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How Can I Find Courage When I’m Caught in Comparison and Self-Blame?

October 5, 2025
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October 2, 2025 – North American East Coast Lecture Tour (6) Chicago

Hello. Today, a Dharma Q&A is being held in Chicago, the largest and most famous city in the American Midwest.

Sunim began his day at 5 AM with practice and meditation at the US Jungto Society. After breakfast, he headed to Baltimore-Washington International Airport at 8:50 AM. Although there were concerns about airport congestion due to the U.S. federal government shutdown, fortunately, it was not crowded, and check-in was completed quickly. The flight departed Washington airport at 9:47 AM and Sunim arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport two hours later at 10:50 AM local time.

At the airport, Mr. Lee Dong-woo, who was overseeing today’s lecture, and Mr. Lim Gwang-seong, who volunteered as the driver, warmly welcomed Sunim.

Chicago is typically known to have a climate similar to Toronto, Canada, but today it was hotter than Washington D.C. Even locals said this week’s heat was unusual and wondered if it might be due to climate change.

After moving to accommodations near the airport and having lunch, Sunim checked the internet connection for tomorrow’s early morning Friday Dharma Q&A online live broadcast. With time remaining before the evening lecture, he decided to tour downtown Chicago and visit Seon Ryeon Sa, a Korean temple, in the afternoon.

At 2 PM, Sunim left the accommodations and headed downtown, but due to a traffic accident, it took about an hour to reach downtown. The weather was so beautiful that Lake Michigan and the city skyline unfolded before them like a painting. Sunim got out of the car briefly to take a walk and appreciate the beautiful scenery.

He then headed to Seon Ryeon Sa. Seon Ryeon Sa was established in 1992 by Venerable Samwoo for propagating Buddhism to foreigners, and it has now been well-maintained through redevelopment. Venerable Samwoo actively spread Seon Buddhism by opening Seon Ryeon Sa temples in Toronto, Michigan, Chicago, and Mexico, and passed away at Seon Ryeon Sa Toronto in 2022. He attempted meditation-centered services so that English-speaking followers could easily accept Korean Buddhist traditional practices. Currently, Chicago Seon Ryeon Sa continues various activities including weekly Sunday services, sitting meditation, children’s programs, sutra study, and calligraphy.

When the doorbell was rung, a monk came out from inside. Seeing Venerable Pomnyun Sunim, his eyes widened in surprise, and he bowed respectfully, introducing himself as Venerable Dana. Dana means generosity in Pali.

“I attended your lecture with English interpretation at UCLA in 2014. Thank you so much for visiting us in person.”

Sunim recalled his connection with Venerable Samwoo and said:

“I first met Venerable Samwoo in Gyeongju more than 40 years ago, and we have maintained exchanges since then. When I came to Chicago, I used to stay here at Seon Ryeon Sa. Venerable Samwoo also visited me when he came to Korea.”

Venerable Dana nodded and listened attentively. The Buddha statue enshrined at Seon Ryeon Sa was brought by Venerable Pomnyun Sunim from Daegak Temple in Korea. Venerable Dana was delighted, saying he had heard the story from Venerable Samwoo.

The temple, converted from a church, was modest yet neat, with cushions neatly arranged in preparation for the evening meditation class.

After asking about the current operations of Seon Ryeon Sa, Sunim expressed his gratitude to Venerable Dana for the kind explanation.

“Next time I come to Chicago, I’ll stay for a day. I used to stay on the third floor before.”

Venerable Dana was very pleased. Sunim handed over a donation and added:

“When you visit Korea next time, please be sure to stop by the Jungto Social and Cultural Center.”

After saying goodbye, they left Seon Ryeon Sa and headed to the lecture venue.

They arrived at the lecture venue at 5:25 PM. Sunim toured the venue and encouraged the volunteers who had prepared for the lecture. He returned to the accommodations for dinner and then headed back to the lecture venue.

Today’s lecture is being held at the Korean Cultural Center of Chicago (BISCO Hall). The building, newly constructed two years ago, was very clean.

With about 260 people seated, the lecture began at exactly 7 PM with an introductory video about Sunim. When the video ended and Sunim took the stage, everyone welcomed him with loud applause and cheers.

First, Sunim briefly introduced the lecture format of Dharma Q&A.

“Dharma Q&A is not a format where the speaker selects topics or leads the conversation, but rather where the audience chooses the topics. Anyone among you can bring up what you want to talk about, and we’ll have a conversation on that topic. If you bring up life issues like marital or family relationships, it becomes life counseling. If you bring up social realities or political and security issues happening in our society today, it can become a sociology class. We can talk about natural sciences or religion as much as you want. It’s not my choice but yours, and the conversation takes place based on your interests. There are no restrictions on topics.

