Two Types of People Even Buddha Cannot Save

March 6, 2025- 18th Day of 100-Day Dharma Talk, 9th Open Dharma Talk

Hello everyone. Today is the 18th day of Venerable Pomnyun Sunim’s 100-Day Dharma Talk.

After completing his morning practice and meditation, Sunim headed to the Jungto Social and Cultural Center to deliver his 100-Day Dharma Talk. At 10:15, the Open Dharma Talk began with the recitation of the Three Refuges and the Heart Sutra.

About 140 people were present, and they requested the Dharma talk from Sunim with three bows. Today, Sunim delivered the final talk on the topic of “Memorial Services for the Deceased.” Continuing from the previous session, Sunim explained in detail the meaning of each ritual in the memorial service liturgy, including praising the Buddha’s virtues, chanting for adornment, and the mantra of liberation. Finally, Sunim summarized the significance of why we perform memorial services.

“When you look at the ocean, you see waves constantly rolling in. Looking at each individual wave, it appears to form and disappear, form and disappear, in an endless cycle. However, when you view the ocean as a whole, nothing is newly created and nothing truly disappears. The seawater simply continues to undulate. Similarly, when we look at individual people, they appear to be born, grow old, fall ill, and die, but from the perspective of the entire Earth, they simply emerge from the earth and return to it. The Earth doesn’t become heavier when the population increases, nor does it become lighter when many people die. The weight of the Earth remains constant.

When we realize this fundamental truth, we understand there is nothing to fear or suffer in this world. However, it is through our attachments that notions of right and wrong arise, gain and loss emerge, and birth and death come into being. In our daily reality, we are constantly trapped by our own thoughts. This is why we continually experience fear, suffering, worry, anxiety, and agitation. This is our reality. Among these challenges, the greatest fear and suffering comes from ‘death.’ That is why, when confronted with death in our lives, we seek rituals to provide comfort.

Why Religious Beliefs About the Afterlife Emerged

Since ancient times, the reason for depicting an afterlife where “one goes to a better place after death” is that such thinking reduces worry and grief about the deceased. Religious beliefs about the afterlife, such as going to heaven if you believe in God or going to paradise if you believe in Buddha, were formed in this way. Looking at it globally, these beliefs about the afterlife are almost identical across religions, with only slight differences in method, location, and name.

Historically, religious practices have very deep roots in human civilization. According to established theories, ancient humans lived as hunter-gatherers. Later, as agricultural societies developed, people settled in one place, formed villages, and established cities. It was believed that from this, social classes and religions emerged. However, a recent archaeological discovery in Türkiye dating back approximately 12,000 years reveals a new understanding of human history. The site contains massive stone religious structures but shows no evidence of collective dwellings. This suggests that religious activities preceded settled communal living in human history. If this discovery proves accurate, we must rewrite the cultural history of humanity. It’s possible that religion came first, and the need to build religious structures brought people together in one place, eventually leading to the birth of civilization with agriculture and animal husbandry. Thus, religious practices have extremely deep roots in human history. Humans were able to expand the size of their communities by sharing some form of belief. Belief can be considered a kind of mental network. From this, religious rituals could emerge. By sharing these rituals, human groups were gradually able to increase their size.

Practice is about letting go of a single thought and seeing the world just as it is. However, human mental processes always involve attachment, which gives rise to fear. Buddhism began with a focus on practice, but as it became popularized, it had to partially incorporate religious rituals due to these characteristics of human mental processes. Gradually, as it continued to embrace religious elements, Buddhism itself eventually became part of religion. This created a need for Buddha’s teachings that aligned with religious contexts, which later led to the emergence of Buddhist scriptures that fit these contexts. Today, it has become difficult to distinguish whether religion emerged from practice or practice emerged from religion. Even during Buddha’s time, religion existed. However, seeing the endless suffering of people due to caste discrimination, gender discrimination, and social status systems under religious teachings, the Buddha deeply investigated these issues. Eventually, he realized the essence of human existence and spread teachings that liberated people. However, as these teachings were widely disseminated and passed down to later generations, they once again incorporated the religious elements of those times during the process of popularization. As a result, elements of practice remain largely in Theravada Buddhism and Seon Buddhism, while Mahayana Buddhism contains many philosophical and ideological elements, and Pure Land Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism have many religious elements. Consequently, most Buddhist rituals are predominantly composed of Pure Land and Esoteric Buddhist ceremonies.

