The More I Study the Mind, the Further I Seem to Get from Romance and Marriage

Aug 16, 2024 – Day 1 of Youth Camp, Friday Dharma Q&A

The “Youth Camp with Venerable Pomnyun Sunim” begins today and will last for three days at the Jungto Retreat Center in Seonyudong, Mungyeong. After completing his morning practice and meditation, Sunim departed from Dubuk Retreat Center at 6:30 AM to head to Mungyeong for the Youth Camp.

The opening ceremony for the Youth Camp began at 10 AM in the main hall of the Jungto Retreat Center, with about 100 volunteers from Jungto Society’s Special Youth Division in attendance.

After reciting the Threefold Refuge and the Heart Sutra, Park Soo-jung, the head of the Special Youth Division, gave a welcoming speech.

“Young people have gathered here with passion as hot as the August heat. The fact that everyone took time off work to be here on a weekday shows how passionate you all are. Let’s make these next three days an enjoyable time.”

Following this, Jeon Hae-jong, the representative of Jungto Society, gave a greeting, and then participants from all over the country introduced themselves by group.

Starting with the Gyeonggi East group, participants from Gyeonggi West, South Gyeongsang, North Gyeongsang, South Seoul, North Seoul, Chungcheong-Jeolla, and the Haengja Institute came forward to introduce themselves.

“I took a day off work to come here today, and I just got a message from work that makes me worried. But I’m so glad to meet all of you.”

Many of the young people were facilitators, co-facilitators, group leaders, or team leaders for the Jungto Dharma School. Most of them balance their work life with Jungto Society activities. They traveled long distances with the expectation of envisioning a new civilization with Sunim over the next three days.

Rinchen Dawa, who served as an interpreter when Sunim visited Bhutan recently, also attended the Youth Camp and greeted everyone.

“I came here to learn more about Jungto Society. It’s nice to meet you all.”

Everyone welcomed each other with big applause.

Then, about 100 young volunteers paid their respects to Sunim with three bows and requested his opening Dharma talk.

Sunim introduced the purpose of holding the Youth Camp and explained in detail what the vision of Jungto Society’s activities is.

“The social conditions now are very different from 50 years ago when I was in my 20s. While humans still suffer, the types and objects of suffering have changed a lot. When I was in elementary school, environmental issues like the climate crisis didn’t exist. The biggest issue was poverty, such as lack of food. There were many beggars living under bridges, so people often joked, ‘We picked you up from under a bridge, and if you keep crying, we’ll send you back there.’

The next issue was education. When I graduated from elementary school, there were 36 students in a class, but only 6 went on to middle school. So the homeroom teacher would gather the students going to middle school separately and teach them until late.

Past Issues, Current Issues, Future Issues

Living in such times, as industrialization progressed, people from rural areas moved to cities, causing rural areas to collapse. The workers who moved to cities faced very poor working conditions and couldn’t secure their three basic labor rights. Also, when people with families left rural areas for cities, most of them lived in tents or shanty towns around the city, creating a large urban poor population. So farmers, workers, and the urban poor were the biggest social issues at that time. Their lives were very difficult, but they didn’t have the power to fight for themselves. So university students with a sense of justice would take leaves of absence or drop out of school to live in slums and engage in poverty movements, or go into factories to work alongside laborers and educate them about their legal rights. Some would go to the countryside to farm and engage in farmers’ movements or become executives in farmers’ organizations. Especially during summer vacations, groups of dozens of students would form to do rural volunteer work called ‘nonghwal’. University students would help with farm work and pave rural roads. So when I was young, the main social issues were people’s movements and democratization movements. Especially the democratization movement had somewhat of a political nature, so it was difficult to carry out openly because people would be arrested immediately. Compared to your fathers’ and grandfathers’ generations, you have grown up without experiencing much of this.

On the other hand, the biggest issue facing you now is the climate crisis. If we approach it as ‘How can we overcome the era of climate crisis?’, it seems too overwhelming. But if we approach it as ‘How should we live in the era of climate crisis?’, we can explore practical methods. When we founded Jungto Society 30 years ago, we started environmental movements out of concern for our descendants, but now environmental problems have exponentially amplified and become our current problem. Just as there were demands for survival and political freedom for the masses in the past, now we are facing the question of ‘How should we live in the era of climate crisis?’