Also, since today’s meeting is a free dialogue for the public good rather than paid consultation, it may be made public if necessary. Therefore, if you want to ask a question, you need to sign a consent form. However, to prevent invasion of personal privacy, faces may be covered or voices may be altered depending on the content. We mainly release only parts that would be helpful for the public good in a limited way. Now, let’s begin our conversation.”

After conversing with those who had pre-registered questions, there was time for anyone to freely raise their hand and ask questions on site. Over two hours, nine people were able to have conversations with Sunim. The first person to raise their hand and ask a question was a student about to graduate from a doctoral program. He asked Sunim for advice on how to gain courage and how to overcome setbacks when experiencing them.

How Can I Find Courage When I’m Caught in Comparison and Self-Blame?

“I’m currently about to graduate from my doctoral program. I want to know how to find direction and gain courage in living my life going forward. The reason I’m asking this question is because I had a really difficult time this summer with vague worries about the future and fear of failure. I enjoyed researching and spent each day diligently to the point where I don’t want to go back. But this summer, while thinking about the next step and looking at what achievements other doctoral students my age had made, my research seemed so pathetic, and I, who thought I had been doing well, seemed so small. I felt so pathetic that this was all I could do, and it seemed like I had wasted time. Now I don’t know what to do anymore, and even if I change my career path, I began to doubt whether I could do well. So to calm my mind, I went to Korea and did a 5-night, 6-day cross-country bicycle tour. It seemed to get a little better, but when that wasn’t enough, I started taking anti-anxiety medication. How should I live my life? First, how can I have courage? Second, how can I control my mind when I have these feelings of self-blame and comparison? Third, I would like to hear wise advice from you who can see life from a big picture perspective.”

“I understand how you feel, but as we go through life, we encounter various situations, and various things don’t go as we want and we fail. There can be separations in relationships with people, we can die, businesses can fail, and many things don’t go according to our wishes. If you ask many people here, very few would say things went according to their plans. Most of us are living in circumstances where things don’t go as we want. This is what life is like, so if you say living is difficult, first, it could be seen that you’ve developed a slight mental illness. So it’s necessary to go to a hospital and see a doctor once. After an examination, if there’s a problem, you can receive treatment, and if you have some anxiety or trauma, counseling therapy would be necessary.

Second, if it’s not severe enough to require hospital treatment but you feel it’s very difficult, the cause is mostly due to greed. So if you let go of that greed, life can become more comfortable. Look at nature. When a squirrel lives in the mountains, climbing this tree to pick acorns and that tree to pick fruit, no matter how high a tree it climbs, would the squirrel feel ‘It’s too hard to live’? When a cow grazes, would it feel ‘It’s too hard to keep eating this stuff with no nutrition’? If there’s a lot of grass, it grazes accordingly; if there’s little grass, it grazes accordingly. If there’s a lot of grass, it grazes for a short time; if there’s little grass, it grazes for a long time. So if you feel it’s difficult, it’s mostly likely that a mental problem has developed.

The reason you’re having a hard time now is either because a mentally weak link has developed, or because you’re being excessively greedy. So first, it’s necessary to go to a hospital and get examined once, and second, you need to examine whether you’re being greedy.

You asked for advice on how to live life courageously, but living life doesn’t require any courage at all. Squirrels don’t need courage to live, and cows don’t need courage to live either. Children don’t need courage when they play or go to school. What courage do you need to live life? You wake up in the morning, eat, go to work if you have work, go to school if you have school, study if you have something to study, and sleep when you’re tired after coming home. Why do you need courage? You asked for advice on living life courageously, but living life doesn’t require any courage at all. Life is lived naturally on is own.

Of course, there may be situations where courage is needed. For example, during war when you’re afraid of death and want to run away, but if you flee, you’ll be shot by your own army, and if you advance, you’ll be shot by the enemy – when you can’t do this or that. When you decide “Since I’m going to die anyway, let me just advance and die,” that’s when we use the word courage. We use the word courage in the sense of “Just push through!” when you’re hesitating due to some fear, but in everyday life, the word courage isn’t necessary.

What courage do you need to study? If you don’t want to study, just don’t do it. Are you feeling small because others have received degrees but you haven’t? If you work hard on research and submit a paper but the professor says it’s insufficient, you can supplement it. If he says it’s still insufficient, you can research for another year.”

