Oct 18, 2024 – Gyeongju Outing for Yanbian Korean-Chinese Elders, Misowon JTS Donation, Friday Dharma Q&A
Good morning. A new day has dawned at Dubuk Retreat Center. Today marks the second day of the Yanbian Korean-Chinese elders’ visit to the retreat center.
After completing his early morning practice and meditation, Sunim began the day by having breakfast with the Yanbian Korean-Chinese elders.
Perhaps because they had watched videos of Sunim’s various social activities the previous evening, the elders asked many questions about his social work. After finishing breakfast and engaging in a two-hour conversation, they toured the farm and left for a day trip to Gyeongju after 10 a.m.
They first went to Woljeonggyo Bridge. In front of the bridge, Sunim explained the legend of Master Wonhyo associated with this place, and then they walked across the bridge to the Choi Clan’s House in Gyodong.
The streets were bustling with foreigners dressed in hanbok (traditional Korean clothing). They explored various parts of the Choi Clan’s House and also visited Hyanggyo, which was a national educational institution during the Joseon Dynasty.
Finally, they entered Gyerim, the forest located between Cheomseongdae Observatory and Banwolseong Fortress.
Sunim handed out warm Hwangnam bread.
“This is the famous Hwangnam bread from Gyeongju. When I was young, it was my wish to eat two of these. Please try it.”
“Thank you.”
The warmth of the bread was directly transmitted to their hands. While sharing the Hwangnam bread, Sunim told them about the founding legend of Silla and the process of Silla’s merger with Gaya.
As they listened to the interesting stories, it was almost 11 o’clock. Regrettably, Sunim had to leave for Dubuk first.
“Please continue to look around. I have an appointment, so I’ll go ahead. I’ll tell you more stories in the afternoon.” (Smiles)
Sunim returned to Dubuk Retreat Center. At 11:30 a.m., representatives from Misowon Corporation visited Dubuk Retreat Center to donate funds to JTS.
Misowon Corporation (Chairman Jang Yu-jeong) has been donating funds for 22 years to support medical care for tuberculosis patients and well-digging projects through JTS India. This year, they also collected donations after hearing about the earthquake recovery efforts in Türkiye and Syria.
Chairman Jang Yu-jeong explained how they raised funds over the past year.
“When the earthquake hit Türkiye last year, we collected donations from our members. When we asked them what to do with the funds, they unanimously said to send it to JTS. They believed that Venerable Pomnyun Sunim would use the donations wisely where they are most needed. That’s how we were able to make this donation.”
Sunim provided a detailed explanation of how JTS has been carrying out support activities in Türkiye and Syria over the past year and seven months since the earthquake.
“Have you seen the newly built school?”
“Yes, we saw it in ‘A Day in the Life of Sunim.’ It was truly moving to see how well the donations were used.”
“It’s good to help immediately when a disaster occurs, but it’s also good to wait a little before helping. At first, when various organizations try to help the disaster area, even the act of helping others becomes competitive. This causes prices to rise, including accommodation and airfare. So we waited and observed other organizations providing initial support before going to Türkiye about a month later. At that time, we provided food aid. But you know, earthquakes don’t just happen within national borders. Because the earthquake occurred on the border between Türkiye and Syria, Syria was also affected. However, Syria wasn’t receiving any support. Due to the ongoing civil war, even the government couldn’t fulfill its role. On the other hand, Türkiye had a functioning government, is a relatively large country, and was receiving a lot of help from other countries. So we asked the governor of Türkiye if it was possible to support Syria, and that’s how we entered Syria. We provided food aid to Syria several times, and while discussing recovery efforts, we decided to build a school. JTS has never built such a large school before. But it seemed that the people there needed some symbol of hope. So this time, we built a school that can accommodate 4,000 students. I can say that this school is one of the largest buildings JTS has constructed overseas.”
The Misowon representatives shared the process of collecting the donations.
“It’s not that we all had extra money to donate. We wanted to do something meaningful. I set aside a little bit from my husband’s salary each month, and we also collected some on family members’ birthdays. At the New Year, we donated with gratitude for the coming year, and at the end of the year, we donated in thanks for the year we had lived well. We’re so grateful that you’ve used the money we collected with such difficulty so well.”
“Because we know how hard it was to collect this money, we try to use it as frugally as possible. When our volunteers go to the field, they economize on food and avoid staying in nice hotels when possible. Also, we don’t just provide unconditional support but encourage local residents to participate as well.”
