Learning to see the world as it truly is
Just for fun, here’s a few photos from past years’ Lotus Lantern parade, which will be held in Seoul this Sunday (May 16). Following it, are some photos from Dharma Halls on Korean army bases.
The beautiful photos at the top were taken by Park Youngwoo, and the rest by me!
Ps. please let me know if your computer has trouble loading this page, I may have overdone it with the photos! With palms together, Chong Go.
If there were a clump of gold buried in a yard, people would dig and dig until they found it, regardless of how deep it was. The original, infinite, absolute jewel buried within us is incomprehensibly more significant than the clump of gold in the yard. So we should try to find this incredible jewel within.
-Zen Master Song Cheol
I can’t look at this without thinking of the disasters in the world that are created by digging for the jewel in the yard. One by one, as we learn to shift our seeking inward, there will fewer and fewer holes to fill.
May we all find our jewel within together!
Having searched for myself in all myriad things
True Self (Juingong) appeared right before my eyes
Ha! Ha! Meeting it now, there is no doubt
Brilliant hues of udumbara flowers spill over the whole world
– Seon Master Gyeongbong Jeongseok (1892 – 1982)
The focus of this blog are the teachings of Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim and their relevance in the life and practice of each of us in this small group of Dharma friends. We first came together in the Buddhist English Library of Seoul to study Kun Sunim’s book ‘No River to Cross’ and I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all found the book of huge usefulness in our practice ever since. I know that I’ve been drawn back to it time and time again.
One of the remarkable things about it, although I hardly know why I’m surprised, is how whenever I hear other teachings, even from other Buddhist traditions, they fit so well into the framework ‘No River to Cross’ provides. Take that first chapter,which, despite being just five pages long, gets off to such a rigorous start: “Above all else” Seon Master Daehaeng writes, and I’m sure this is the essence of so much Buddhist teaching, “you have to truly know yourself.”
It’s easy to respond with a knee-jerk reaction to this, saying “ah, but there is no self”, while missing precisely what we are being asked to do. I remember hearing Venerable U Vamsarakkhita speak in Bangkok about this. The Buddha did not tell people, he said, to cast aside their bodies and thoughts and feelings, but to examine them. And then, through this investigation, be better able to live in the moment, experiencing a richer more fulfilling life.
We are asked to find out for ourselves. And even if you find, as I heard Ajarn Brahm once put it, that you are a bus without a driver, that you are not your body, you are not your intelligence, you are not your job or even your gender, then you can just relax. As he said, you can let go. There is nothing to feel proud of, and nothing you can’t let go of. “But what” one questioner asked, “CAN we hold on to?” And Ajahn Brahm answered “Wisdom, virtue, and peace”.
A little bell went off somewhere over my head! It’s the very same! What all these teachers urge is to keep looking to see what is beyond the truth of my everyday self, to that which we can most rely on. Beyond this self, which we learn is constantly changing and connected in every way to everything else, is what? “The purpose of studying Buddhism” Kun Daehaeng Sunim writes, “is to discover who I am. Discovering who I am means returning to my foundation.”
So I come back again to Kun Sunim and see how so much wisdom is packed into so few lines. She takes us through the practice of deep investigation to a joyful meeting with the True Self in no time at all, and then tells us to have faith in that foundation and entrust everything to it. Yet what she does is actually no more than repeat the message of all the masters through all of history. What can you rely on? Wisdom, virtue, and peace: our true foundation, our True Self.
“It is like coming across a light in thick darkness; it is like receiving treasure in poverty. The four elements and the five aggregates are no more felt as burdens; so light, so easy, so free you are. Your very existence has been delivered from all limitations; you have become open, light, and transparent. You gain an illuminating insight into the very nature of things, which now appear to you as so many fairylike flowers having no graspable realities. Here is manifested the unsophisticated self which is the original face of your being; here is shown all bare the most beautiful landscape of your birthplace. There is but one straight passage open and unobstructed through and through. This is so when you surrender all – your body, your life, and all that belongs to your inmost self. This is where you gain peace, ease, non-doing, and inexpressible delight. All the sutras and sastras are no more than communications of this fact; all the sages, ancient as well as modern, have exhausted their ingenuity and imagination to no other purpose than to point the way to this. ”
– From a letter by Yengo (Yuan-wu), quoted by D.T.Suzuki in ‘An Introduction to Zen Buddhism’, Grove Press, 1964
In a short letter, the Korean Seon master Hanam (han-am) Sunim, said something that’s stuck with me ever since:
The pillar of all work on behalf of Buddhism is harmony.
