Sep 27, 2024 – Friday Dharma Q&A (Online and Offline)
Hello. Today is the day when Sunim meets citizens directly for Dharma Q&A offline once a month. He had conversations with citizens online in the morning and offline in the evening.
After finishing his morning practice and meditation, Sunim began the live Friday Dharma Q&A broadcast at 10 AM in the broadcasting room of the Seoul Jungto Center.
For those who can’t attend the evening Dharma Q&A, Sunim hold a morning session once a month. This is arranged for those in Korea who can watch in the morning, as well as for overseas viewers in different time zones.
With about 2,700 people connected to the live broadcast, four individuals asked questions and conversed with Sunim for an hour and a half. One of them mentioned eating lunch alone at work for five years and sought Sunim’s advice on how to overcome situations of being treated disrespectfully.
I’ve Been Eating Lunch Alone at Work for Five Years
“Does the food not go down your throat when you eat alone?”
“I usually eat in the company cafeteria, and I feel very uncomfortable when I encounter someone I know. Everyone else comes in groups of two or three to eat with their department colleagues, but since I come alone, I think they might wonder, ‘Is there something wrong with that person?’ And it’s a bit difficult when someone I’m not close to in the department suggests going out to eat with others, excluding me. I need to continue working, but because of people I’m not close to in the department, I can’t eat with other employees, and I feel uncomfortable when I encounter people from other departments in the cafeteria. I’m wondering how I can eat alone without having these feelings.”
“In the past, there were hardly any people who ate alone, and meals were always eaten together. There’s even a saying, ‘Let’s eat together,’ isn’t there? But you seem quite young, yet you’re talking like someone over seventy. These days, it’s the era of eating alone. If you go to a convenience store nowadays, you’ll see people sitting by the window, eating alone, visible to passersby. Even in restaurants, while people might occasionally go together, most eat alone.”
“I’ve been working in this group for five years, and because it’s a conservative group, I feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.”
“First, since it’s now an era of eating alone in society as a whole, you can think, ‘I’m ahead of the times,’ and eat alone. Remember when I asked if the food doesn’t go down your throat? If you can swallow your food when eating alone, there’s no problem. It would be an issue if you couldn’t swallow or kept getting indigestion. But if you can swallow well and don’t get indigestion, there’s absolutely no problem eating alone. As time passes, we’re moving towards an era where everyone will eat alone, so you can think of yourself as a trendsetter.
In the past, it was often seen as strange for a woman to live alone. If a woman was over thirty and unmarried, living alone, people would think, ‘Is there something wrong with her?’ But nowadays, times have changed, and there are so many people living alone that hardly anyone thinks it’s strange if someone isn’t married. You’re still thinking in the old way. People don’t think it’s strange if you eat alone. Everyone is busy eating their own meal. They might think, ‘Why does that woman always eat alone?’ but it’s not really a big issue.
Second, if you want to eat with others, you can offer to treat them. If you suggest to your colleagues, ‘I’d like to treat everyone to dinner today,’ they might say, ‘We won’t eat if you’re paying,’ or they might say, ‘Okay, let’s go eat together.’ If you want to socialize with people, you need to spend a little money. Why do you think people say, ‘Sunim, Sunim’? It’s because I provide counseling for free. If I charged 1,000 USD for each counseling session, would many people seek me out? When you pay a doctor for treatment, you’re grateful, but that’s it. You need to either help others or give money; you need to offer something. You shouldn’t expect others to approach you and say ‘Let’s eat together’ if you haven’t given anything. Either eat alone or offer to treat others.”
“There’s a reason why I eat alone. I work in the research department, where researchers are favored by superiors and treated well, while I, as an administrative staff, am treated poorly. One researcher spoke to me very rudely, which soured our relationship. Since researchers are the majority and I’m in the minority, that researcher would lead others to go out for lunch together, repeatedly leaving me out and isolated.”
“Then why don’t you get a Ph.D. and become a researcher yourself?”
“I don’t want to do that job.”
“If you don’t want to do that job, you should accept this situation. The researchers might think, ‘Why should an administrative staff join us for lunch?’ You don’t want to do their job, but you want to be part of their group – that’s a bit self-centered, don’t you think?”
“Do you think it’s right for researchers to be treated better?”
“What can you do if that’s how they want to behave? For example, if you’re a career soldier but much older than the officers, what can you do if the young officers go out to eat together?”
“That’s the situation. They think they’re so great.”