How to Repay the Sins Committed Knowingly and Unknowingly Throughout Life

To summarize the essence of a memorial service (Cheondo-jae), in order to go to a better place after death, one must repay and eliminate all sins and debts accumulated throughout life, both knowingly and unknowingly. There are three main methods to accomplish this. First, to repay a debt, one must give. This aligns with the worldly principle that if you cause harm to others, you must compensate them. In India and Muslim societies, retribution still exists. If someone sexually harasses your sister, brothers gather and go to the perpetrator’s house to sexually harass a female member of that household. If a driver hits a child on the road, family members and neighbors might harm the driver’s child and set fire to the vehicle. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth—this represents revenge. However, as human society has become more civilized, revenge and retribution have been prohibited. Instead, they have been replaced with compensation. Now, if you steal something or harm others, providing compensation has become the norm.

If you have clearly wronged or harmed someone, you can compensate that specific person. However, the sins we commit throughout our lives often don’t have clear recipients for compensation. From the perspective of dependent origination, the debts we accumulate in life eventually affect the poorest people through a chain of causation. Therefore, when making amends without a specific recipient in mind, we should give to the poorest people. This is why the Buddha said, “Do not build your happiness upon the misfortune of others” and “Feed the hungry until they are full, and give medicine to the sick until they are healed.”

In the past, poor people were constantly hungry, so feeding them was considered the highest merit. Thus, holding a memorial service essentially meant providing food. However, in today’s world, food is abundant, and often there aren’t enough people to eat the food prepared. This is why Jungto Society has begun offering food to the poor in distant countries.

The offering money (jaebi) is meant to be given generously, so you can contribute whatever amount you wish. Whether you give 100,000 won or 1 million won, it’s entirely up to you. This money is used to help poor people in disadvantaged regions around the world. While it costs about 5,000 won for a single meal in Korea these days, in India, just 500 won can provide a meal for one person. The same amount of money has ten times the impact in India compared to Korea. This is exactly like the “miracle of five loaves and two fish” from the Bible. Because the effect is so significant, we encourage donations when performing memorial services. However, regarding food offerings for the altar, you can prepare them if you wish, or not prepare them at all. It doesn’t matter whether you bring ten boxes of fruit or just one box. Therefore, there’s no need to discuss “how much money is spent on the memorial service.” Make donations separately, and prepare food offerings only if you want to. This is why in Buddhism, we use the character “jae” (齋) meaning “to give” rather than “je” (祭) meaning “ritual” when referring to memorial services. The meaning is that through this giving, the deceased will go to a better place through the merit generated.

Second, there must be repentance. Even if sufficient compensation is made, forgiveness cannot be granted without personal reflection. No matter how much money someone pays, if they sexually harass someone or hit someone and then say, “How much do I need to pay? I’ll compensate with money,” can reconciliation happen? That’s why the person must recognize their wrongdoing and repent. It’s best if the person reflects on their actions themselves, but if that’s not possible, at least their parents should apologize on their behalf. However, even if someone apologizes on their behalf, it’s useless if the person themselves continues to shout, “What did I do wrong?” That’s why personal realization is most important. This is why we have Dharma talks. Since a senior monk cannot give a Dharma talk at every memorial service, most of the memorial ceremony consists of Dharma teachings.

Third, you must pray. It would be wonderful to attain enlightenment immediately, but it takes time. Until then, prayer is asking for temporary relief from suffering through the power of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. That’s why funeral ceremonies contain many prayers.

The funeral ceremony is structured around these three elements. It’s a religious ritual that comforts our grieving hearts when facing death. Don’t keep questioning whether it aligns with the Buddha’s teachings. If you want to argue, “Will this really eliminate sins?” then simply don’t hold a ceremony. However, at Jungto Society, we conduct funeral ceremonies that incorporate aspects of practice without significantly deviating from the Buddha’s teachings. Accordingly, the fees you pay are used to help the poorest people in the world.

This concluded the three-part lecture series on “Funeral Ceremonies.”

After the Dharma talk, participants gathered in groups to share their thoughts. Following the Four Great Vows, the Open Dharma Assembly concluded at around noon.

Sunim moved to the dining hall on the first basement level to have lunch with a guest. Venerable Sugyeong, who has been at the forefront of environmental activism through practices such as the Three-Step One-Bow pilgrimage to save Saemangeum and the full prostration protest against the Korean Peninsula Grand Canal project, visited and engaged in a conversation with Sunim.