That’s all. Nothing fancy. But it packs such a wallop. Everything about interconnectedness and nonduality is right there, together with tremendous power to guide.
Am I feeling harmonious as I approach this issue?
Am I viewing the others involved in a harmonious way?
Will my intentions and behavior result in a harmonious outcome?
Although obvious in hindsight, this is such a critical issue, for we are all inherently connected, as Daehaeng Kun Sunim says, sharing the same life, the same mind, the same body, and working together as one while freely giving and receiving whatever is needed.
There’s only helping, not “helping her.” There’s only loving, not “loving them.” There’s only hating, not “hating them.” There’s only defeat and humiliation, not “defeating them.”
May all beings know happiness and harmony, joy and wisdom, virtue and merit.
with palms together,
Chong Go
Technically, those gray specks in my rice weren’t supposed to be there. Perhaps if they’d been millet, added to give the rice a nice multi-grain taste. Or maybe a little wild sesame. Alas, they were neither.
Tongdo Temple, where we were undertaking our ordination training, is beautiful. Ancient and sprawling, it is one of the few large temples to survive the destruction of the Korean War.
Situated in a green valley with a soaring mountain range behind, Tongdo Temple is truly a treasure of Korean Buddhism. It also has the worst food of any large temple in Korea!
Normally, Korean housewives will soak and wash rice before boiling it. This ensures the rice is clean and also rinses away any rice weevils that may have been enjoying a meal before they were interrupted. With an extra 300 mouths to feed for our training session, it appeared the kitchen monk had skipped this step.
Picking the steamed weevils out of the rice wasn’t even an option: every last morsel had to be consumed, down to a single flake of red pepper or sesame seed. We would wash our bowls afterwards, and if even the tiniest bit of food was found in the bucket that collected the water, the twenty postulants in my row would have to drink the entire bucket of wash water.
“Well,” I thought, as I looked at the gray specks in my rice, “eating these won’t kill me. And actually, it won’t even kill them.”
With that I began to eat, letting go, as best I could, of my fixed ideas of right and wrong, which are more often than not manifestations of ego.
Daehaeng Kun Sunim had once gently confronted my vegetarian moral superiority, saying about the beings whose cooked flesh was sometimes served to me, “Don’t hate them because they are poor and unfortunate. Become one with them and let them experience the human level of consciousness.”
Bugs in my rice! (at the Dharma Folk blog)
Toward the great bodhisattvas in all directions
Who practice the Way out of sympathy for all,
One should have reverence and respect,
Saying ‘These are my great teachers’.
– The Lotus Sutra, Chapter 14
Entrusting and devotion. Thank you to everyone who has brought this discussion into being; these are questions I’ve been struggling with for years, and what follows are my own personal thoughts and tentative conclusions based on my own feelings and practice. I offer this not as a replacement or supplement to the wonderful articles already submitted by Joseph and Chong Go Sunim, but just as a personal account of what is true for me.
But I start with Zen Master Daehaeng, who gave me my Dharma name and whose words I’ve found to be invariably wise and relevant. “First,” she says (in ‘No River to Cross’), “sincerely believe in your inherent nature, Juingong, and know that it is taking care of everything. Second, go forward with courage. Third, experiment with how Juingong takes care of everything, continuously apply what you experience, and never let yourself be daunted by anything”.
What Master Daehaeng Sunim does is invite us to know, for ourselves, that Juingong, Buddha-nature, is taking take of everything, that everything arises from it and returns to it. So entrust everything, she writes, “entrust the things you understand and the things you don’t understand, entrust happiness and entrust suffering, entrust poverty and entrust disease.” But let go to what? Entrust to what? To emptiness, Daehaeng Sunim says, to emptiness.
Emptiness, One Mind, True Self, the fundamental place. Daehaeng Sunim calls it ‘Juingong’ but she says “you can call it Amida Buddha, or the main Buddha. You can call it God or my love because it is the fundamental place… the true self that leads you, no matter what name is used.” The experience is the very same. The most pure and fundamental part of you responding to what is most pure and fundamental. And this call to the fundamental place is universal.