“Well, they got Ph.D.s and became researchers, so they are accomplished, aren’t they? You said you didn’t want to do that job, right? What’s wrong with acknowledging their achievements?”
“I simply didn’t want to do that job, but they act superior and eat together while being rude to me, which is hard for me. I’ve been eating lunch alone for five years.”
“If you don’t like seeing them anyway, isn’t it good that you can eat alone?”
“I’m fine not eating with those people, but I feel the stares of people from other departments when they see me eating alone every time.”
“Nobody is thinking that. You’re the only one who has such thoughts. Besides, you could eat with staff from other departments.”
“I’ve tried, but it’s not easy to match schedules because they’re busy. We can eat together occasionally, but not often.”
“Then eating together occasionally is fine. If you eat with them sometimes, people will think, ‘Oh, she has friends too.’ If they eat 30 minutes later, you can wait and eat with them. If they eat earlier, you can come out early and eat with them. When you want to eat with others, you become the subordinate. As a subordinate, you follow the superior’s wishes and wait. If you like someone, you should call them first, express your feelings first, and treat them to meals first. When you need something, you have to be in the subordinate position.
If they’re too busy, just eat alone without worrying about others’ views. It’s the era of solo dining now. If someone asks you to eat together, you can say, ‘Eating alone is the new trend,’ and be confident about it. If you want to eat with others, you need to match their schedule, pay for the meal, or cater to their preferences. If you don’t want to do any of these and don’t want to eat alone either, there’s no solution.”
“Working at the research institute, I sometimes have conflicts with researchers. Even when I’m objectively not at fault, they look down on me because they feel superior. They say things like, ‘Can’t you handle this much?’ which has worsened our relationship. This situation hasn’t changed for five years. I think it’s a structural problem.”
“If this behavior is legally considered discrimination, you can file a complaint with the company. But isn’t the level of conflict you described common in most workplaces? In the military, no matter how long you’ve served, if you’re a non-commissioned officer, you must treat a newly appointed officer who just graduated from the military academy as your superior. Similarly, researchers think they outrank you because you’re administrative staff. It’s the same in schools. There are teachers who graduated from education colleges and passed the teacher certification exam, and there are administrative staff in the office. Teachers don’t consider office staff as their equals. But what can you do if that’s how they think? Let’s say you’ve been going to a temple for 30 years. Then a young monk who’s only been a monk for 3 years arrives. This person, although wearing monk’s robes, knows less about Buddhism than you do. But you’re still just a lay follower, despite your 30 years at the temple. Who should people bow to? Even though the monk is young and new and doesn’t know much about Buddhism, people have to bow to him because he’s a monk.
This kind of conflict has existed for a long time. In the dynastic era, when a king died and his young son became king, the ministers who had served the father found it hard to respect the child king. When they acted a bit stiffly, the king would later remove all of his father’s ministers. That’s how the world works.
In a research institute, people with Ph.D.s who do research are the focus. Administrative staff who support them can’t be the center. It will be the same even after 10 years. When you’re about to retire, researchers who could be your children’s age will join, but the situation will be the same because the positions themselves are different.”
“I’ve studied as much as they have, earned degrees, and even studied abroad. My educational background is similar to theirs. The only difference is our roles.”
“So, you are the problem. Other administrative staff without such academic backgrounds are doing well as employees. However, you have an academic background equal to or better than the researchers, but you were hired as an administrative staff rather than a researcher. This conflict wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t studied as much. That’s the issue.”
“I don’t find them impressive. I think that’s the problem.”
“Then you have no choice but to quit. Don’t go to a research institute; instead, find a company with more administrative staff. The conflict arises because you’re trying to receive the same treatment as researchers who have different positions. If you continue to act this way, there’s a high risk that the researchers will gather and gossip about you, saying, ‘That person really doesn’t know their place.'”
“Should I treat them kindly then?”
“You don’t have to be kind to them. Just do what they need. Don’t reject them, just diligently perform your administrative duties. Let the researchers handle non-administrative tasks, and you focus on doing your administrative work well to support their research. Administrative staff are there to support the research staff, right? That’s your job, so you should do it diligently.”
“Even when I work hard to support them, they don’t acknowledge it, and that frustrates me. I do my job without any issues, but they still look down on me.”
