Breathe in
the air that nourishes all
Breathe in
the love from all the trees and grasses
Breathe in
the love from the earth and the sky
Breathe in
the life which infuses everything.
Look around you, everything around you, hear, breathe, feel. The world around you, comforting you. Take in their strangth, they nourish your every pore. Imbibe the life. Release your ills.
The world at peace.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
10,000 Dharmas return to one, where does one return to?
Dharma Talks
Hidden Treasure of Korean Buddhism
Dharma Talk by Mu Ryang Sunim at Ja Kwang Sa, Korea, May 16, 2004
----from http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/hwadu/content_view.asp?cat_seq=3&content_seq=123&page=1
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
Mountain is water. Water is mountain.
In the Heart Sutra we just recited it says, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” This is the fundamental Buddha’s teaching of impermanence, which means everything is changing, changing, changing.
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
No mountain. No water.
This means “no form, no emptiness.” If we are thinking, and attached to the changing world of form, then we get suffering. But if we cut off all thinking, then there is no form and no emptiness, also no suffering; also no I and no you. Descartes, the famous French philosopher, said, “I think, therefore, I am.” But if I am not thinking, then what?
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
Mountain is mountain. Water is water.
This means “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” Everything is just as it is. So, we have three statements: Mountain is water, water is mountain. No mountain, no water. Mountain is mountain, water is water. Of these three statements, which one is correct? Which one is the truth?
KATZ! (Shout)
Mountain is high. Water is flowing.
Today I would like to thank all of you for coming here. Especially I would like to thank Chong Ah Sunim for having these talks every month. It must be very difficult to schedule monks, nuns, and teachers from all around the world. I appreciate his effort very much.
Most especially, though, I would like to thank my teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn; today I am borrowing his dharma and sharing it with all of you. Seung Sahn Sunim has spent the last 40 years bringing this hidden treasure of Korean Buddhism to people all over the world. So I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Today I would like to speak a little bit about his lineage in Korea. So I will tell a few stories of Zen Master Man Gong, and his teacher, Zen Master Kyung Ho, who lived over one hundred years ago. Behind this temple here, in Gye Ryong Mountain, there are many famous temples. One of them is called Dong Hak Sa, where a lot of Buddhist nuns live and study the sutras. It has always actually been a sutra temple.
It is interesting to look at the shape of mountains.
I was a geology major in college, so I have some interest in topography, which is closely related to the Korea tradition of wind-water geography (feng shui).
Dong Hak Sa’s location is unique because there is one mountain which the temple is facing directly. It looks high and conical, like the point of a calligraphy brush, sticking up. It is actually called, ‘Mun Pil Bong’ or ‘Calligraphy Brush Mountain.’ Tradition has it that because it is there right in front of the temple, people who go that temple naturally just want to pick up a book and starting reading words. So that temple always has been a sutra study temple: not much Zen meditation practice but more sutra study.
Kyung Ho Sunim practiced there. First he was a student and then he became a sutra teacher there at a very young age. He was famous for being very unorthodox as well as quite smart, and he learned the sutras quickly. Normally in a sutra school, there is a very organized, correct and proper way of studying sutras. First, monks put on their ceremonial robes and kasas, and then sit properly and correctly. I see that you all do things very well here, that you have been taught by Chong Ah Sunim to follow the rules very carefully, so you will be very good in these sutra schools. But Kyung Ho was not like that. Instead of sitting properly and reading sutras upright, he would relax in the rest area room and would read the sutras lying down on his back. Some monks were very upset and told their Sutra Master, who then got very angry. “Kyung Ho! Why are you reading the sutra like that? That is very disrespectful! ” And Kyung Ho said, “Oh! No, teacher! I am not being disrespectful. If we read sutras like that, then our breath and our saliva can go all over the sutras but I want to care for them properly so I keep them over my head. ” So then what could the Sutra Master say? Anyways, Kyung Ho was like that. He was not your normal monk.