After listening to the explanation, Sunim expressed his gratitude and introduced JTS’s operational principles and future plans for supporting Syria. Chairman Jang Yu-jeong also asked questions about JTS’s future activities.
“It’s great that you proposed a national movement for children’s basic education in Syria. People need to be able to read and write, and know the law.”
“Yes, I made the proposal to them, but I don’t know if they will accept it.”
“Still, it’s good that you suggested something they might not have thought of. Whether they do it or not is up to them.”
“No matter how good an idea is, when you go to the field, you can’t do everything. People need to survive first. If you think from their perspective, they fled due to civil war, and then an earthquake destroyed their buildings. They’re busy just living day to day, so they don’t have the luxury to educate their children. When we propose building a school, everyone agrees. Time passes quickly, so they want to take action soon. Whether it’s in tents or under trees, children need to learn first. It’s been over 10 years since the civil war started in Syria. If children haven’t been educated for those 10 years, a child who was 10 then is now 20. The residents all agree, but when it comes to actually doing it, it’s not easy.
From my perspective, it would take more than 30 years to build schools and dispatch teachers there like in a normal country. But in urgent situations, we need to act according to the urgency. People need to be able to read, write, and do simple calculations to even run a small business. It only takes about six months to teach that much. That’s why I proposed starting with basic education as a national movement. I said that if necessary, JTS would provide textbooks, notebooks, pencils, desks, and even tents if needed.”
“When we see people like that, it feels like we’re enjoying too much in our lives.”
“That’s right. When you go to poor areas, the most difficult things are, first, lack of drinking water. If there’s not enough water to drink, there’s certainly not enough to wash with. Second, food is scarce. Third, there are no hospitals and medicine is in short supply. Usually, it’s in this order. Issues related to survival need to be resolved before we can talk about education. When I went to Afghanistan in 2002 to provide aid, I asked people what they needed, and they only talked about food and medicine. So I asked if they didn’t need schools, and they said they did. When I asked why they didn’t mention schools, they said, ‘How can we talk about that now?’ They said no parent wants their children to live like them. But they couldn’t mention schools because it wasn’t the right situation to do so. I suggested that it might be good to set up tents so that children could at least learn to read, and everyone agreed. That’s how we set up tent schools in Afghan refugee camps. Someone among the refugees who knew how to read a little became the teacher. There weren’t many people who could read at all.
But this time in Syria, it was a bit different. Syria wasn’t a poor country, but a country that was doing well before being divided by civil war. People over 20 there had all received school education. So if they set their minds to it, they should be able to solve the problem of basic education.”
Towards the end of the conversation, they discussed the severity of the climate crisis. Chairman Jang Yu-jeong shared that she was greatly inspired by Sunim’s teachings and Jungto Society’s environmental practices, and that Misowon plans to start environmental repentance prayers from October.
“This year, we are conducting environmental repentance prayers. We’ve realized that we’ve been living recklessly and were unaware of the consequences. We’ve used too much paper, cutting down too many trees, and used excessive plastic, which are now returning to us as major calamities. We are repenting for our careless way of living. We’re collecting 50,000 won per person as a prayer fee to support environmental movements. People of all ages are participating. Everyone has used disposable items, and especially this summer, no one would have gone without using air conditioning. It seems like a continuous vicious cycle.”
“That’s right. People’s excessive consumption has raised temperatures, and as it gets hotter, we use more air conditioning. This summer was said to be the hottest, but a climatologist mentioned that in the future, we might refer to this summer as the coolest one.”
“Exactly. That’s why we’re conducting environmental repentance prayers with the intention of ‘How can we raise people’s awareness about the environment?’ I learned something from Sunim, so Misowon has not used disposable items since the organization’s inception. We decided not to use paper cups or disposable chopsticks. We’ve prepared stainless steel cups and a sterilization machine to continuously use them after sterilization. We also go on cultural tours to temples once a month, and during these trips, we don’t use any disposable items at all. Individuals bring their own bags to handle waste. Some people are even collecting banners to make and distribute shopping bags. These are the kinds of activities we’re currently engaged in.”
“You’ve done very well.”
After the conversation, Sunim expressed gratitude to Chairperson Jang Yu-jeong of Misowon and the donors, and then took a commemorative photo.