“They won’t treat you like a researcher just because you’re good at administrative work. Your thinking is too narrow. The root of this narrow-mindedness is that you have a high level of education, including studying abroad, but you were hired as an administrative staff instead of a researcher. You didn’t like being a researcher, so you became an administrative staff, but now you realize that although you have similar educational backgrounds, the researchers have higher positions. It’s like when joining the military, others took the officer exam, but you took the non-commissioned officer exam. Even if you graduated from a better university, your rank is different. It’s like how even if I had worked in administration at a temple for 30 years, the person given the position of temple leader would be a monk. To live in this world, you need to accept this reality.”
“So, I guess I’ll have to eat alone for the next 20 years until I retire.”
“If you provide good service to the researchers, support them even with tasks that aren’t strictly your responsibility, and these efforts accumulate, there will come a time when researchers will say, ‘Sister, let’s have lunch together.’ You need to go above and beyond your administrative duties to help the researchers. New researchers often struggle with their work. Since you have more experience, you can help them with tasks they find difficult, like finding resources or organizing research results. If you take care of them like a big sister and assist with their work, the researchers will come to appreciate you. As a result, they’ll start saying things like, ‘Sister, let’s go eat together.'”
“I understand. Thank you.”
The questions continued.
My long-cherished dream of becoming a flight attendant has been thwarted twice for unexpected reasons. With what mindset should I overcome this period?
It’s been a year since I received a spiritual calling. I’m very confused and distressed because my Buddhist values conflict with the shamanistic life my spiritual mother is forcing on me.
How can I free myself from the scars of verbal abuse and physical violence from my parents that continued into my adulthood?
By the time the conversation ended, it was almost noon.
After lunch, at 2 PM, Sunim had a meeting with visitors at the Peace Foundation. Another meeting followed at 4 PM with more visitors.
After the meetings, from 7:30 PM, Sunim held an offline Dharma Q&A session in the basement auditorium of the Seoul Jungto Social and Cultural Center.
Many citizens came to the Jungto Social and Cultural Center to attend the Dharma Q&A. After registering on-site, they each put a numbered ticket into a draw box and made their way to the basement auditorium.
The lecture began with about 4,900 people watching on YouTube and 400 people present at the venue. After an opening performance, a video was shown of Sunim visiting the earthquake-affected areas in Turkey and Syria and conducting a JTS workshop in Bhutan over the past month.
After the video, Sunim came up on stage. He greeted the audience with a smile.
“It feels very comfortable for me to have this face-to-face conversation, and I think it’s good for you too. During the Friday Dharma Q&A sessions, I’ve always been standing while talking. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but my knees hurt. Many people also left comments saying it was uncomfortable to watch online. So today, I’ll be sitting down. I ask for your understanding.”
Then, five people who had submitted questions in advance had a conversation with Sunim. Two more people from the audience raised their hands to ask questions. One of them asked for Sunim’s advice on what to do about her husband who keeps gaining weight despite her efforts to get him a gym membership.
My Husband Weighs 0.1 Tons. How Can I Help Him Lose Weight?
“Yes, I just laugh it off at those times. Now that we’re both approaching fifty, I wish he would lose weight for his health rather than appearance. When he gets a health check-up, everything comes back at risk levels. So I nag him to exercise. I’m not very diligent about it myself, but my husband doesn’t do it at all. After being a housewife, now that the children have grown up, I’ve started doing part-time work and sent my husband to the gym. He won’t go if it’s too far or if he can’t take a bath there, so I registered him at an expensive gym near our house. We’ve spent over 3 million won on gym memberships in the last three years. I’d be happy if he could just maintain his weight in the 90kg range. But he keeps gaining weight. I nag him, and then he gets angry, and this keeps repeating. Should I just give up on my husband? Or should I keep talking to him about it?”
“First, it’s good to keep talking to him about it for his health. If your husband doesn’t listen, you can’t force him. Have you ever asked him, ‘Honey, since there’s no change even though you’re going to the gym, don’t you think it’s a waste of money? Do you want to stop going?'”
“Yes, and he says he won’t go.”
“Then let him stop going to the gym. It might be good to take a break for about a year and then reconsider. Instead of trying to lose weight, going to the gym to slow down the rate of weight gain could be an approach. We often think that when treating an illness, we must achieve a complete cure. But in treatment, there are different levels: fully restoring health, partially restoring health, preventing further deterioration, and slowing down the rate of deterioration. Because we think we must get completely better when receiving treatment, if the treatment doesn’t seem very effective, we tend to think, ‘This treatment is useless.’ You should consider all four types as valid treatments: fully restoring health, partially restoring health, stopping further deterioration, and slowing down the rate of deterioration. It would be good to view your husband’s issue in this way. Because you have the goal of reducing your husband’s weight, you say, ‘There’s no effect even after sending him to the gym for three years.’ Maybe the rate of weight gain has slowed down because he’s been going to the gym. Of course, there’s also a possibility that it had no effect at all. So, in my opinion, it might be good for your husband to stop going to the gym for a while and observe how his weight changes.”
