Speaker 1: 0:15

Welcome back to the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Myunggan Sunim here with Crickets. I'm here with crickets. I'm here with no one. In fact, dr Lambert unfortunately had a last-minute hiccup and he could not make it today to this only day in our ever busy and packed schedules for recording the podcast. Not to alarm his fan base, he's all right, all is well, just life, life, and it's unpredictable. Joyous happenings, sometimes less joyous, but happenings nonetheless. And so here we are, you and I. A unique, perhaps, chance to get all of our listeners more sick of my voice than they perhaps already are. Well, we are going to do nonetheless. The show must go on, as they say, and we are going to do another Fenmail podcast episode. I won't venture a memory flex which recalls which particular number of Fenmail, as it was brought up by one of our listeners in a few episodes back they said fantastic episode, except that Myung Han Sinim couldn't remember that it was a third, not a second, episode of fan mail. It's all right. This is, bear with me episode number nine, I believe, in total. And so the feedback that we did receive and have been receiving really is heartwarming, heartwarming.

Speaker 1: 2:48

This podcast was a sort of a project that was intended initially to be just an exercise, and slowly it evolved into being an exercise that it shared with the entire world. Frankly, because that's where we're at, the internet does that for us. So, knowing that as a listener, bear in mind, we are as fresh into this as you are. So we are growing up together Us, the hosts, the speakers, and you, the listeners. We are growing up together, we are evolving together. Many of the episodes have been, in fact, of topics suggested by the listeners. We already have the topic for the next episode worry. What is the Buddhist take on, worry, and can you speak on that? So that will be the next episode, unless this one fails to satisfy, and so perhaps Dr Lambert and I will reshoot this particular one.

Speaker 1: 4:10

Regarding forgiveness, this is the subject matter for the day, this is what's on the table Forgiveness. I think the first thing to consider is the place, emotionally and psychologically, that we come from when we engage in forgiveness. Forgiveness, engage in forgiveness, forgiveness for one mustn't be and must be understood that it is not some benevolent bestowal of one higher form of existence unto another lower form of existence. It's not meant to be and it mustn't be some grace, I think, that one bestows upon another. When forgiveness is born out of that place of, I am in a position of choice, out of which I choose to forgive you or not. Behind that in the mind still exists not only a separation and division, but also some superiority that affords one to be forgiving of another. It's a sort of a master-slave almost relationship. I choose to forgive you, ergo I am so fantastic. I choose to forgive you, ergo you know, we can say that's the higher path, take the higher road, and things of that nature, and what that suggests is that the other person is somehow still beneath us. The one that is forgiving is still a sort of ego flex, and the one that is being forgiven is somehow beneath, at the mercy of the grace of the one who is doing the forgiving. Forgiving, I think that is really an unhealthy place from which to approach this, because it renders it very superficial. It's almost an act, if you will, Because forgiveness, and for it to be genuine and pure and true, must also be a change of heart, a change of perspective.

Speaker 1: 7:20

It must be deeply visceral experience on the part of the one who is doing the forgiving. And I speak to that because we really haven't much power, if you want to call it that, in terms of how that's received. So all we could do is we could change our heart as the one who's doing the forgiving, and whether the one that is being forgiven accepts it or not, or accepts it and understands it or not, where the pacification which is frequently what that seems to be is accomplished or not, that we haven't much control over. We don't have the control over the other. So we do a lot of inner work, we do a lot of the things that we do for oneself, by oneself, within oneself, and sort of cross our fingers and hope that the other side is doing that same work. So that's the first orientation from the place from which we are doing the forgiving Must be a place of purity, must be a place for this forgiveness to be genuine. It must be a transformation at the heart of the heart, a transformation of the perspective in which we view either the person themselves which is a whole other topic, right when we can collapse onto a single action that a person has done and this could be perhaps infuriating to some people, because some people have done the one singular, horrid act in their lives, and the truth of the matter is that people are then serving the repercussions of that, but it isn't the entirety of the person, it isn't the entirety of the human being. So we must have a transformation of heart in terms of how we view a person, that person in particular or those people in particular, and open our mind broadly enough to consider all of the other elements that make up an individual. We also then need a transformative element within one's own heart to understand what makes up existence, what makes up the interaction between one person and another.