Recently, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, industries that research human brains and mental processes to maximize efficiency are developing rapidly. There have been suggestions in Jungto Society for several years to publish ‘A Day in the Life of Sunim’ in English, but at that time it was difficult to implement because of the problem of who would translate and proofread it every day. However, since the recent emergence of ChatGPT and various AI programs, it now takes only 5 minutes to translate ‘A Day in the Life of Sunim’ into English. After supplementing the system to translate Buddhist terms and idiomatic expressions used only within Jungto Society, the accuracy reached 99%. It’s to the point where it doesn’t even need to be proofread by a professional translator.

To Create New Alternatives for Future Civilization

So from now on, population size or country size can no longer be factors of competition. Just as Britain gained global power through industrialization regardless of population size or territory during the Industrial Revolution, the concept of development may completely change in the future. However, this era of advanced artificial intelligence will not necessarily have only good points. That’s why in times like these, we need serious reflection on where our society should go and what kind of life individuals should live. But if we only live in Korea, we tend to be immersed in the current issues. For example, if you only live in Bhutan, you might be immersed only in development issues within Bhutan, and if you go to Thailand, you might be immersed only in democratization issues within that country. However, what we know is not the entirety of global issues. Now, even if you go to America or Europe, the issues are almost similar, so there’s not much to learn. There’s little difference between Europe and America. But if you go to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Bhutan, these countries, you can comprehensively understand what the issues of human civilization are. Because you can deeply reflect on how human civilization is flowing, what alternatives need to be prepared, and how to live a short life more meaningfully. The reason for establishing Jungto Society is to find the path of how human civilization should transform. The goal is not to build up some force, but to solve the tasks of humanity. If we need people to solve it, we gather people, if we need money, we gather money, if we need an organizational response, we make an organizational response, but that’s not the goal of Jungto Society. We started Jungto Society out of concern for what path we should take so that the next generation can look back at us after 100 years and evaluate, ‘They lived quite admirably.’

If you drink and play when you’re young, you might enjoy it moment by moment, but when you look back after 10 or 20 years, you might regret, ‘I wasted a lot of time on useless things back then.’ On the other hand, the activities you do in Jungto Society might be very hard at the time, but when you look back later, you might evaluate, ‘I really laid a good foundation for who I am now back then.’ I don’t mean you have to suffer, but that the evaluation changes a lot after time passes. Regretting ‘If only I had been a little more sensible back then’ remains as a heavy burden in your heart until you die. From a young age, you need to live life with a more open attitude. I’m not trying to say ‘You should become a monk’ or ‘You should volunteer.’ I want to say that it would be good if you examined from various angles with an open attitude and made choices in life, and that you need an attitude of taking responsibility for those choices.

So the goals of this Youth Camp are, first, to live a life with fewer regrets later on whatever path you choose in your individual lives. Second, for us who have formed this connection to attempt meaningful things for society together. Third, to consider how we can contribute our small strength in preparation for the future. I want to have a conversation with you centered on these three themes. I thought it would be helpful in designing your lives to hear how Sunim, who founded Jungto Society 30 years ago, and the young people at that time responded to what problems, so I prepared this occasion. Since we’ve gathered with this purpose, don’t be timid or worried or cautious, but let’s have an open and frank conversation like young people.”

The young people responded to Sunim’s words with big applause.

Everyone took out the lunch boxes they had prepared at home for their meal. Rice, soup, and one side dish were to be prepared by senior members from the Special Youth Division for the three days.

After enjoying lunch with the rice and soup prepared by the seniors and the side dishes they brought from home, they gathered again in the main hall for pre-dialogue sessions by group.

Before coming to the camp, the young people had studied and discussed two of Sunim’s books: “New Humans to Lead Future Civilization” and “A Guide to Practice for Young Buddhists”. From 1 PM, they deepened their pre-discussions by having group conversations on four topics: family, romance, work, and society.

After finishing the conversations, they had another Dharma Q&A session with Sunim from 2 PM. Five people raised their hands and shared various concerns on the topics of family, romance, work, and society. One of them asked how to view romance and marriage to be happy, feeling that the more they study Buddhism, the further they seem to get from romance.