Venerable Sugyeong has been quietly continuing his ecological and environmental activism through “Together with the World,” an organization that supports environmental groups, activists, and service organizations helping the socially disadvantaged. After finishing their meal and tea, they promised to meet again.

At 2:30 PM, North Korean affairs experts visited The Peace Foundation to meet with Sunim. They discussed how North Korea-US relations might develop under President Trump’s administration and what role The Peace Foundation could play in this context.

After consecutive meetings with visitors, the day began to draw to a close.

At 7:30 PM, Sunim began the 9th session of the Open Dharma Assembly for evening participants. About 110 people who had come directly from work gathered in the third-floor Dharma hall.

The evening Open Dharma Assembly continued with the third and final lecture on the “Song of Dharma Nature” (Beopseongge), which contains the core teachings of the Avatamsaka Sutra.

“This passage means that the rain of treasures that benefits all beings fills the entire sky, and beings receive benefits according to the vessels they hold. If you stand with a small container when it rains, you’ll collect only a little water. If you have a large container, you’ll collect more water. Thus, each person receives according to their vessel. However, there are people who cannot collect even a single drop—those who hold their containers upside down. Whether your vessel is large or small, if you hold it upside down, you cannot collect a single drop.

Two Types of People Buddha Cannot Save

“There are two types of people who hold their containers upside down. One type has the ‘I know’ disease, and the other has the ‘I don’t know’ disease. It is said that ‘even Buddha cannot save these two types of people.’

First, why do people get the ‘I don’t know’ disease? Sometimes when we’re discussing something, we say, ‘I don’t know!’ If someone tries to explain further, we emphasize, ‘I said I don’t know!’ This is what we call the ‘I don’t know disease.’ In this case, does ‘I don’t know’ really mean they don’t understand, or does it mean they don’t want to listen?”

“It means they don’t want to listen.”

“Though they say ‘I don’t know,’ what they really mean is ‘I don’t want to listen.’ When someone is completely caught up in the thought ‘I don’t want to listen,’ they can no longer hear anything. They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear. This is what we call being ‘caught up’ in something. When you’re caught up in aversion, you can neither see nor hear. Even if the great Buddha were to appear right beside you, you wouldn’t see him. No matter how many skillful means Buddha employs to connect with you, you wouldn’t recognize him as Buddha.

Even during Buddha’s time, there was someone who couldn’t recognize him—his own father, King Suddhodana. The king was so caught up in the single thought of ‘my son’ that he couldn’t recognize Buddha for who he was. When we look at the stories passed down about King Suddhodana and Buddha, we see that the king only expressed interest in his son as a person. Whenever King Suddhodana asked Buddha directly or inquired through others about how Buddha was doing, he never once asked, ‘What Dharma is Buddha teaching?’ He always asked what Buddha was eating, how he was sleeping, what clothes he was wearing, and who was around him. Upali, who was originally a barber for the Shakya clan, heard Buddha’s teachings and attained enlightenment. Even discriminated-against women heard Buddha’s teachings and attained enlightenment. Yet King Suddhodana, who held the highest position in the country, couldn’t attain enlightenment. So one day, the disciples asked Buddha:

“Why is King Suddhodana, whom we respect the most and who might have been the first to attain enlightenment, unable to understand this Dharma?”

When asked this question, the Buddha smiled and replied:

“For King Suddhodana, there is no Buddha, only a son.”

The king was so captivated by the thought “this is my son” that he failed to recognize the Buddha right before his eyes. Except for King Suddhodana, everyone else—the Buddha’s stepmother, wife, son, younger brother—all heard the Buddha’s teachings and gained the eye of Dharma. These individuals later renounced worldly life and became excellent practitioners.

Why We Fail to Listen Attentively to Others

Second, why do people suffer from the “I-already-know” disease? During conversations, we sometimes say, “I know.” If the other person continues, we might respond more forcefully, “I said I know!” While this expression indicates that we already understand, what it really means is that we don’t want to listen anymore. When we don’t want to listen, we might say, “I don’t know,” but we also express this reluctance by saying, “I already know.” Of course, some people genuinely don’t know and say so. However, there are also those who, trapped in the belief that they already know everything, miss the opportunity to encounter the Buddha’s teachings.

As an example from the scriptures, a Brahmin once asked the Buddha, “What can be considered pure?” The Buddha replied, “A pure mind is what can be considered pure.” The Brahmin scoffed and walked away because the answer differed from what he already believed. If you examine your inner thoughts, you’ll notice that when you ask me questions, you often already have your own answers in mind. If my response doesn’t match your expectations, you don’t listen carefully. When asking someone something, you should first set aside your own thoughts and open your ears. But when your ears are already closed, you cannot hear what others are saying.

