Sep 18, 2024 – North American West Coast Lecture Tour (4) Las Vegas
Hello. Today is the fourth lecture of the North American West Coast lecture tour, taking place in Las Vegas, located in the middle of the desert in Nevada, western United States.
Sunim finished his early morning practice and meditation and departed for Orange County Airport at 4:50 AM. The full moon of Chuseok was shining brightly in the predawn sky.
After arriving at the airport and checking in luggage, Sunim departed Orange County Airport at 6:45 AM. After a 1 hour and 10 minute flight, he arrived at Las Vegas Airport at 7:55 AM. The morning sun was slowly rising outside the airplane window.
As he exited the airport, Ms. Yoon Hee-jung and Ms. Han Jung-won, members of Las Vegas Jungto Society, greeted him with bouquets of flowers.
“Welcome to Las Vegas.”
Sunim headed to Ms. Yoon Hee-jung’s house, which will be his accommodation for today.
Sunim arrived at the accommodation at 8:45 AM, unpacked, and had breakfast. Afterwards, He spent the morning taking care of work with people in Korea, then rested.
From 1:30 PM, Sunim had a meeting with Jungto Society members residing in Las Vegas. First, the members greeted Sunim with three bows.
Sunim also greeted them with a smile.
“How long has it been since I last came to Las Vegas?”
“It’s been 10 years. You came in 2014 during the 100 Dharma Q&A World Tour, and this is your first visit since then.”
Each person introduced themselves and talked about their roles in Jungto Society.
“I graduated from the Buddhism Course and Sutra Course of the Jungto Dharma School last year and moved to Las Vegas a month and a half ago. I’m grateful to see you so soon.”
“It’s an honor to have lived long enough to see Sunim up up close.”
One person was a Christian pastor who shared a special story about studying Buddhism after retirement.
“I’m a retired pastor. I became interested in Buddhism, but as a Christian, I felt guilty about immersing myself in it. However, after hearing Sunim say that ‘practice is not limited to any religion,’ I was able to continue my Buddhist practice. I’m still practicing Buddhism as a Christian and consistently learning from Sunim’s teachings through YouTube. Thank you.”
After hearing the story, Sunim smiled and said:
“Jungto Society allows dual membership.” (Laughter)
One person was a dental technician that Sunim was looking for to provide medical care to Bhutanese residents.
“I’m a dental technician with 30 years of experience. I read in ‘A Day in the Life of Sunim’ that a dental technician was needed in Bhutan.”
Sunim briefly introduced the work he is currently doing in Bhutan.
“These days, I’m developing the poorest village in Bhutan. We’re building houses, constructing irrigation canals, paving farm roads, putting up fences, and doing various other things, including healthcare support activities. We’re planning to provide cataract surgeries, dentures, and hearing aids for the elderly. When I went to the countryside, I saw many elderly people without any teeth. So we want to provide dentures, but we need dental technicians who can make dentures more than dentists in this situation.”
Then, there was time for anyone to ask questions comfortably about anything they were curious about. Sunim answered the members’ questions and talked about various topics.
There are many homeless people in America too. Even when we try to take them to shelters, they don’t want to go. How can we help these people?
Sunim, you’re doing many English interpretation lectures for global propagation. How much are local Americans, not Koreans, actually participating?
I know who survived after being shot 10 times in a shooting incident. It seems they feel they received help from Buddha. How should we view this?
They might come to ask Sunim a question at today’s lecture venue.
After an hour of conversation, they had lunch together.
Each member prepared one dish. After enjoying the meal, the members all headed to the lecture venue to prepare for the lecture, while Sunim worked at the accommodation.
At 5:30 PM, Sunim headed to the lecture venue.
Today’s lecture is being held at the West Charleston Library, located in downtown Las Vegas. It’s a cultural space where various art exhibitions and workshops are held, but today, Sunim’s Dharma Q&A lecture is taking place.
As Sunim arrived at the venue, volunteers were greeting participants everywhere.
At 7 PM, after the video introducing Sunim ended, he walked onto the stage. A big round of applause erupted from the audience of about 100 people filling the seats.
Sunim smiled and gave his opening remarks.