Sunim also gifted rice that he had personally cultivated as a token of appreciation.
“This is the new rice we harvested last week. Please enjoy it.”
Together, they moved to the Dharma hall where Sunim showed a video of the school inauguration ceremony for 4,000 students in the Turkey-Syria border region last week, as well as ongoing JTS activities in Mindanao, Philippines, Cambodia, and Bhutan.
“This is how the donations you’ve sent are being well-utilized.”
After watching the video, they expressed their intention to collect donations again next year.
“The work that Sunim and JTS are doing is increasing. We should work harder to collect and send more donations.”
Sunim smiled and said,
“Thank you. But don’t overexert yourselves. Do what you can within your means. If you worry too much about whether others recognize your efforts, you won’t be able to continue for long.”
“We’ll do what we can within our means.”
After the Misowon members left, Sunim had lunch with the elderly Korean-Chinese from Yanbian and spent the entire afternoon with them.
It suddenly started raining heavily in the afternoon. Due to the downpour, the elderly Korean-Chinese from Yanbian also got some rest. They had been tired from traveling to various places for a week, so they enjoyed a rare moment of leisure.
As the sun set, after having dinner together, Sunim showed the elders the broadcasting room at Dubuk Retreat Center.
“From here, I give Dharma talks to people all over the world. Since transitioning to online Dharma assemblies, I can give talks to hundreds of people without needing a large hall.”
After touring the broadcasting room, the elders moved to the Dharma hall to watch the live Friday Dharma Q&A broadcast.
Sunim took his place in front of the camera in the broadcasting room and began the live Friday Dharma Q&A broadcast at 7:30 PM. With about 4,700 people connected to the live broadcast, Sunim gave his opening remarks.
“Right now, gentle autumn rain is falling outside. They say the temperature will drop a bit when this rain stops. Then we might be able to feel the cool autumn weather. When the temperature drops suddenly like this, it’s easy to catch a cold, so please be careful everyone.
Syria has been in a civil war for the past decade or so. Especially in the northern region, there are 3 million refugees, and last year an earthquake struck as well. To create even a small hope for these people, we first rebuilt the collapsed schools. We’ll first watch a video of the school inauguration ceremony and then have a conversation with you all.”
“Did you watch it well? Even in places severely affected by war and earthquakes, children are growing up brightly, putting their pain behind them. If these children cannot continue their education, they will all become illiterate. If we gather our sincerity little by little, we can give them new hope. Thanks to your donations, we were able to build schools like this. Not only did we provide school buildings, but we were also able to give hope to people who had fallen into despair and despondency.”
Following this, Sunim held a Dharma Q&A session with those who had submitted questions in advance. Today, two of the scheduled questioners suddenly canceled, so he had conversations with two people. One of them sought Sunim’s advice on how to resolve feelings of resentment towards their father after their mother committed suicide following an argument between the parents.
How Can I Manage My Hatred Towards My Father After My Mother’s Suicide?
“Yes, that’s a heartbreaking story. How old were you ten years ago?”
“I was 27 years old.”
“At 27, you’re not a minor but an adult. When you become an adult, you have to take responsibility for everything yourself. When you’re a minor, it’s difficult for a child to take full responsibility for what happens in the world, so parents have to take that responsibility instead. If there are no parents, another guardian takes on that role. Usually, parents act as guardians, and if there are no parents, relatives become guardians. If there are no relatives, society designates a guardian. However, when you turn 20 in Korean age or 19 in international age, you become an adult and biologically mature. From that point on, you have to directly handle whatever decisions you make and whatever difficulties you face. It means you’re at an age where you can no longer blame others for what happens.”
Even mothers and fathers can have conflicts as they live their lives. You’ll understand when you grow older and reach your parents’ age. If you’re married, you’ll know that even couples who married for love can have conflicts due to differences in opinions or emotions. However, conflicts don’t necessarily lead to suicide or killing the other person. Almost no one lives without conflicts. Most people experience conflicts as they live. Only in extremely rare cases, less than one in a hundred, people fail to control their anger and kill someone, or fail to manage their emotions and commit suicide. This doesn’t happen to everyone; it’s an occasional occurrence.