The More I Study the Mind, the Further I Seem to Get from Romance and Marriage

However, marriage is a bit different. Marriage presupposes a shared life between two people. In dating, you live separately and meet occasionally. You meet occasionally to share love, have conversations, and enjoy hobbies together. But marriage is living together. You live together in one room or one house. When you start living together like this, your individual tendencies clash in various areas like bathroom issues, cleaning, food preferences, and cooking. So it’s difficult to maintain married life based solely on passionate romantic feelings. These days, people get married thinking they’ll live well together if they have intense feelings while dating, but many end up separating due to personality differences not long after getting married.

Marriage is living together. It’s like living with a roommate. Let’s imagine you’re living with a roommate in a shared room. When living with a roommate, are things like their appearance or financial status important? It’s more important to follow the agreed-upon schedule for meal duties and cleaning duties. Someone who turns off the lights and goes to bed at the agreed time is the best roommate. If I usually go to bed at 10 PM but my roommate keeps the lights on until midnight, or if I usually sleep in late but my roommate makes noise from 3 AM, it’s very difficult to live with such a roommate. It’s the same with using air conditioning nowadays or heating in winter. I may be sensitive to cold and need to turn off the AC at night, but my roommate may need to keep it on while sleeping. My roommate may like sleeping in a warm room, but I may find it too hot. When living together, you have to adjust to each other in these ways. That’s why the good feelings from dating don’t last. If you don’t adjust to each other in this kind of living, it becomes very difficult to live together.

Also, marriage is an expansion of family relationships. It’s not just the couple living together. I may marry looking only at my spouse, but once married, my spouse’s father becomes my father, and my spouse’s mother becomes my mother. Relationships are also formed with their siblings. It’s hard enough to adjust to just your spouse, but you have to adjust to their whole family. While couples can overlook things like lack of money, low social status, or being a foreigner because they married for love, the family members absolutely won’t overlook these things. They don’t have the same good feelings towards you as your spouse does. They have no reason to overlook these things. So for them, your different nationality is a problem, and your lack of money is a problem. You clash with your spouse’s family in many ways like this. Many people divorce not because of issues between the couple, but because of difficulties with each other’s families, even though the couple themselves get along well. Perhaps divorces due to family conflicts are even more common than those due to conflicts between the couple.

The bigger problem here is that it’s difficult for your spouse to take your side in such conflicts. From your spouse’s perspective, it’s hard to take your side because of their relationship with their own family. They’ve lived with their family since birth until now. Even couples who married for love rarely take their spouse’s side to the point of abandoning their own family. But many people complain “I married only looking at you, but you don’t take my side” without understanding this. Marriage makes human relationships extremely complicated like this. If you remarry, wouldn’t relationships become even more complex? If you only think about the couple, getting married is fine, and divorce or remarriage is fine too. But in terms of social relationships, connections become increasingly complex like a spider’s web. This is what marriage is.

You should get married knowing that marriage is living together and an expansion of family relationships. Even if you don’t get married, you should know this. That way, you won’t have regrets even if you live alone. If you live with the simple thought “I don’t have anyone I like. I just won’t get married,” you’ll still have regrets about marriage even when you’re 50 or 60. So when I see people around me hesitating about marriage, I advise them to get married quickly. It’s better to experience it quickly rather than wasting time hesitating. If you suffer through it like that, you won’t have regrets and won’t worry about it again.

Of course, it’s best not to get married. This goes without saying. In the Buddha’s case, he was a prince, so he had high social status. The scriptures also say his wife was very beautiful. The Buddha also had many talents and had a child. But in the end, he left home. It’s better to be alone to live as a practitioner. It’s difficult to open a new path for humanity if you have a family perspective. For example, even after the Buddha attained enlightenment, his father King Suddhodana didn’t see the Buddha as the Buddha, but always just as his son. Even after the Buddha left home and attained enlightenment, King Suddhodana always worried about what food he ate, what clothes he wore, where he slept, and what kind of people he met. Because he only saw the Buddha from this worldly perspective, King Suddhodana ultimately failed to attain enlightenment.

