Jan 30, 2025 – India JTS Staff Outing
Hello. Today is the day for an outing with the India JTS staff. Once a year, after completing a pilgrimage, Sunim and the India JTS staff go on an outing to a city or tourist spot near Dungeshwari.
Sunim finished his morning practice and barugongyang, then prepared for the outing.
The first destination of the day is the Giriyak Stupa near Rajgir. Although Sunim has visited Rajgir several times with the staff, they smiled and said they would be happy to go even to Bodhgaya if it’s with Sunim. They rented a bus and departed for Rajgir at 7 a.m. A total of 37 people joined, including 20 Indian staff members and 17 Korean staff members.
The Giriyak Stupa is an ancient Buddhist site located in the “Giriyak” area near Rajgir. This stupa is known as an important relic showcasing early Buddhist architectural styles. After 2 hours and 30 minutes, they arrived in front of the Giriyak Stupa.
Standing at the entrance of the Giriyak Stupa, Sunim explained the mountain landscape around Rajgir, the outer and inner walls, and provided information about the location of the Giriyak Stupa and the surrounding walls.
“You all should go up to the mountain where the stupa is located and come back. My knees hurt, so I don’t think I can climb up today.”
The staff were surprised when Sunim said he couldn’t climb up, as he had always been with them when climbing mountains or steep stairs. Pramod, who was in the best physical condition, along with others, offered to carry Sunim on their backs. Eventually, Dharma Teacher Bogwang led the group up to the Giriyak Stupa.
While the staff were climbing up to the Giriyak Stupa, Sunim looked for a place to have lunch and explored Ghora Katora, which he had in mind for the next course. Following the village road, a large dam appeared.
It seemed like a good place to have lunch as it was flat and had grass, but there was no shade in sight.
“This would be a good place to have lunch, but there’s no shade.”
Sunim walked along the embankment for a while and said:
“I was told there was a place suitable for boating nearby, but I don’t see any. It seems to be on the other side, past the end of this embankment. Let’s ask the driver to explore by bus.”
Sunim met an elderly villager while coming down from the mountain.
“I heard there’s a place for boating here, but when I went up, I saw a dam. Is it on the opposite side?”
“That place is developed similarly to this one, but it’s a bit more like a park, so many people visit. You should try going there. However, this place is for water storage, so there’s no boating area.”
Sunim took the bus to the dam embankment on the opposite side.
However, there was no visible space for boating.
“I think the boating area might be inside that valley over there.”
The weather felt like summer. Sunim thought the staff would be tired from the heat after their hike. He began looking for a shaded area suitable for lunch.
“If we choose this place, there might be a lot of dust when cars pass by.”
Sunim went to check places that looked shaded from afar to see if they were flat. After several attempts, no suitable location was found. Meanwhile, they received a call that all staff had come down from the mountain. Sunim moved to where the staff were.
The staff were resting after coming down from the mountain, and that spot turned out to be the wide, flat, shaded area Sunim had been looking for. Sunim said with a smile.
“I’ve been looking for shade all this time, and the place where you’re sitting is the best. Let’s spread out mats here and have lunch.”
Lunch is ramen. The staff unloaded the ramen cooking equipment from the car and prepared the dining area. They set up gas stoves and pots, and laid out mats.
They connected the gas tanks and put water on to boil first, while others cleaned the mats for people to sit on. Some were chopping onions and green onions, shedding tears in the process.
Soon after the water boiled, they added the ramen and vegetables, and after a few more minutes of cooking, the ramen was ready.
The staff served Sunim first, then each person took a portion of ramen.
Everyone ate well, seemingly hungry. They had worried about having leftover ramen, but the amount cooked was just right, and everyone ate sufficiently.
Those who finished eating went to the nearby hand pump to wash dishes.
And some began cleaning up.
Watching a staff member folding a mat, Sunim said:
“You need to fold it straight, aligning the ends perfectly.”
The staff laughed and shouted, “Do it straight!” They folded the mat again with Sunim, aligning the ends neatly.
As one staff member was folding a mat, they said:
“Cooking and eating ramen with Sunim is the most important event of the year. We can start the year well only if we eat ramen with Sunim.”
Hearing this, several people nodded. After finishing the cleanup, Sunim said:
“If you go up here, there’s a big dam. They say they’ve drawn water from the Ganga River to create a large reservoir. The reservoir water is sent to the city of Gaya. Let’s all go up and see it.”
Sunim moved to the reservoir with the staff.
Everyone pressed against the wire fence to view the reservoir. It was truly large and wide.
“There should be a place for boating beyond those mountains on the other side. Let’s go there and enjoy some boating.”
The staff followed Sunim down from the reservoir.
The place Sunim was looking for is called ‘Ghora Katora’. Ghora Katora is a lake near Gridhakuta Mountain, surrounded entirely by mountains. Historically, it’s known as a place where the horses of Rajgir used to drink water. As vehicle entry is restricted, they moved by bus and then switched to rickshaws to reach the entrance of Ghora Katora.
They arrived at Ghora Katora at 2 p.m. A large Buddha statue sits in the center of the lake, and the surroundings were very quiet.
Sunim gave the staff time for boating.
