Oct 21, 2024 – Buddhist Guests Visit Dubuk Retreat Center, Day 1
Good morning. A new day has dawned at the Dubuk Retreat Center. After yesterday’s autumn rain, the weather has turned much colder today.
The fields were rippling with golden hues, but within a week, most of the rice paddies have been harvested. Now, only stubble remains in the fields. In the past, we could observe the harvesting scene for nearly a month, but nowadays, with the use of combine harvesters, the harvest is completed within a week.
After completing his early morning practice and meditation, Sunim welcomed the monks who had come to visit the Dubuk Retreat Center. Venerable Dobeop and Venerable Jihong, along with their group who are leading an innovative movement in Buddhist practice under the motto “Live as Buddha,” visited the Dubuk Retreat Center.
After sharing a meal together, they engaged in conversation throughout the day. The discussion about how Korean Buddhism can progress in alignment with the Buddha’s teachings continued late into the night.
As there was no Dharma talk today, this article will conclude by introducing the Dharma Q&A session from the Happy Dialogue event held in Gwangju four days ago.
It’s Difficult to Control Emotions That Arise Moment by Moment
“Let’s say there’s food here. It smells good, looks good, and seems delicious. I’m hungry. So, as I’m about to eat it, someone next to me says, ‘There’s poison in that.’ What should I do?”
“You shouldn’t eat it.”
“At that moment, saying things like ‘But I’m hungry, it smells good, and looks delicious, how can I not eat it?’ is pointless. The person who said ‘There’s poison in that food’ is the Buddha. The Buddha’s teachings don’t interfere with our lives by telling us what to do. He simply warns us when we’re about to consume poison. Who decides whether to eat or not? We do. If you want to live, you shouldn’t eat it even if you want to. If you want to die, you can eat it and die. You might think that practice is only about not eating when you want to eat, but I don’t see it that way. If your goal is to live, then not eating when you want to is practice. But this isn’t the only form of practice. Eating and dying if you want to is also practice. In other words, it’s willingly accepting the consequences.
If you want to borrow money, go ahead. But you have to pay it back with interest. If you find paying back with interest too difficult, then you shouldn’t borrow next time. However, our minds want to borrow money but don’t want to pay it back. That’s why traditional religions often said that if you pray to Buddha or God, you don’t have to pay it back. I believe the era of saying that if you believe in religion fervently, you don’t have to pay back is over.
Here’s a hot cup. If you’re holding it and ask, “How do I put it down?” I answer, “Keep holding it.” If you can’t put it down, what else can you do but keep holding it? If you cry out, “But it’s burning my hand!” I say, “Then put it down.” If you say, “But I can’t put it down,” I reply, “Then keep holding it.” It may sound like wordplay, but it’s not.
In life, we always have to make choices and take responsibility for them. What we should be concerned about is not “What choice is the right one to make?” The very act of worrying about which choice will turn out well is an attitude of avoiding responsibility for our choices. After getting married, people often don’t try to adjust to their partner. Isn’t it natural for conflicts to arise when two different people live together? If you accept that “conflicts are natural,” you can still argue and bicker without being miserable. If bickering makes you miserable, you can adjust to your partner.
The traditional practice we’ve learned so far has been “adjust to others,” “be harmonious,” “don’t do this or that.” However, I take it a step further and believe it’s up to the individual to either reach an agreement and live together, or reach an agreement and separate. I don’t say, “You must live together because you’re married.” Yet, people rush into marriage thinking it’s good, then regret it saying they made the wrong choice. Then they hastily divorce, only to regret it again, thinking “the old ways were better.” What I want to say is, even if you made a mistake the first time with marriage, you should be more cautious about divorce. If you made a mistake the first time, shouldn’t you be more careful the second time? But you just rush into it again.
I don’t interfere with whether you get married or divorced. I never say, “Don’t get divorced.” I only advise you to make decisions carefully. If your husband had an affair, it’s a valid reason for divorce because he broke a promise. Whether to continue living with your husband after the affair is your choice. If you can live well enough on your own after separating from your husband, that’s fine. But if you remarry, unless you marry someone who’s never been married, you’ll end up marrying someone who’s been married before anyway. So, which is better? Living with someone who’s lived with others for a long time? Or living with someone who briefly had an affair while living with you? What do you think?
If you’ve been driving your car well and it gets scratched, and you decide to sell it, but you don’t have enough money to buy a new car, you might end up buying a used car that’s worse than the one you sold. In such cases, it’s better to keep driving the car with the scratch, even if it makes you feel a bit bad, rather than selling it and buying a used car.
So when you’re considering remarriage after a divorce, you should include your ex-husband as a potential candidate. Isn’t that wise? Yet, many of you miss out on potential benefits because you can’t control your emotions. Most Koreans live and die by their feelings.
Live a little more wisely. I’m not telling you to give up your interests. I want to say that you should really know how to look after your own interests. If someone threatens you with a knife, you should run away saying, “Oh, I’m scared!” It’s foolish to stick out your chest and say, “Go ahead, stab me!” If you challenge them like that, even if they initially only meant to scare you, they might feel compelled to actually stab you. When a husband and wife are arguing and one says, “Let’s just get divorced!” what does that mean? Is it really about divorce? Or is it saying, “You should give in”? It means you should give in first. You should immediately understand this, get on your knees, and humorously say, “Honey, anything but divorce!” But foolish people can’t control their temper and say, “Fine, let’s divorce,” only to regret it the next morning. When someone pulls out a strong card like this, it means “You should give in.”
When you’re having a marital argument and your partner throws a dish on the floor, you might get angry and say, “How dare you break the dishes!” At that moment, you should realize, “They can’t bring themselves to hit me, so they’re breaking the dishes instead. What a considerate person.” Then you should quickly say:
“Honey, you’re breaking the dishes because you care too much to hit me. Thank you!”
If you respond with humor like this, the conflict won’t escalate. But we often can’t do this because we can’t control our temper.
When I tell you not to live life so rigidly, you might ask, “Sunim, do you always practice what you preach?” I would answer, “There are times when I can’t.” If you then ask, “If even you can’t do it, why are you telling us to do it?” I would reply:
“Because you’re married. It’s not a problem if I can’t do it. Knowing I couldn’t do it, I chose not to get married from the start. But you, not knowing your own limitations, chose to get married, so you have to take responsibility for that choice.”
Whether I can do it or not, whether you get divorced or not, that’s not the important thing. What I want to tell you is to take responsibility for the choices you’ve made. Who needs to practice more, a married person or a single person?”
“A married person.”
“While married people have their advantages, they also need to practice more. Single people don’t have those advantages, but they don’t need to practice as much. If you’re living alone, what’s there to practice separately? Whether you stand on your head or walk around naked, there’s no one to criticize you. But when you live together, you have to adjust to each other. When I explain this, someone once said, ‘I thought your words would be profound, but listening carefully, what you’re saying is just common sense.’ I replied, ‘That’s right. Truth isn’t lofty; it’s common sense.’ The natural state of things as they are is the truth. There isn’t a separate truth. Our lives feel strained because we’re not being natural. We’re struggling now because we’re forcing things. I hope you can live more naturally and comfortably.”
“Thank you.”
Tomorrow, Sunim plans to visit Cheonjeonri and Bangudae Petroglyphs with Venerable Dobeop and Venerable Jihong, and then have further discussions about the future of Korean Buddhism.