So of course there are many benefits to becoming a monk by leaving home, or living alone. However, Buddhism does not oppose or deny marriage. If it did, there would have been no reason for the Buddha to open the path of lay practitioners. If that were the case, only the path of monastic practitioners would have been passed down, and there would be no path for lay practitioners. It means that even as a practitioner, there may be reasons why some people need to form a family or run a business. Even so, can’t they live happily? No, that’s not the case. Even such lay practitioners can live happily. However, there are a few things they must observe. That is the precepts. Where would a monastic practitioner have occasion to kill or harm others? Where would a monastic have occasion to steal from others or sexually harass them? A monastic practitioner has left behind their spouse and all their possessions, so they wouldn’t engage in actions like harassing other women or stealing others’ belongings. So there were no precepts for monastic practitioners. There were only precepts about daily life. The Five Precepts, which are important precepts, were originally given to lay practitioners. Living in the world, you may get into fights with people, and that may lead to physical violence. While doing business, you may pursue profits and cause harm to others. When married, you may become interested in someone other than your spouse. Living in the world, there are occasions to curse and lie. Living in the world, you may drink alcohol and get drunk. The Five Precepts emerged as the minimum that lay practitioners living in the world should observe, while allowing them to live in the world.

As a practitioner, first, you should not resolve any problems through violence. Second, you may pursue economic profits, but not to the extent of harming others. Third, you should not harm others for your own pleasure. Fourth, you should not harm others even with words. Fifth, you should not get intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. These five were prohibited as precepts. In today’s society, all of these Five Precepts correspond to crimes under the law. Nowadays, violence and murder are all considered crimes, right? In the past, parents hitting their children was not seen as a crime. The same was true for teachers hitting students, and masters hitting servants was considered natural. Husbands hitting their wives was also socially accepted. Even masters killing their slaves was seen as the master’s right. This was based on the view that parents own their children, husbands own their wives, and nobles own their slaves. So not much issue was made even if masters did anything to their slaves. But 2,600 years ago, the Buddha said that you should not hit or kill others for any reason. Compared to the Buddha’s time, it’s easier for us to keep the precepts today. Because those are criminal acts. Keeping the Five Precepts means not engaging in such bad actions on your own, even without laws. So someone who keeps the precepts is worthy of social respect. The Buddha opened the path of lay practitioners in this way.

We usually say that a man as one half and a woman as the other half meet to form a complete circle. But for dating or marriage to be happy, you should be able to be a complete circle on your own. If two people who are each complete circles come together, there’s no crack in the middle. This is the marriage of practitioners. But if two half-circles come together to form a circle, a crack forms in the middle. In this case, if one person dies or they divorce, they return to being half-circles again. So they look for a new other half again. That’s why lay practitioners can get married, but it’s better if possible to become a whole person. That way you can live without suffering in any situation. From the questioner asking this, I can tell they have no desire to become a whole person from the start.

Becoming a whole circle is not that difficult. Most animals in the natural ecosystem live alone. Even small insects live alone, birds in the sky live alone. Squirrels live alone. So why can’t humans, who are said to be the lords of creation, live alone? If they can’t live alone, it means they’ve given up on being a living being themselves. There are some animals like penguins that live in pairs, but most live independently. They may live together briefly to reproduce their species, but once reproduction is over, they return to independent living. So it’s not difficult for humans to live independently either. Rather, living independently is natural. Also, when two independent people live together, there’s no conflict at all. This is expressed as “It’s fine to live alone, and it’s fine to live together.” But you keep thinking of yourself as a half. So when you live alone you feel lonely, and when you live together you get annoyed, so you repeat breaking up and getting back together.

“I understand. Thank you.”

Questions continued to come in.

• From what perspective should we encourage general membership to Sutra Course students? I’m curious how to help students continue their practice.

• Is it better to give responsibilities to new people even considering things may not go well, or is it better to only give tasks to people who do them well for efficiency?

• How should we continue our practice after completing the 100-Day Chulga program?

• I’m curious about Sunim’s thoughts on the meaning of money in life, and how you think the future economic system will be.

After finishing the conversation, we took a short break and resumed talking again from 4 PM.

This time, Sunim explained the history of establishing Jungto Society up to the present. In particular, Sunim shared various experiences about what kind of concerns he had as a young man and what difficulties he faced. After listening to Sunim’s story, the young people asked how they could develop a bodhisattva’s mind and continue activities steadily like Sunim.