For me, this is the emptiness that manifests as Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva or Amida Buddha, or in a church I may feel it as the Christ. I am held in the warm arms of the Buddha, wrapped in the loving cloak of the Bodhisttva. This is not poetry, it’s true. True not just because it’s in countless Sutras, but because I know it. When I die I will be met by Amida Buddha and the Bodhisttvas. Yet they are also here now, all I need do is remember. And to live well, all I need do, and here’s the thing, is entrust.
Perhaps that which we entrust to may best be described through rhythm, or art, or silence. When asked for highest wisdom, the ancient masters said ‘mu!’ – ‘nothing!’. But emptiness is also form, so then they told their students to chop wood, to carry water, to find that emptiness, that eternal ever changing flow, that fullness of love and awareness that sunders the bonds of suffering, in their every activity, in their work, in the very depths of their lives.
Where names are, for me at least, important. I’ll happily admit to being a beginner. I’ve tried, but cannot reach the most difficult philosophical heights of the Dharma. I’ve been to many Buddhist discussion groups where I’ve been lost at the complexity of it all. And I’m rubbish at meditation. But I look around at the good people in the temples, in Thailand and Korea, the places I know best, and see that Buddhist life is the precepts, generosity, chanting, and reliance upon the Buddha. That is enough. And difficult enough.
So faith is vital to me. I remember many times at Bonguensa with my Dharma friends performing prostrations and chanting Kwan Seum Bosal. The temple would be full of people, their practice clearly coming from faith. It rubbed off on me and I find myself often drawn to the Boddhisattva, with devotion and gratitude. Many times a day I chant the Bodhisattva’s name and feel her presence. I feel grateful for this and my practice is to entrust everything to her. Yet I also know that she is no different to my fundamental Buddha-nature.
Perhaps I’m in the wrong Buddhist group for this to find its full expression, but I don’t think so. Rather, I think the teachings of Master Daehaeng Sunim gives a depth to this faith that places it where it most belongs, right in my heart. Know that you are connected to all, believe, entrust, observe. For me, there is no contradiction between a devotional practice towards the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (or whatever figure one is drawn towards) and faith in one’s fundamental Buddha-nature. How could there be?
“Because mind has no form, tens of thousands of different shapes can come out from it. This is called the ten billion transformation bodies of Buddha. Why is it called the ten billion transformation bodies? It’s because Buddha responds to you as you request: if you want the mountain god, Buddha manifests as the mountain god. If you want Avalokitesvara, Buddha manifests as Avalokitesvara. Like this, Buddha manifests in various forms. Furthermore, Buddha responds not only with certain shapes, but also with compassion and warmth.”
– Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim
Links:
Chong Go Sunim: Entrusting
Joseph: Entrusting/Green Tara
Master Daehaeng Sunim: To Discover Your True Self, “I” Must Die
Several people have asked me to talk more about entrusting, and what Daehaeng Kun Sunim means by it. Let me start off by saying that entrusting is probably the second-most important aspect of all spiritual practice. There’s so much that revolves around this topic, so I’ll just jump in, and if you all have questions unanswered, let’s continue the topic in the comments section.
What is entrusting?
The easy explanation is that it means trusting your root.
It’s trusting your inherent Buddha-nature, and turning over to it everything that arises, along with the things you get hung up on.
To be even more accurate, you’re returning them back to the place they came from. Everything arises from there, so that’s the place they need to be returned to. If you want the answer to a problem, look for it at the source of the problem. If a bee or fly comes into your room, the only way for it to get back outside is the way it came in. If it came in through the doorway, and looks for the solution at the window, it will die there, hitting the window again and again. This is the feeling I get from looking for solutions in the wrong places.
Just off the top of your head, how many examples can you think of where things are made worse by searching for a solution somewhere outside the problem? If you have a relationship problem, is looking for the answer in the arms of another really going to make things better? If you’re stressed or lonely or bored, is there really any long-term relief in repeatedly looking for comfort in a bottle, a pizza box, or the internet? Ultimately, it arose from this foundation, so that’s where we have to return it.