“I didn’t realize it at first, but after checking, I found that it’s been 10 years since I last visited Las Vegas. After visiting in 2014 for the 100 Dharma Q&A World Tour, I couldn’t visit due to COVID-19. I’m happy to be here and meet you today.
The topic I want to share with you today is not about knowledge or philosophy, but about the suffering we experience in our lives. You can talk comfortably, as if you’re talking to a friend. If you have any difficulties or sufferings you experience in life, regardless of the type, this is a time to talk about them together.
A few days ago, in a conversation at the Seattle lecture, a woman said she was having a very hard time because her husband had passed away. I understand completely. So I asked her like this and had a conversation:
‘Before you got married, did you live alone? Or did you live with someone else?’
‘I lived alone.’
‘There was no problem then, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘When you get married and live together, and then separate either through death or divorce, you’ve just returned to your original state. You’re going back to when you originally lived alone, so what’s the problem? If necessary, you can get married again.’
‘Ah! That’s right. There’s no problem at all.’
The conversation ended with laughter like this. This is how we can have a conversation. Shall we start now?”
After first talking with those who had pre-registered questions, Sunim then took questions freely from the audience. Over the course of two hours, nine people were able to ask Sunim questions. One of them asked for Sunim’s advice, saying that three men who had lived with her had died one after another, wondering if there was something wrong with her.
Three Men Who Lived with Me Died One After Another
“If you had directly caused their deaths, you would be responsible. However, they died because their time had come, so it has nothing to do with you. When something happens twice in the same way, we tend to fall into a bit of mysticism. We start thinking, ‘Is this my fate?’ But it’s just a coincidence that similar events happened twice in a row. Even if it happened three times in a row, it’s not anything special.
Let’s take the example of rolling dice. A die has numbers from 1 to 6. When you roll it, one of these numbers will come up. Mathematically, the probability of getting a 1 is one in six. However, if you roll the die six times, it doesn’t necessarily mean that 1 will come up exactly once. It might not come up at all, it might come up once, twice, or even all six times. The probability of it coming up once is just the highest. So even if you rolled all 1s six times in a row, it doesn’t mean it’s fate. It’s just that the probability is low, but it can happen in reality. As the number of rolls increases, say to a thousand or ten thousand times, the probability of getting a 1 gets closer and closer to 1/6. The probability derived from actual experimental results is called experimental probability, and this experimental probability approaches the mathematical probability as the number of trials increases.
However, when something happens two or three times, people tend to try to rationalize it and draw some conclusion. I’ve been running a school for untouchables in India for about 30 years. In that village, there’s an atmosphere where I’m seen as somewhat of a mystical figure. One year, there was a drought and they couldn’t plant rice, but as soon as I visited, it rained. At first, it was nothing special. But the next year when I went, the same thing happened again. So people started thinking, ‘Ah! The monk brings rain.’ And when it happened again on my next visit, people completely believed that I bring rain. So the following year, when the drought was severe, they requested that I should come. (Laughter)
This is how the brain works – when something happens repeatedly, we tend to draw conclusions like ‘Ah! This is how it is.’ So even if what you’re worried about happened three times, not just twice, it has nothing to do with you.
And if I may offer another piece of advice, there are some personality traits that can contribute to such occurrences. In Eastern philosophy of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, for example, if a husband’s personality is Wood and the wife’s is Metal, even if externally it appears that the husband is beating and abusing the wife, the husband will die first. This is because if you hit metal with wood, even though the wood is doing the hitting, it’s the wood that breaks. In this case, it’s not the metal’s responsibility. It’s the wood’s responsibility for hitting the metal, not the metal’s. However, if you understand this principle, the metal should avoid the wood. That is, when the husband gets angry, instead of arguing about who’s right or wrong, you should say ‘You’re right’ and avoid conflict. If this were happening now, I could advise you. But this is already in the past. I want to tell you that you have no responsibility for this.”
“So let it go?”
“Yes, that’s a good thing. Because he died, you now have more opportunities – you can marry again, or live alone. In the past, everyone thought you had to live with just one person, so they would say ‘This woman has bad luck with husbands.’ But if you remove this standard of having to live with just one person, you could actually be seen as someone with good luck with men. In today’s world, those who live with only one person until the end are actually the unlucky ones. Whether someone is ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ all depends on how you set the standard.