The conversation ended as it was time for dinner. We agreed to continue the dialogue tomorrow.

After dinner, the young people had recreation and singing performances, while Sunim headed to the broadcasting studio at Mungyeong Jungto Retreat Center to do the Friday live Dharma Q&A broadcast.

As the sun set, the Friday live Dharma Q&A broadcast began at 7:30 PM. With about 4,300 people connected to the live broadcast, Sunim greeted the viewers and then had conversations with the questioners.

Four people had requested questions in advance and asked Sunim questions. One of them said they had been scammed by voice phishing and suffered losses, and asked for Sunim’s advice on how to overcome the anger, self-blame, and sleeplessness they were experiencing.

I’m Suffering from Anger and Self-Blame After Being Scammed by Voice Phishing

“They gave me a confirmation certificate, but later I found out it was also fake.”

“When cash is involved, it’s almost impossible to get it back. So in these cases, first, it’s best to think of it as a learning fee. ‘What if I had lost 75,000 USD to voice phishing? I’m fortunate to have only lost 25,000 USD.’ This kind of positive thinking is necessary right now.

Secondly, meet with your wife and mother-in-law and ask them, ‘I’m sorry for being a burden and incurring debt. Should I die or is it better for me to live? If you say it’s better for me to die, I’ll just go ahead and do it.’ If you ask like this, what do you think your wife and mother-in-law will say? Won’t they say, ‘Honey, it’s a shame to lose the money, but it’s better that you’re alive’? Or will they say, ‘You fool, it’s better for someone like you to die’?”

“At first, they scolded me for being so stupid. But since it has already happened, and I feel very sorry and apologetic, I’m thinking I should earn money again to pay off the debt.”

“That’s why I’m telling you not to think about dying. From your wife’s perspective, if you die, she loses her husband, her children lose their father, and she won’t receive living expenses. If you’re truly sorry, you should properly fulfill your role as a husband to your wife, as a father to your children, and work hard to earn money to pay off the debt little by little. If you die after being deceived and wasting money, your innocent wife will bear all the losses. As a result of your irresponsible attitude, your wife would lose both her husband and money. Saying such things shows that you still haven’t come to your senses. Instead, you should say this to your wife:

‘Honey, I’m sorry. I did something foolish in a moment of weakness. I’ll consider this a learning fee and from now on, I won’t do such foolish things trying to make money quickly. I won’t do any more of this investment nonsense.’

Where is there any investment these days? Most of it can be considered speculation. Your mindset wasn’t about investing, it was about gambling, wasn’t it? So you should tell your wife, ‘I’ll cut ties with gambling from now on.’

This voice phishing incident is a clear example of how much damage your gambling mentality can cause. You should use this incident as an opportunity to really wake up as if you’ve had a near-death experience. Whether it’s investments or stocks, stop dwelling on what’s already happened, and from now on, work diligently at your job and save your salary bit by bit. If you keep obsessing over this issue, you’re likely to be scammed again. The desire to quickly recover the lost money will make you susceptible to someone else’s enticing words, leading to a vicious cycle. Right now, you haven’t lost your house, and no one in your family has died, so you need to come to your senses here.

While it’s your life and your choice if you want to die, doing so would be passing the loss onto your wife. Your wife, who has done nothing wrong, would end up bearing the loss because of you. Think from your wife’s perspective. She would lose her husband, lose money, and be left with debt. Do you have the right to do that to your wife? So saying ‘It would be better to die’ is an irresponsible attitude. If you think, ‘I did something foolish. I need to be more careful from now on. I should treat my wife better,’ this could actually turn into a blessing in disguise.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Sunim, but right now many thoughts are rushing into my mind all at once.”

“If we analyze psychologically why many thoughts are rushing in at once, it’s because you’re looking for a way out. You’re constantly trying to rationalize yourself, thinking, ‘If I die, can I escape from this?’ That’s why you’re making excuses. Honestly saying, ‘I did something foolish. I won’t do it again. I’ll live more mindfully from now on’ is taking responsibility for yourself. Your mind is complicated because you keep trying to find clever ways to escape.”

“I should forget about this cleanly and live well again, but since this is my first time experiencing such a thing, all these emotions like guilt and resentment are rushing in at once, making me sigh, unable to sleep properly, and feeling confused.”