It’s important to understand that in today’s society, no one can force their opinions on others. You can express your views, but you can’t impose them on anyone else. This applies even within families, including parents to children. Even teachers can’t force their opinions on students. Nowadays, such actions are considered abuse or violence. Unlike in the past, society now protects individual rights. If a teacher coerces a student, it’s considered school violence. If parents force their will on their children at home, it’s domestic violence. Things have changed significantly from the past. In earlier times, it was considered normal for a husband to hit his wife or children. It was also accepted for teachers to hit students. Now, all of these actions are classified as violence. I’m not saying whether this change is good or bad; I’m simply pointing out how times have changed. Even if you have a family member with a mental illness and you want to hospitalize them, there’s no way to do so if they refuse. Forced hospitalization is only possible if they’ve harmed others or exhibited behavior that anyone would consider abnormal. You can’t forcibly hospitalize someone just because they won’t leave their room or get angry more often than usual.
When someone is interested in another person and asks them out once or twice, but the other person is not interested, persistently pursuing them can become stalking. In the past, this might have been seen as passionate love, but now it can lead to legal restraining orders. Society’s values have changed in this way. Even between spouses, while you can express your opinions to each other, you shouldn’t nag.
If your husband doesn’t take care of his health despite your efforts and dies early, it’s not a major problem for you. You didn’t cause his death, so you shouldn’t feel guilty.
“I’ve informed you, and the choice is yours. If you pass away early, I can remarry, so that’s fine with me.”
You should comfort yourself with this mindset. There’s no need to torment yourself, right? If your worrying would improve your husband’s condition, you should keep worrying, but it doesn’t change anything. Worrying only hurts you. People who do things that harm themselves are foolish. You need to change your mindset. Think, “If you want to die that badly, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. If you go early, I can remarry or live alone, which is fine.” You should think positively like this. This doesn’t mean saying, “You won’t listen to me, so just die.” Don’t worry too much and try to think positively.
“Thank you.”
The questions continued.
After the dialogue, Sunim gave his closing remarks.
“No matter what difficult situation or condition you find yourself in, if you think it’s causing you suffering, you’ll feel powerless to do anything. It becomes your fate. But if you approach such situations with the attitude of ‘What will I do about this?’, you can become the master of your own life. Don’t think, ‘My husband cheated, so I have no choice but to divorce.’ Instead, think, ‘My husband cheated. What choice will I make in this situation?’ You must make your own choices. To avoid being pushed around by the world, you need to have the attitude of ‘In this world, this is how I choose to live.’ Don’t say, ‘I have a child with disabilities, so I have no choice but to live like this.’ Instead, think, ‘I have a child with disabilities, but what choices will I make in this situation?’ This perspective is crucial. With this mindset, you can be happy regardless of your circumstances. You must be the master of your own life. In Chinese, this is called ‘Sucheojakju’ (隨處作主), meaning ‘be the master wherever you are.’ A person who can be their own master in any situation is a ‘Buddha.’ We all have the nature to become Buddha. I hope you all live free and happy lives.”
Following the guidance of volunteers, all attendees left the main hall, and a book signing event was held. Many people lined up in a long queue to receive Sunim’s signature and exchange greetings.
“Sunim, thank you so much. Your lecture has made me truly happy!”
There were many people expressing their gratitude to Sunim.
After the book signing, all volunteers gathered on stage for a commemorative photo. Those who prepared today’s lecture were members of the Incheon-Gyeonggi West Branch of Jungto Society. There were so many volunteers that they had to take two separate group photos.
“Incheon-Gyeonggi West, fighting!”
After expressing his gratitude to the hardworking volunteers, Sunim made his way to the Jungto Center.
Tomorrow, Sunim is scheduled to have an online Dharma Q&A with Jungto Dharma School students in the morning, followed by a live-streamed opening ceremony for the Jungto Dharma School. In the afternoon, he will deliver a guest lecture at the 5th anniversary celebration of the Kim Hong-shin Literary Museum.