Therefore, someone with the “I-already-know” disease is essentially an arrogant person. It’s difficult to save an arrogant person even if the Buddha himself were to teach them. The core issue isn’t about knowing much or little. This phenomenon occurs when you’re trapped in the thought “I don’t want to listen.” The essence is the unwillingness to listen, though you might use “I don’t know” as a shield. And when the premise “I already know” is established, you become completely unable to hear what others say. Such people cannot collect any treasures even if jewels rain down from heaven, because they’re holding their bowls upside down. Most people can only understand as much as they’re willing to hear. This is what the Dharma Nature Verse means when it says, “Sentient beings receive benefits according to the vessels they possess.”

Sunim continued his explanation all the way to the final verse of the Song of Dharma Nature. He mentioned that there was one verse among all of them that was particularly difficult to understand, and proceeded to explain this verse in greater detail.

“You may have understood all the other verses, but this is probably one of the most difficult verses for you to comprehend.”

“In our previous lecture, I explained this scientifically, but today I’ll discuss it in terms of our daily lives. When you ask someone to take on multiple roles, they often respond with resistance, saying, ‘How can I possibly do all that by myself?’ But if you think about it, doing the same task ten times or doing ten different tasks once each is essentially the same thing. If asked to do the same task ten times, people complain, ‘That’s too boring,’ or ‘Why do I have to keep doing the same thing?’ But if asked to do ten different tasks, they say, ‘Why are you making me do so many different things?’ Within the same amount of time, isn’t it all the same whether you do one thing ten times or ten different things once each?

When You Follow Conditions, There Is No Suffering

Doing the same thing multiple times is good because it becomes familiar, and doing different things is good because you gain various experiences. Meeting the same person ten times is comfortable because of familiarity, and meeting ten different people once each is enjoyable because you encounter new people each time. Going to the same place ten times is comfortable because it’s familiar, and going to ten different places is exciting because there are new things to see.

Imagine you’re sitting and talking with your child, husband, and mother. In this situation, you’re playing three roles at once. You’re a mother to your child, a wife to your husband, and a daughter to your mother. Sitting in the room, when your mother speaks, you respond as a daughter; when your husband speaks, you respond as a wife; and when your child speaks, you respond as a mother. You naturally perform these three roles without any problem. Is this confusing? (Laughter)

You switch from being a wife to being a daughter to being a mother in quick succession. Is it so confusing that you can’t handle it? Actually, it’s not confusing at all. What’s the difference between spending an hour talking only with your mother and spending an hour talking with all three people? It’s still the same hour of conversation. You might wonder how you can switch so quickly between being a wife, a mother, and a daughter, but in reality, it’s quite natural. Roles naturally emerge according to conditions. That’s why we say ‘manifestation according to conditions.’ There’s no confusion in your shifting between being a mother, a daughter, and a wife. This is what ‘잉불잡란 격별성’ means. You do this naturally without complaint, yet when asked to do various other things, you often complain.

Why Is Life Difficult?

Our lives are formed according to conditions. If you fixate on yourself as a wife, it becomes difficult to perform the roles of a daughter or a mother. If you fixate on yourself as a mother, it becomes difficult to be a daughter or a wife. In reality, you are none of these things inherently. According to conditions, you become a mother in front of your child, a daughter in front of your mother, and a wife in front of your husband. The world of truth is not some lofty, special realm unknown to us. The world of truth is precisely the world of reality. This is how we actually live.

Insisting ‘I am this’ belongs to the world of delusion. Life becomes difficult because we insist ‘I am this.’ What’s so difficult about living? Is it hard to wake up in the morning? Is it hard to sleep every day? Is it hard to get up after sleeping? Is it hard to eat? Is it hard to prepare food? Is it hard to clean? What’s so difficult? In truth, life becomes difficult because we are caught up in aversion.

One day, I met a doctor who was complaining about having too many patients. He lamented, “I don’t have time to eat or sleep, and people keep coming to see me even when they’re not that sick.” But then he also complained when patients didn’t come. When a doctor complains about not having patients, isn’t that like saying, “Why aren’t people getting sick? Please get sick!” Can we call this a true doctor? Shouldn’t a real doctor be happy when people aren’t sick? If you need others to be sick so that you have work to do, then you’re wishing for someone’s suffering for your own benefit. Why would you want someone to be sick for your sake? If there are no patients, you can read, meditate, clean, or do other things. And when patients do come, you can think, “Someone needs me,” and work except during mealtimes. What’s wrong with reducing your sleep and working late? It means you’re that much needed and useful.