If someone kills another person in a fit of uncontrollable rage, they are first and foremost a criminal. However, when we examine their psychological state, it’s often found to be abnormal. People who can control their emotions to some extent don’t commit murder no matter how angry they get. But when emotions surge to an uncontrollable level, colloquially known as “seeing red,” they might unknowingly stab with a knife, shoot a gun, or hit with a hammer, resulting in a murder. In such cases, society usually labels them as bad people or murderers, but when I’ve counseled people in prison for murder, I couldn’t always say they were simply bad people. They committed an act they regret because they couldn’t control their emotions in that moment. Of course, crimes committed by organized crime groups are a separate issue.
Conversely, there are cases where people take their own lives when they can’t handle conflicts. In these instances, investigating their previous medical history often reveals psychological instability, inability to control emotions, or mental health issues like depression. It’s extremely rare for someone to commit suicide due to a momentary emotional outburst without any prior history of such issues. If your father had been wise enough to understand that your mother had a tendency to lose control of her emotions, the situation might have been different. If he had recognized this, he could have intervened when your mother became emotionally intense, saying, “Honey, let’s stop this.” However, even between close individuals, spouses, or siblings, it’s extremely rare for someone to recognize the emotional volatility of the other. So, they just continue to create conflicts based on their own emotions, and in this case, your mother crossed that line and took the extreme action of jumping.
In such a situation, your father probably felt as if he had killed his wife. Thinking that his wife died because of him, he likely felt immense guilt. This is why some people follow the suicide of a loved one by taking their own lives, or live with lifelong guilt. On the other hand, like your father, some people initially suffer from guilt but eventually forget those emotions and return to normal life, even forming new relationships. There are various types of people, but which do you think is better: your father living alone, tormented by guilt for the rest of his life, or initially struggling but eventually forgetting those emotions and returning to a normal life? A psychologically healthy person will return to normalcy. Those who struggle to do so, is it because their love was deeper? Not necessarily. These individuals have psychological vulnerabilities that prevent them from overcoming the situation, causing them to struggle.
Of course, if there had been no conflict with your father, your mother might not have passed away that day. So you might consider what happened that day as your father’s responsibility. However, since your mother was already in such a psychological state, even if it wasn’t that particular day or even if it wasn’t her husband, there was a risk of such an accident occurring if a conflict with someone escalated to the point where she couldn’t control her emotions. In this situation, risk management should have been in place to prevent accidents, but it wasn’t properly implemented. Psychoanalytically and psychologically speaking, attributing this to your father’s responsibility might be unfair to him. Can we really blame the other party for this situation? While one could argue that she wouldn’t have died if there had been no conflict, if your mother had been in a normal psychological state, she wouldn’t have committed suicide over this level of conflict. Usually, even if someone gets angry, causes a scene, or leaves home, they typically return. If your mother’s mental difficulties had been noticed early on and she had received psychiatric treatment or medication, this extreme choice could have been avoided. While it’s not a complete cure, nowadays, if depression is detected early and treated with counseling or medication, suicide can be prevented. However, most people don’t take medication and stay alone in their rooms, and at some point, their emotions intensify and overwhelm them. When these emotions are expressed outwardly, it can lead to acts of murder, and when expressed inwardly, it can lead to acts of self-harm.
Suicide leaves a profound wound on the surviving family members. It must have left a particularly deep scar on you, the child of the deceased. But did you see the earthquake that just happened? Like suddenly losing family to war or natural disasters, you should view this incident as an accident. It’s not something that happened because your father did something wrong, but rather an unavoidable accident. Of course, it would have been better if such an accident hadn’t occurred, but these things can happen in life. So instead of holding onto this event too deeply, it’s necessary for you to accept it as an accident and move forward with your life.
How should you feel about your father? It would have been nice if your father had been truly wise, but neither your father nor your mother were saints like Buddha or Jesus. Your father and mother are just ordinary people living in this world, just citizens. Being a citizen means that there are inherent limitations in considering others. Ordinary citizens tend to think primarily of themselves. Yet we often have unrealistically high expectations of people, thinking “they should be at least this considerate.” Most people in the world don’t meet these expectations.
Our brains are designed to naturally forget any event as time passes. Forgetting is not due to a lack of love for your mother, but rather a basic characteristic of our brains. At the time, it may feel heartbreaking and unbearable, but it’s natural for memories to fade over time. When we’re heartbroken from a breakup, no amount of consolation from others seems to help, right? That’s why older people often say, “Time heals all wounds. Time will solve it.” For a normal person, memories naturally fade and they return to their daily life as time passes. However, when a wife follows her husband in death, it’s closer to a mental illness than love. Psychologically speaking, this is called “obsession.” It’s a psychological state where one’s thoughts are so fixated on one thing that they can’t see anything else.