If we go back to the fundamentals, we can’t say there’s luck or no luck, things just happened as they did. Philosophically, this is expressed as ’emptiness’ (空). When you understand emptiness, there’s nothing to be troubled about.”
“Thank you.”
The questions continued.
What practices or actions can help in developing compassion and understanding towards others?
What motivated you to decide to become a monk?
Your teacher said, “If you don’t become a monk, you’ll have a short life.” Did you believe your teacher? How has life been as a monk? What activities do you mainly engage in?
Is it better for couples to meditate together?
What is enlightenment based on your experience? How do you practice enlightenment?
After being diagnosed with breast cancer, the fear of death hasn’t disappeared as it progressed from stage 1 to stage 4. How can I overcome the fear of death?
After finishing the conversation with pre-registered questioners, Sunim offered to take questions freely from the audience. Several people raised their hands. One of them was a survivor who had been shot 10 times in a mass shooting incident.
I Survived After Nearly Dying in a Mass Shooting Incident
“Surviving a near-death situation can be either better or worse depending on how you view it. In Buddhism, nothing is inherently good or bad. It takes the perspective that people create what is good and bad.
If I nearly died but survived, what could be the negative aspect? It’s when that pain becomes a trauma that hinders my future life. In this case, past experiences become obstacles to the present and future. However, if you realize after nearly dying, ‘Ah, if I had died, all the things I was attached to in the past would have been meaningless!’ it becomes very beneficial for your future life. It allows you to let go of all attachments right away when you survive. Whether you have a lot of money or little, whether you part with your family or not, you can always live a life satisfied just by being alive. As a result, all fears disappear.
People like Jesus or Buddha are those who have died once and been reborn. Jesus died as a carpenter’s son and was reborn as the son of God. Buddha also died as a sentient being and was reborn as Buddha. Many of history’s great saints have overcome the brink of death and been reborn like this. They became free people with no attachment to the world and no fear.
If you hold onto this near-death experience as a bad experience that no one else has had, then the experience remains as a wound. However, if through this experience you have become a free person, then it can be said to be an incredibly blessed experience for you. What determines this is yourself.
Will you continue to be trapped in that pain? Or will you be grateful for surviving regardless of the experience and enjoy the joy? Your choice in response to this question will determine whether you will live freely or painfully in the present and future. This is what Buddha’s teachings instruct. If we take the path to freedom through Buddha’s teachings, we can say that is Buddha’s grace.”
“Thank you.”
After the conversation, Sunim went down to the audience seats to shake hands and greet the questioners and attendees. The mass shooting survivor also came to greet him. Sunim held his hand firmly.
“I’m still trying to overcome the emotional wounds after the shooting incident, and your words today have been a great help. Thank you sincerely.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
There’s no book signing event today. So, Sunim immediately took a commemorative photo on stage with the volunteers who prepared for the lecture.
“Las Vegas, fighting!”
Sunim signed his book ‘Life Lessons’ and gifted it to Ms. Han Jeong-won, who organized the Dharma Q&A.
The volunteers had a sharing session with Dharma teachers Myodeok and Bophae, and after Sunim expressed his gratitude to the volunteers, he moved to his accommodation.
On the way back to the accommodation, the driver showed the night view of Las Vegas. We could see the Sphere, which has become a new landmark of Las Vegas, up close.
The Sphere, meaning a round ball, had 1.2 million LED light sources attached to the outer wall of the structure, displaying delicate and splendid images.
Sunim thought it was just a round screen that projected images, but it turns out to be a massive performance hall with an internal height of 76 meters that can accommodate 18,000 spectators simultaneously. It’s said to have the largest IMAX screen in the United States and 160,000 speakers installed, providing an enormous scale of visuals and sound.
Leaving the dazzling Sphere behind, he arrived at the accommodation after 10 PM. Sunim took a commemorative photo with Ms. Han Jeong-won’s mother, who prepared the meal, and Ms. Han Jeong-won’s brother, who drove, and then had a late dinner.
After finishing the meal and proofreading the manuscript, Sunim went to bed after 11 PM.
Tomorrow, he will depart from Las Vegas and move to San Diego. In the afternoon, there will be a lecture at the Dharma Bum Temple, and in the evening, there will be an English-interpreted lecture for local Americans.