They went boating in groups of four to five. While the staff were boating, Sunim asked Choi Mal-soon and Priyanka to purchase mithai (sweets) as gifts for the staff. Time had already passed 4 p.m.
They moved to the dinner location in Gaya, the last stop of today’s outing.
By the time they finished dinner, it was well past 6 p.m.
Sunim and staff all moved to Sujata Academy.
“Did you have fun today?”
“Yes!”
“We’ve been enjoying ourselves from morning till night, so please give a gift to your family at home.”
Sunim distributed mithai (Indian sweets) to the staff and the driver. Concerned about the dangers of night travel, he gave them to the female staff members first.
All the staff members are graduates of Sujata Academy, and now, 20 years later, they have all started their own families. However, during today’s outing with Sunim, they returned to being the children they were 20 years ago and had an enjoyable time.
“When we go on the outing every year, it’s tiring but really fun. Thank you, Sunim.”
Tomorrow, the JTS India board meeting and general assembly will be held at Sujata Academy.
As there was no Dharma talk today, this post will be concluded by sharing a conversation from the live Friday Dharma Q&A session held in Varanasi on January 10th.
I Had a Stillbirth at Eight Months of Pregnancy
“How old are you now?”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“Although it varies from person to person, at thirty-eight, you should still be physically able to have one or two more children. Is it medically possible?”
“Yes, I’m still at an age where I can have more children.”
“First, you can still have another child. Second, if someone had kicked a pregnant woman’s belly, used an electric shock, or if she had fallen off a cliff, causing the stillbirth, then one might feel guilty for being a bit careless. But in your case, you didn’t do anything specifically to harm the living child. You were just doing your work at the company, experienced some stress, and had some abdominal pain, which resulted in the stillbirth. You keep dwelling on it, thinking, ‘If I had gone to the hospital right away when my stomach hurt yesterday, would it have been okay?’ This is why you keep feeling regret and guilt. However, that level of stress is just a minor external influence. When a baby is stillborn due to such a minimal influence that wouldn’t normally cause death for anyone, it suggests that the fetus’s health condition in the womb was extremely weak. If we assume that a fetus in such a weak state, which could die from very minor external influences, had barely survived through surgery, do you think that child would face many difficulties in this world, such as disabilities or mental weakness? Or do you think there wouldn’t be any difficulties?”
“I can anticipate that there would be difficulties.”
“If a baby is already born and has physical disabilities or is mentally weak, leaving it to die would be murder. In the past, when heavy snow fell in winter and rabbits or deer in the mountains had nothing to eat and came close to villages, people would feed them. This was called nature conservation. But now, in national parks, they completely prohibit feeding animals. This is because it’s seen as an artificial act, not something natural.

Similarly, when it’s not a case of deliberately trying to terminate the pregnancy by taking medication or someone kicking the belly, we should view it as a natural occurrence. There are babies born with weak minds and bodies, or with such weak hearts that they need immediate heart surgery, aren’t there? In such cases where they are born with weak minds and bodies, even with all kinds of treatment, many die after one year, three years, or five years.
Once a child is born, we must do our best to treat them, but when a stillbirth occurs naturally in the womb, although it’s sad, we need to accept it as a natural occurrence. Rather, it’s better to stabilize your mind and prepare for a second child. This is not something you should feel guilty about. This kind of guilt is similar to the psychology of wives in the past who felt immense guilt for not following their husbands in death, lamenting, ‘I’m living because I couldn’t die.’ You didn’t have any intention to harm the child, did you? You didn’t smoke or do drugs to harm the child, did you? So in this case, it’s best to accept it as the natural end of its life and strive for a healthy conception of another child.
However, when you get pregnant next time, you need to be a bit more careful. Because stress can be bad for the child’s health and can also cause problems with your physical functions like the uterus, it’s best to take leave after the fifth month of pregnancy if possible and avoid stressful work. If you take such measures to protect the child in your womb, this experience can become a valuable lesson that prevents greater misfortune.”
“Yes, I understand. And is it okay to think, ‘This child might come back to me’?”
“A fetus doesn’t have a self. The human form has been created, but the self hasn’t formed yet. When you say this child might come back to you, there needs to be a self, but since the self hasn’t formed yet, such thoughts are just your own ideas.”
“I see, I understand.”
“When a new child is conceived, the self starts to form after the child is born. In computer terms, it’s like the hardware has been built, but the software hasn’t been installed yet. For it to become your computer, various programs that you need must be installed on the hardware. Only then can you press buttons and have things appear. Before the programs are installed, it’s just a machine without anything. There’s not much difference whether you bring this machine or that machine from the store. You need to install software for it to be ‘my computer’ or ‘your computer.’ When a new child is born, the child’s self is formed through interaction with the mother. Only when the self is formed can we say it’s ‘my child.'”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Don’t worry anymore about the child that was stillborn. Recover your health and conceive a new child. Whether the new child is the same as or different from the stillborn child is just a distinction you make on your own; it has no real meaning. There’s no need to think about where that stillborn child went. All such talk presupposes a self.”
“I see. I’ve been trapped in my own thoughts and have been tormenting myself. Your words have been very comforting and enlightening. Thank you.”