He got a very big question traveling through a town where everybody had died of cholera. Suddenly he realized that he had been studying the Buddha’s sutras which deal with life and death, impermanence, and questions like, ‘what are human beings?’ and ‘what is the truth?’ He had been studying these sutras for many years, and still he was afraid of dying. So he returned to his temple, Dong Hak Sa, and said to all of the monks, “I cannot teach you any more. Go away! ” ----------part 1
Hidden Treasure of Korean Buddhism
Dharma Talk by Mu Ryang Sunim at Ja Kwang Sa, Korea, May 16, 2004
----from http://www.koreanbuddhism.net/hwadu/content_view.asp?cat_seq=3&content_seq=123&page=1
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
Mountain is water. Water is mountain.
In the Heart Sutra we just recited it says, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” This is the fundamental Buddha’s teaching of impermanence, which means everything is changing, changing, changing.
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
No mountain. No water.
This means “no form, no emptiness.” If we are thinking, and attached to the changing world of form, then we get suffering. But if we cut off all thinking, then there is no form and no emptiness, also no suffering; also no I and no you. Descartes, the famous French philosopher, said, “I think, therefore, I am.” But if I am not thinking, then what?
(Holding the stick in the air and hitting the table)
Mountain is mountain. Water is water.
This means “form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” Everything is just as it is. So, we have three statements: Mountain is water, water is mountain. No mountain, no water. Mountain is mountain, water is water. Of these three statements, which one is correct? Which one is the truth?
KATZ! (Shout)
Mountain is high. Water is flowing.
Today I would like to thank all of you for coming here. Especially I would like to thank Chong Ah Sunim for having these talks every month. It must be very difficult to schedule monks, nuns, and teachers from all around the world. I appreciate his effort very much.
Most especially, though, I would like to thank my teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn; today I am borrowing his dharma and sharing it with all of you. Seung Sahn Sunim has spent the last 40 years bringing this hidden treasure of Korean Buddhism to people all over the world. So I owe him a debt of gratitude.
Today I would like to speak a little bit about his lineage in Korea. So I will tell a few stories of Zen Master Man Gong, and his teacher, Zen Master Kyung Ho, who lived over one hundred years ago. Behind this temple here, in Gye Ryong Mountain, there are many famous temples. One of them is called Dong Hak Sa, where a lot of Buddhist nuns live and study the sutras. It has always actually been a sutra temple.
It is interesting to look at the shape of mountains.
I was a geology major in college, so I have some interest in topography, which is closely related to the Korea tradition of wind-water geography (feng shui).
Dong Hak Sa’s location is unique because there is one mountain which the temple is facing directly. It looks high and conical, like the point of a calligraphy brush, sticking up. It is actually called, ‘Mun Pil Bong’ or ‘Calligraphy Brush Mountain.’ Tradition has it that because it is there right in front of the temple, people who go that temple naturally just want to pick up a book and starting reading words. So that temple always has been a sutra study temple: not much Zen meditation practice but more sutra study.
Kyung Ho Sunim practiced there. First he was a student and then he became a sutra teacher there at a very young age. He was famous for being very unorthodox as well as quite smart, and he learned the sutras quickly. Normally in a sutra school, there is a very organized, correct and proper way of studying sutras. First, monks put on their ceremonial robes and kasas, and then sit properly and correctly. I see that you all do things very well here, that you have been taught by Chong Ah Sunim to follow the rules very carefully, so you will be very good in these sutra schools. But Kyung Ho was not like that. Instead of sitting properly and reading sutras upright, he would relax in the rest area room and would read the sutras lying down on his back. Some monks were very upset and told their Sutra Master, who then got very angry. “Kyung Ho! Why are you reading the sutra like that? That is very disrespectful! ” And Kyung Ho said, “Oh! No, teacher! I am not being disrespectful. If we read sutras like that, then our breath and our saliva can go all over the sutras but I want to care for them properly so I keep them over my head. ” So then what could the Sutra Master say? Anyways, Kyung Ho was like that. He was not your normal monk.
He got a very big question traveling through a town where everybody had died of cholera. Suddenly he realized that he had been studying the Buddha’s sutras which deal with life and death, impermanence, and questions like, ‘what are human beings?’ and ‘what is the truth?’ He had been studying these sutras for many years, and still he was afraid of dying. So he returned to his temple, Dong Hak Sa, and said to all of the monks, “I cannot teach you any more. Go away! ” ----------part 1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)