We always put ourselves at the center. Instead of following the flow of causes and conditions, we do everything according to our own thinking. Even in simple conversations: if you tell someone to eat something, they find it annoying, but if you don’t tell them to eat, they feel neglected. Meeting others’ needs is very difficult. That’s why marriage is challenging. It’s hard enough to accommodate just one person. Though we say “one person,” you actually have to accommodate hundreds or thousands of things. With others, you might not need to accommodate everything, but marriage means accommodating a hundred things under the pretext of loving each other. How can anyone possibly accommodate a hundred things?

The easiest path is to accommodate others

However, if you have a mindset of accommodating others, it’s actually quite easy. Just do what the other person wants. If they say they want to eat, give them food; if they say they don’t want to eat, don’t give it to them. The problem arises when someone doesn’t want something but you insist, “Take it, eat it!” or when someone asks for something and you say, “You shouldn’t eat that,” and refuse to give it. Look at this cup. It just sits there quietly. It doesn’t protest when I pick it up to drink from it. It doesn’t complain even though I haven’t looked at it for the entire hour while giving this Dharma talk. (Laughter)



Our minds become complicated because we always want things to go our way. Try putting aside your own thoughts and follow the flow of causes and conditions. If you offer something to your husband and he says he doesn’t want it, simply respond, “Alright.” If he complains, “Why aren’t you giving it to me?” just say, “Here it is. I’m sorry.” Try experiencing what it’s like to follow the natural flow of causes and conditions. If the first stage of being a bodhisattva is developing compassion that feels others’ pain as your own, then following the natural flow of causes and conditions is the final stage of being a bodhisattva. All the numerous teachings in the scriptures ultimately lead to this point. So please try to cultivate a mind that follows the natural flow of causes and conditions.

Today, the lecture ended early, so Sunim asked if anyone had questions about what had been taught so far. Two people raised their hands to ask questions.



 You mentioned that both the disease of thinking you know and the disease of thinking you don’t know can be obstacles to practice. How can we cure these diseases?

 In what cases can mental phenomena influence life phenomena and material phenomena?

After answering these questions, Sunim provided a concluding statement.



“For any result to occur, there must be a cause. We hope for luck precisely because we fail to consider these causes. What’s the difference between inevitability and coincidence? When we understand the cause of an event, it’s inevitable; when we don’t, it seems coincidental. There’s no fundamental separation between coincidence and inevitability. These distinctions arise because we cannot fully understand the world. We shouldn’t think we can do anything and everything. There are things we can choose, and things where we are the ones being chosen. Sometimes we must accept the given conditions. For example, when it rains, I cannot choose whether it rains or not—this is like adapting to nature, accepting the given conditions. However, within a narrow range, I can choose whether to use an umbrella or not.

Similarly, our lives are somewhat predetermined when viewed from a broader perspective. So it’s not entirely wrong to say that fate is predetermined. For instance, if someone says, ‘Your lifespan won’t exceed 150 years,’ that’s correct. Or if they say, ‘You’ll occasionally get sick, then get better, then get sick again’—that’s also correct. These broad patterns are predetermined. However, when we look at the details, our free will comes into play. It’s a mistake to think that everything is determined by free will or that everything is predetermined by fate. Some things are simply impossible. If I take a basket to catch the moon, will the moon come down according to my will? What we can do exists within certain boundaries. Not everything goes according to our wishes. The claim that we can change the world exactly as we want is something a demon king would say. The Buddha taught that ‘regardless of what happens, one is not constrained by it.’ That is the meaning of ‘being free and at ease.’

We always read texts through the filter of our own thoughts, so when we see passages like this, we think, ‘The Buddha can do whatever he wants.’ But this passage means that regardless of what happens, one is not constrained by it.”

With this, Sunim concluded the series of three lectures on the theme of “Song of Dharma Nature.”

After the Dharma talk ended, the audience gathered in groups to share their thoughts, while Sunim left the Dharma hall and headed to the Jungto Center.

Tomorrow will be the 19th day of the 100-Day Dharma Talk series and also Renunciation Day, commemorating the Buddha’s renunciation. In the morning, there will be a special Dharma service to commemorate Renunciation Day, and in the evening, Sunim will conduct the Friday Dharma Q&A session.