“I think I had too much greed. So I tried hard to let go of that greed. Taking anti-anxiety medication together also helped me feel better. As Sunim mentioned, I practiced letting go one by one when I couldn’t let go of everything at once. But I have a vague fear about moving to the next step, and I’d like to hear Sunim’s advice on how to live my life going forward.”

“You should live your life however you want. There’s no predetermined path for how to live life. If you believe in Christianity, someone might set a path saying you should live believing in God. If you believe in Buddhism, someone might set a path saying you should live while practicing. If you believe in Confucianism, someone might set a path saying you should live with filial piety. There are paths that people set from time to time. But in reality, you set everything yourself. Even accepting paths set by others is a case of living by your own decision. Parents or teachers say ‘Live this way,’ and you accept it and live that way, but there’s originally no predetermined path for how to live.

If a deer from the mountain came and asked, ‘How should I live to live like a deer?’ what would you answer? You’d say, ‘Live however you want.’ If a rabbit came and asked, ‘How should I live?’ you’d answer, ‘Live according to how you look.’ It’s such a natural thing to say. Similarly, when you ask ‘How should I live?’ the answer is ‘Live however you want.’ Living life requires neither courage nor a predetermined path. You might ask, ‘Aren’t you living while spreading the dharma?’ But I’m not living this way because I have to – sometimes I live this way because I like it, and sometimes because my teacher earnestly requested it and I accepted. There’s no predetermined path for how to live. Sometimes you live this way, sometimes that way.

There’s no such thing as a more admirable way of living. People evaluate it that way. Even looking at the same behavior, people’s evaluations are all different. If someone donates $100,000 to a temple, people who attend that temple evaluate them as a very admirable person. But if a family member hears about it, he says ‘He’s crazy!’ It’s the same action but evaluations differ. Muslims say they’re fighting a holy war to protect their faith, but others call them terrorists. If a married man loves me desperately, I think ‘He loves me this much even though he has a wife.’ But others evaluate it as adultery and say he’s crazy. So what path is really right? You just need to live however you want to live.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“What’s right here may be wrong there, and what’s right there may be wrong here. If one of your siblings goes to a temple, the temple says ‘Well done,’ but siblings who go to church criticize tremendously. So you can’t determine what’s right. If you want to live this way, make this choice; if you want to live that way, make that choice and live.

First, from what I see, you might have some mental issues, so the most important thing right now is to go to a hospital and get examined. Second, because you’re being greedy now, you seem to be in great fear that your goals might not be achieved. ‘What if I can’t get my PhD?’ ‘What if I can’t get a job even with a PhD?’ Because you keep thinking like this, you need courage and advice on how to live. But if you let go of greed, you have no problems right now. Coming to study in the US is a privilege that only a few can enjoy in Korea. And you’re even studying in a PhD program. So even if you don’t get your PhD, it’s a successful life. If you run for president and lose, is that a failed life? Or does it count as political success? How many people in Korea can become presidential candidates and run in elections? You need political success to become a candidate. Yet thinking you’ve failed because you lost is wrong thinking.

Your worries all stem from greed. Once you start being greedy, there’s no end. If you’re not number one, everything becomes failure. Today’s neoliberalism is the same. People keep brainwashing you saying ‘If you’re not first-class, you won’t survive.’ People say anything that’s not number one is unnecessary, but how can all these people be number one? Many people suffer due to this brainwashing of wrong values.

You’re taller than me, good-looking, much younger, and on top of that in a PhD program – all good conditions. You have everything except getting the PhD. Not getting a PhD doesn’t mean failure, and not getting a job after getting a PhD doesn’t mean failure either.”

“Thank you. I understand well.”

Questions continued one after another.

I married a Japanese man and lived in Japan, but I felt like I was dying so I came to America. I don’t want to just endure anymore, and I want to go live in Korea. What should I do?

After living in Seoul and coming to study abroad, I’ve lived in America. Now neither America nor Korea feels like home, and I don’t know where to place my heart.

In my life, when things are good they’re really good, but when they’re bad they’re really bad. How can I live while controlling my mind?

When building water systems and schools in poor countries, using cheap pollutants is also an environmental problem. How should we view improving conditions for low-income groups from an environmental perspective?

My mother has been struggling a lot since my father passed away fighting cancer a few years ago, and she’s thinking of returning to Korea. How can I comfort my mother?

I half understand and half don’t understand what Sunim said about not needing courage. If a child is struggling after bankruptcy, shouldn’t we encourage them with courage?