If your father recovers his daily routine, starts dating, and even remarries in the future, it should be seen as him returning to normalcy. While you don’t have to approve or like it, it’s not a bad thing for you at all. If your father were always depressed and at risk of suicide himself, you would have been constantly worried. It’s actually fortunate that your father is living a normal life. You shouldn’t think, “Mom is dead, but Dad is meeting another woman and living comfortably. Only Mom is pitiful. Dad is a bad person.” If you think like that, how would people whose families died in earthquakes or wars live? Historically, countless people have died. In our country, tens of thousands died during the Donghak Revolution, and over a million died during the Korean War. Many people have experienced death and separation, yet they continue to live.
“Of course, there are emotional wounds. That’s what trauma is. People who lost family members due to food shortages in North Korea and came to South Korea often suffer from trauma even while living in better conditions. Every time they eat, they’re reminded of their siblings or parents who died from lack of food. The more they think about family members who died because of the scarcity of what is now common food, the more angry and resentful they feel. This makes it difficult to live a normal life. Trauma needs to be treated. You also have some trauma from your mother’s death. Whenever you see or think about something, you’re reminded of your mother and feel sad. Thoughts like ‘If only father had been more patient then’ or ‘Mom is gone, how can dad be so happy alone?’ are ways of tormenting yourself. Your mother lived her life as best she could, and even if it was suicide, we should consider that she completed her life according to her own destiny. And your father has overcome that crisis and is living well now.
Now, considering both situations, you need to think about how you will live your own life. Of course, it would have been better without these circumstances, but we must live in whatever environment we find ourselves. Compared to situations like earthquakes or wars mentioned earlier, you should think that what you’ve experienced is better. This kind of positive attitude towards oneself is necessary. We can’t change what has already happened. It’s important to think that it’s fortunate to be in this situation when compared to worse scenarios. If your father had also committed suicide out of guilt when your mother died, it would have been an even greater shock for you. Wouldn’t it be better to positively accept that ‘It’s fortunate that at least father is still alive’ and now live your own life?
If you find it difficult to change your perspective in this way and this issue continues to be a source of suffering, it would be good to receive trauma treatment. It’s best to free yourself from such suffering through treatment.”
“Sunim, your clear and objective view has been a great comfort to me. I haven’t thought about it as trauma, but after hearing your words, I realize it really could be trauma. Rather than resenting my father and eating away at myself, I’ll try to focus on treating the trauma. I want to put into practice what you’ve advised. Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you.”
The questions continued. After conversing with the questioners, Sunim gave his closing remarks.
“As we live our lives, many things happen. Unexpected and unwanted events occur. That’s the way of the world. It’s not a punishment from God or a sin from a past life. The world is simply like that. In situations where various incidents and accidents occur, the most important thing is ‘What will I do?’ You might build your house safely to prevent flood damage, but a sudden flood could still occur. Then you might do your best to block it by building levees with sandbags. If that’s not enough, you should prioritize saving yourself over the house. But there’s no need to be too distressed. Focus not on the fact that you lost your house, but on the fact that you survived. You saved your life in a situation dangerous enough to lose your house.
What should you do if a robber suddenly appears, pointing a gun or knife at you and demanding money? Should you hold onto your money and get stabbed, or should you give up the money and save your life? You should save your life, right? In this case, you didn’t lose money, but instead saved your life. ‘A foolish person might give up their life for money, but I wisely gave up money to save my life’ – this is the perspective you should have. This is how you can live as the master of your own life. No matter what happens, instead of being dragged along by the situation, making decisions as the master is called ‘sucheojakju’ (수처작주). By living with this attitude of mastery, you can make your life your own. Otherwise, you’ll live swept along by the world like a log floating in a river. I hope all of you can live a life where you become the master of your own life, rather than being swept along. I’ll see you next week.”
It was well past 9 PM when the live broadcast ended.
Tomorrow morning, Sunim will greet the elderly Korean-Chinese visitors from Yanbian who are finishing their visit to Korea before they leave. Then he will do a live Environmental Dharma Talk broadcast. In the afternoon, he is scheduled to guide a historical tour of Gyeongju for young people.
