on YouTube. It’s subtitled in English, and only a short section(15 minutes) of the whole talk, but it shouldn’t leave you feeling hungry!

An interview with Hye Yeon Sunim of the Hanmaum Seon Center at Tongyeong, South Korea

The Tongyeong center is quite beautiful, set in a strange, wonderful bowl on top of a mountain. It’s one of the most amazing sites I’ve seen in Korea, but the construction process was long and difficult. The Center made the first purchases of land 14 years ago, and started construction 5 years ago, after Daehaeng Kun Sunim had passed away. Hye Yeon Sunim is the founder of the temple, and has guided the construction from the very beginning. This interview appeared in the 2018 January-February issue of Hanmaum Journal (#97).

Hanmaum Journal: What was your motivation in deciding to build a traditional style temple?

Hye Yeon Sunim:  Well, the laymembers and the sunims always had the idea that a larger, more traditional temple would be nice. However the real impetus came the fact that the center was located in a Korean-style office/shopping building. Kun Sunim’s teachings are wonderful and beyond anything else in the world, but few people were coming to the temple, because it didn’t look like a temple. (These style of buildings are quite common in Korean cities, and will have everything from restaurants, cell phone stores, photo studios, and cram schools to day care centers. It’s common to find hair salons, beauty schools, piano schools, paduck(go) clubs, and even churches and temples, all in the same building. — translator)

That always felt like a shame, but building a traditional temple building isn’t easy. Then, someone mentioned finding a section of land for sale that they said was quite nice. I went and visited, and it was perfect! Although it was a wonderful location, I was intimidated at the same time. It would have been an almost unimaginable undertaking to find the money for the land and construction, and then to undertake both.

While I was up in Anyang, and visiting Kun Sunim, I told her about the situation. Someone brought in a snack of a type of fried potato pancake made with mushrooms called jeon, and she kept offering me some. I couldn’t refuse, but to tell you the truth, I’ve always hated mushrooms. But here was Kun Sunim personally offering me food, so I ate the mushroom pancakes.

Later, I realized that she was teaching me to take whatever arose, and fully chew and eat it unconditionally. I resolved to move forward with the construction.

Continue reading “Building a Temple as Spiritual Practice” →

I happened to pass by the workshops where people are working on the lanterns for the Buddha’s birthday. I managed to get a couple of photos before they could shoo me away! It looks like they are going to be spectacular!

Well, okay, direct-ish audiobook sales! We’ve loaded the files to the sales website, Gumroad, and they’ll take care of processing payments and file downloads. I’m excited because now we have a way to get this to people who don’t have an account at Audible.com or iTunes. Gumroad also takes Paypal, as well as credit cards.

My Heart is a Golden Buddha – Audiobook edition
by Daehaeng Kun Sunim
narrated by Garan Fitzgerald

A collection of inspiration and wisdom, seen through the tales of housewives and kings, monks and bandits, and the deep mountains of Korea.

In this collection of thirty-three stories, one of Korea’s foremost Seon(Zen) masters introduces the richness and depth of Korea’s Buddhist tradition. With humor and insight, Seon Master Daehaeng shows us our inherent potential and demonstrates how we can face the challenges of life with wisdom and vigor.

(Give it a try! It’s pretty good!)

(buy direct from us, via Gumroad, and it’s only $7.99!)

  Today was the 49th day ceremony for Park Jae Won, who passed away in January. It’s hard to describe how warm and impressive he was. I’m a bit disappointed that this mediocre photo is the best I could find, but perhaps that’s impermanence telling me not to cling to any particular shape of him!

This is an interview with him from 2006, and touches on modern Korean Buddhist history, as well as his experiences with different Buddhist teachers in Korea.

Sadly, his wife also passed away a few weeks afterwards. Sigh. He leaves behind his daughter and her family.

Senior Advisor Mr. Park, and the Early History of Hanmaum Seon Center

This  interview appeared in the May/June 2006 issue (#27) of Hanmaum Journal.

If you visit the Anyang Hanmaum Seon Center, there is a chance you’ll see Mr. Jae Won Park(박재원). He has known Kun Sunim for many decades, and been a member of the Seon Center from it’s early years. In addition to taking care of all kinds of large and small jobs for the Seon Center, he also used to have many important roles in the Buddhist community and larger society of Korea. Here is his story.

How did you come to meet Daehaeng Kun Sunim?

I first met her through my association with Tanho Sunim [Tanho Sunim was also a disciple of Hanam Sunim, and was considered one of the foremost scholars of modern Korea -translator]. I’d met Tanho Sunim in the mid-1960’s and later had formed a group to help support his teaching and vision. He and Kun Sunim were very good friends, so on one of his visits, I went along and met Kun Sunim. That’s how I first met her, and eventually, in April of 1976, I had been appointed as senior adviser to Hanmaum Seon Center.

For many years I’ve wondered about that karmic affinity that led me to meet Daehaeng Kun Sunim. Her path has been so different from that of a worldly person like me. In my heart she’s closer to me than my own parents were; what kind of connection must there be to cause this? How much strength and hope must I have gotten from her in my past lives that I would neglect everything else to help take care of the Seon Center? I’ve thought often about how meeting her gave me such strength and why it was such a turning point in my life. Continue reading “In memoriam – Park Jae Won” →

Here’s a nice, short Dharma talk about our connection with all things, and some of the implications. 

No Matter What Your Need Is

Your Juingong is one with everything.
Through it, you are connected to your ancestors,
the Buddhas, and unenlightened beings.
It connects you to the spirit of trees, and the spirits of the earth,
it connects you to dragon spirits
as well as everything else,
so whatever help you need,
whatever circumstances you find yourself in,
completely entrust the whole thing to your foundation,
with a quiet “thank you.”
Do it like this,
for a single thought handled unwisely
can multiply into a thousand evil seeds,
and plunge your family into chaos.
Yet the same thought, returned to this inherent foundation,
can become a thousand good seeds,
and create a comfortable, pleasant life.

— Daehaeng Kun Sunim

This connection doesn’t flow just in one direction. Physicists tell us that matter and energy are constantly switching places, and just like this, the energy of our intentions, when deeply input, becomes the matter of the world around us. Born as human beings, we now have the ability to affect the world around us through this connection and the intentions we input. This is a huge step up from being forced to either passively accept our conditions, hoping something else changes them, or else running away, trying to find a better place. Now we have the ability to change where we are, right now. Let’s all draw a better future, one where people live together wisely and harmoniously. 

I hope the new year has been finding everyone well! Things here are proceeding along; we’re still working on translating Daehaeng Kun Sunim’s edition of the Diamond Sutra, as well as a couple of great talks about health and healing. Kind of looking forward to seeing those in print!

I realized that I haven’t done anything with the blog for quite a while, so I’m changing the theme, as well as reposting some excellent posts from long ago. Please bear with me! There may be few hiccups as I get this sorted out. As we approach the lunar new year, may your families all be healthy and happy, and may all your worries about health and finances soften and turn out well!

with palms together,
Chong Go