“So who loses if your health deteriorates?”

“Only I lose.”

“You’re doing something foolish again. Not only did you lose 25,000 USD, but now you’re also harming your own health. If you’ve lost money, a wise person would at least not lose their health.

‘I did something foolish because I was blinded by greed. It’s better to be alive than dead, so I’ll pull myself together and live properly. I should at least fulfill my minimal role as a husband and father to my wife and children.’

If you think like this and live diligently, there won’t be any problems. Shouldn’t you sleep well, eat well, and fulfill your roles as a husband and father?”

“It’s easy to say, but hard to put into practice.”

“Thinking it’s hard to put into practice is also an attitude of trying to avoid responsibility. Trying to gain sympathy by appearing pitiful or trying to escape through death are all attempts to be clever. If you’ve done something wrong, you should just kneel down and say, ‘I did wrong. I’m sorry’ and end it there. But saying things like ‘I didn’t know he was scamming me. I should die’ means you still haven’t come to your senses. You still haven’t woken up.”

“Then should I just forget everything and live normally?”

“What is there to forget? You should just think of it as a learning fee.

‘I foolishly got scammed and lost money, so I need to be more careful from now on. What if I had lost 75,000 USD? I’m fortunate to have only lost 25,000 USD.’

After acknowledging the loss like this, you should realize that this situation isn’t entirely bad and there are positive aspects to it. Then you can live normally. But what will you do if you don’t live normally? Do you want to die? Do you want to continue living abnormally? Do you want to just drink and sleep? That will only increase hospital bills and alcohol expenses. Stop with these pathetic stories now. From now on, stop messing with stocks and real estate, work hard at your job, and live off your salary. Help your wife with housework too.

If you had made some money, how would you have lived? You would have bossed your wife around, gone out drinking with that money, and just bragged about yourself a lot. This time, you’ve clearly realized that you’re not such a great person. If you start treating your wife well and living more mindfully from now on, your wife might feel bad at first, but as time passes, it will turn into a blessing in disguise. Since it has already happened, it would be good to turn it into a blessing in disguise. You asked the question because you were distressed about losing money, but you just got scolded, right? Still, you need to come to your senses.”

“A major flaw has appeared in my life, but I will overcome it as soon as possible. As you said, Sunim, I will regain my composure and live normally while treating my wife and mother-in-law better. As the head of the household, I was greedy to earn more money to live more abundantly, but things went wrong. From now on, I will come to my senses and live normally while working at my job.”

“From your wife’s perspective, she probably thought, ‘He won’t listen to me and keeps doing other things, he needs to experience something big to come to his senses.’ Now that you’ve experienced something big, come to your senses. Even if you can’t repay your wife and mother-in-law with money, you can repay them by being kind and providing good service instead. As the saying goes, ‘A kind word is worth more than a thousand pieces of gold,’ so don’t think you have to repay everything with money. Since your wife also works, it’s good for both of you to live diligently. Through this experience, you’ve realized, ‘I’m not at the level to make money through short-term investments.’ How can you invest when you’re at a level where you fall for voice phishing scams? So use this incident as an opportunity to cut ties, thinking ‘This is not something I should be doing,’ and it will turn into a blessing in disguise.”

“Yes, I understand. Thank you.”

The questions continued.

I heard an employee I was trying to be friendly with speaking ill of me. After hearing them badmouth me, I even started to feel hatred. How should I manage my feelings?

The cold war situation with my husband seems to be negatively affecting our child. I’m wondering if it’s better to continue living together in this state or to live separately so the child doesn’t see this situation.

I was living as a visually impaired person, but suddenly I collapsed unconsciously and became unable to move or speak, and was diagnosed with a rare intractable disease. I wonder if someone like me can be happy.

By the time the conversation ended, it was past 9 PM.

Today, Sunim gave Dharma talks from morning until evening. It was a long day.

Tomorrow is the second day of the Youth Camp. In the morning, Sunim will have a discussion on the topic of “Unifying Work and Practice,” in the afternoon on “Self-Realization and Social Practice,” and in the evening on “International Volunteering.”

A Day in the Life of Sunim is translated by AI, edited by volunteers