Root, Foundation, Buddha-nature, God, the master within, Mind
Awakening is to know your root.
It’s got a lot of names, but it’s that which is your source and destination, your sustenance and support.
Sometimes I feel like people (unconsciously) misunderstand awakening as a blissed-out feeling, or a clear(er) intellectual understanding of what’s really going on in the world. This is probably there, to be sure, but this isn’t the main thing.
Your root is your source and your refuge. To paraphrase the words of the Sixth Patriarch, “Who would have guessed that my foundation was inherently complete, endowed with every kind of knowledge and ability, and able to perceive everything and respond appropriately through both the spiritual and material realms.” This root of ours is the source of all energy, wisdom, courage, compassion, and is continuously taking care of everything. It seems that only our clinging and insistence on relying upon “me” and “my” thoughts and ideas can hinder it.
Daehaeng Kun Sunim gives the example of assigning a task to someone: if you give them a job, and then constantly bug them about how it’s going, they’ll throw the job back in your face. “Here, you do it!” Or, if you keep calling to them and asking how it’s going, or give them something new to do every few minutes, how can they set about getting the task done?
What do we entrust?
We entrust everything, unconditionally.
What we know, along with what we don’t know. What we understand, and what we don’t understand. Things that go well, and things that are going badly. We have to entrust both sides, otherwise we end up (trying to) cling to those aspects that represent our fixed ideas of good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant.
Roy, at Return to the Center, asked “how to discern entrusting to my foundation / Buddha-nature from entrusting to my ego-driven storyline? Trust me on this – I have a very convincing storyline…” This is a great question, and I think this unconditional entrusting is a huge part of the answer. Somewhere in letting go of what I know and what I don’t know, I transcend this storyline. If (when!) I find myself caught up in the storyline, I let go of that too.
Barry, from Ox Herding, touched on the problem of carelessly thinking “things will turn out for the best.” Things don’t always turn out as good as they needed to be. A big cause on the personal level, is me not entrusting both sides of the situation, or hoping for one result over another. And sometimes “best” is just a reflection of my own fixed ideas. But our root can still fill in the gaps and help things for the best in our current circumstances. However, this is often the second-best outcome. (Or third, or fourth!^^)
Similarly, how do we know what we’re feeling or sensing from within is arising from our true nature, versus our bad karma? This one isn’t easy. For one thing, we have to let go of even the things that arise from inside. Both the good and the blissful, and the wise. If they are true, they’ll return when we need them. Another sign is the tone of this inner “voice.” Is it something that violates the precepts? Is it something harsh and cruel? Something argumentative or spiteful? Those are really strong indications that what I’m sensing is just a karmic echo. No need to feel bad about them, just let go of them too, and don’t be deceived by them any longer.
Whether we see it or not, whether we can feel it or not, our Buddha-nature is there taking care of things. You don’t see the root of a living tree, yet it’s there supporting and feeding the tree. So a lot of what entrusting is, is simply getting out of the way and letting it work. Even when I don’t know it’s there, it’s still there, supporting me and sustaining me. Every breath, every cycle of our blood, every exactly produced hormone and enzyme is a miracle of the highest order. A 100 billion lives are magically working together within just this one body.
Entrusting is a step off a hundred foot bamboo pole. It’s stepping beyond my own fixed ideas. It’s dying and traveling through that gray land where there’s nothing to grasp onto.
(Perhaps that’s why I used to love skydiving!)
However, for eons we’ve mistaken “I know,” “me,” and “mine” for a support, for something safe to stand on.
You think that floor is safer? Far more skydivers die in plane crashes than skydiving accidents. You’re safer out of the plane than you are in it!
It was truly said that when you let go of everything you gain everything. When you’ve let go of all dualities, you become a channel for all the creativity, love, and wisdom in the universe.
There are so many aspects to entrusting that it’s hard for me to address them all, and my own practice is still incomplete (by a lot!) so if there’s something I haven’t addressed, let’s go ahead and discuss it in the comments section.
with palms together,
Chong Go
(The skydiving photos came from here and here. Thanks to the original posters.)
I noticed this comment by Roy, from Return to the Center;
It would be very helpful to me to hear more about entrusting. I react with worry to this encouragement. I think “entrust myself to what? How do I know if I am entrusting myself to my own delusion?” and things like that.