As the dialogue was coming to an end, a woman who said she was practicing running raised her hand and asked a question. She was preparing for a marathon and asked Sunim for a big life question she could hold onto during the long hours of running.

What Is the One Life Question to Hold Onto While Running 42km?

“I’ve been seriously running lately. At first, I used to empty my thoughts while running, but now I’m so immersed in running itself that I ask myself heavy questions to endure the long time. Last week I participated in a 21km half marathon, and next week I’m participating in a 42km full marathon. When I have to run for over 4 hours, I would be grateful if you could give me just one big life question worth seriously contemplating to endure that time.”

“There’s no reason to endure such things. If you want to run, run. If you don’t want to run, stop.”

“I want to run.”

“Then just keep running. If you want to run, just run. Things like ‘making a resolution’ or ‘making a determination’ don’t mean much. If you want to run and have decided to go to the end, just run. Run even if your legs hurt, run even if you’re out of breath, just run.”

“Then do you have any big concerns these days, Sunim?”

“Me? I have many concerns.”

“Please tell me just one.”

“My biggest concern is how to reduce the risk of war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula. The best way is for President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un to have a dialogue first. First, dialogue should begin between North Korea and the US, then dialogue should occur between North Korea and Japan. Then North Korea and the US, North Korea and Japan should move toward normalizing relations, that is, establishing diplomatic ties. Whether South and North Korea are two countries or one, if they establish peaceful relations, we can reduce the risk of war. If the South and North are in hostile relations, the place with the highest risk of conflict in East Asia right now is the Taiwan Strait. If conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, depending on the advantages and disadvantages of this front line, the probability of war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula is very high.


I’m currently supporting Syria’s post-war reconstruction and helping Myanmar refugees. Many Myanmar people have crossed into Bangladesh and Thailand to become refugees, and seeing them scattered throughout Myanmar suffering from earthquakes and civil war damage is truly heartbreaking. If the leaders knew even a little about the people’s suffering, they wouldn’t have gone to war. But the people’s suffering isn’t even on their minds. If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the damage our people will suffer will be enormous. Preventing this is my biggest task right now. Currently, the first thread is dialogue between North Korea and the US. President Trump has various controversies, but on the Korean Peninsula peace issue, there’s a possibility of making a breakthrough. Former Presidents Obama and Clinton couldn’t solve this problem. A hardline leader can actually connect more easily with an opponent of similar tendencies. (Laughter) In that sense, I’m always thinking about how to solve the Korean Peninsula peace issue. Over the past three days, I’ve been visiting the State Department, Congress, and think tanks to continue exchanging opinions.


I have many other concerns too. How to solve the Gaza Strip problem, how to make a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia possible, how to resolve the situation where far-right parties promoting anti-immigration policies are taking first place in Europe – I’m thinking about many such concerns. The world will fall into tremendous conflict and chaos in the future. Even if my efforts can’t prevent everything, I’m always thinking about how humanity can suffer less sacrifice. After hearing my concerns, your concerns aren’t even concerns, are they?”

“I’ll just run hard.” (Laughter)

“If you want to complete the 42km full course, try betting $10 per kilometer. Think ‘For every kilometer I run, one Myanmar refugee survives,’ ‘For every kilometer I run, one less child dies in Gaza.’ Then you’ll run even when you’re completely out of breath. Instead of gritting your teeth and straining for no reason, you need to give positive meaning to the given situation. Try running while thinking positively, ‘My running like this is a way to save the earth.’ Why strain yourself running? If you use excessive energy straining to run, the climate will actually get worse.”

“Thank you. I understand well.”

The lecture ended with loud applause. As soon as the book signing began, a long line formed. Those who couldn’t buy books because all the prepared books were sold out were very disappointed.

After the book signing ended, Sunim took a commemorative photo with the volunteers who prepared the lecture.

“Chicago, fighting!”

Sunim presented his books as gifts with gratitude to Lee Dong-woo who was in charge of the overall lecture, and Lee Yu-jeong and Bae Tae-wook who were deputy directors, and took separate commemorative photos.

After expressing gratitude to the volunteers, Sunim moved to his accommodation first. Dharma Teacher Myodeok and Dharma Teacher Beophae had a mindful sharing session with the volunteers. Among the volunteers, there were those who came from Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, and the farthest came from 5 hours away to volunteer.

Sunim arrived at his accommodation after 10 PM, discussed tomorrow’s schedule, and finished the day’s activities.

Tomorrow, he will depart from Chicago, fly to Houston, and continue the Dharma Q&A lecture for Korean residents.

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