Actually, I had a very similar feeling after reading No River to Cross. I asked Chong Go Seunim at Saturday Sangha one day how to know if it’s truly intuition or your desires that you are following. His answer was to ask deep within and listen to what your true feeling is. Usually we know if we’re doing the right thing or not, we just don’t always listen to ourselves.
My wife and I decided that we would get married only three weeks after we first met. It sounds crazy even to us when we think about it now, but at the time, we just knew. I’d never had a relationship that I didn’t drive myself half crazy asking if it was right (because deep down I knew that it wasn’t, I just didn’t listen) but when I met my wife there was never any doubt. Three weeks isn’t long, but I looked as deep down as I could in that amount of time and didn’t hear anything but “Yes!” It’s only been a couple of years, and I can’t pretend to know what the future holds, but just trusting that everything will be okay, even if it doesn’t work out as planned, makes it seem okay. If there’s ever a time that things just can’t be worked out, I trust that I can find the strength to pack up (within) and become a monk!! ^ ^
Also, I wonder whether or not entrusting yourself is very separate from some devotional forms of Buddhism. Personally, I see the Amitas, Gwan Sae Eums, Taras, or which ever you prefer, as manifestations or projections of expressions that are also within yourself. Honestly, it’s not a topic that I’ve given a great deal of thought to, my practice is decidedly not very devotional, but I’m sure Chong Go Seunim or Marcus will be willing to add something to that (and it doesn’t have to be in accord!).
I am reminded, though, of taking a night bus from Kathmandu to Lumbini. I usually travel entrusting that nothing bad is going to happen to me, but even the locals kept worrying we about the risks of traveling on the night buses. One of the shop keepers, from whom I’d bought a number of castings, gave me a small Green Tara amulet to hold on the ride. He reminded me of her mantra, said to remove fear, and then told me not to worry, even the daytime buses tend to get hijacked in Nepal…
A little short of reassuring, it still made me realize there was no point in worrying. On the bus, however, my nerves were shaky. I clenched the Green Tara amulet in my left hand and my mala in my right hand and repeated the mantra until I lost count of how many times I’d thumbed through the 108 beads. I visualized Tara above me, shinning her light down. I visualized the green light hitting my forehead, spreading out to the others sitting around me, the others in the bus, and everyone else traveling on the road that night.
At one point, I opened my eyes to see the entire bus bathed in green light. I noticed a green plastic cover over the light at the front of the bus. I had to giggle to myself as my mind toyed with possibilities.
What I realized later about the mantra is that it doesn’t necessarily protect you from what you fear but more from the feeling of fear itself. It might be a stretch, but maybe what it’s doing is actually giving you the trust within yourself that everything will be okay.
Hi everyone,
The Buddha’s Birthday is going to be celebrated here in Korea on the 21st, with the main lantern parade in Seoul on Sunday the 16th. The lanterns are spectacular, as are the performances and dancing, and shouldn’t be missed. I took this photo Sunday night at a review our temple was holding. This lantern is about 10 feet high (3m) and will be used as a parade float. Like most of the lanterns it’s made from traditional paper over a wire framework, with electric lighting within. The paper is hand painted, with a weather-coating varnish of some kind.
There will be a street fair all day on the street in front of Jogye Temple, with the main parade starting from Dongguk University once it begins to get dark. The parade will move down Jongno road, ending in front of Jogye Temple. There will also be a shorter review held in front of Jogye Temple on Saturday, the 15th, again at dusk.
Here’s a close up of the leg:
So if you’re going to be in Korea, be sure to stop by Seoul on the 16th. Busan will also be having a parade, although I don’t know when. (It’s nice, but not as spectacular.) Likewise, there will be smaller parades at nearly every temple in the country on the 21st.
with palms together,
Chong Go
For an idea of the size of these lanterns, look at the peoples’ heads at the base of the elephant.
We’ve had some reports of large ads appearing on this blog, but haven’t been able to figure out if this is a spam program or WordPress’ doing. If you’ve seen an ad while visiting us, would you drop a line in the “Comments” section? Thanks, we’re trying to get more info about this, and would like to know what people are seeing.
with palms together,
Chong Go
Wake Up and Laugh! 