Speaker 1: 10:17

We skip over so many elements that are at play. We skip over the elements that are at play. We think I am here, you are there, I did a thing or you did a thing, and now I can or will or will not forgive you for the thing, etc. But we forget the more subtle and yet ever so more powerful of an element, which is this connection we call Yin-Yang. Nothing in this world is of itself Nothing. Everything is a compounded thing. Everything is a coming together of such grand multitude of elements that to isolate one single element and to lay blame upon it means to not see life for what life is.

Speaker 1: 11:16

It's to dismiss the complexity that makes things what they are. Things are simultaneously nauseatingly simple and dizzyingly complex. We could say this is the relative and the ultimate perspective. We could say this is the relative and the ultimate perspective Because, in the turbulence and the cacophony that is life and the roar and the happenings and the constant overwhelming buzz and fuzz and fizz of existence, actually the principles governing it are rather simple and in fact it's this element of things being so simple that we cannot and we struggle to grasp the fundamental building blocks of existence, of who we are, etc. Etc. Etc. We complicate things. We complicate things to a unbelievable degree. We complicate things to an unbelievable degree. And so, amidst of this complication, we build for ourselves headaches.

Speaker 1: 12:59

But I digress or meander, forgiveness, forgive me for my digressions, will ya? Which actually conjures up that, and I hope I don't butcher it, but that famous phrase uttered by a bodhisattva while nailed to a cross and having a spear driven into his side Father, forgive them for they not know what they are doing. That's it. In that single sentence, there are two major elements the forgive and for the not know. And this also frequently becomes a rather contentious. Principle, because we expect people to know. Principle because we expect people to know.

Speaker 1: 14:13

Animal lovers sometimes tend to favor animals over people on the account that we expect the human being to act in a way other than they are acting. We expect them to be understanding, we're expecting them to be compassionate, we expect them to be X, y and Z, and frequently that is that I expect them to be, and the truth of the matter frequently is I expect them to be what I am and see how I see and believe, how I believe, what I believe, etc. Etc. It's oppressive. We must open our hearts to allow for a person to be who the person is, and this is not by any means a pardoning of transgressions of one man against another. It's not, it's not by any means an excuse and it is not by any means to say well, that's how they are. What are we going to do? That is so far from compassion that it's nearly cruelty of a different kind. But to help along, to help another one along on the journey of life on which we are all on, to help them see and understand Not see as I see, understand as I understand but perhaps just propose a view that one has never considered.

Speaker 1: 15:59

And yes, sometimes it may seem that a person is simply refusing to budge from their standpoint. And this is where, again, our individual convictions come to play and they say look at them. They're just blatantly refusing to see the way, see the light, and it's this. You know, I could stand and say that of another person that I'm seeing. Maybe I'm watching them from behind, maybe they're doing action and I'm behind them and I see what they are doing and I say things like Look at them. Look at them their ignorance, look at them Stupidity and malice, and this and that. And frequently, the reality of the fact is that there's someone behind me looking at me doing the same exact thing then, and behind them another one, and behind them another one, and behind them another one.

Speaker 1: 17:13

We are all human, we have our knowledge, we have our wisdom, and we all have our ignorances, and we are all under construction, as am I, as undoubtedly is every one of us. We are working, all of us. The job work is a simple expression of the work that life is. We just sometimes get lost in it and forget why. Why we are working, and the working in of itself replaces that for which we are working for. And I digress again. Forgive me for my digressions. I do have, in fact, ready a oh, what would you call it? I don't know if a poem is the right would you call it. I don't know if a poem is the right thing to call it, sure, let's have it a poem or a thing that I had written a number of years ago at the end of an ango.

Speaker 1: 18:45

An ango is a meditation season, if you will. 100 days, 90 days usually the proper anol is, so one can do the Angol that is traditionally within the Buddhist tradition. So in Korean Zen it's twice a year, the monsoon season and the winter season, but one could do an Angol when one needs to as well. This tradition of Angol goes back to the times of the Buddha, where all the monks were cloistered together and practiced together and stayed together gave them an opportunity to hear the teachings of the Buddha, gave them an opportunity also to not travel as they did and therefore, given the weather conditions, to stay out of danger and other reasons. So Perhaps, as an end To a shorter episode, no promises made. This, apparently, is the Summer on-go angle of 2022. And at the end of the retreat season. This is sort of what coalesced and so I will share it with you here, on account that it's of the topic.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Forgive the insulted, insult, the shamed, shame, the pitied pity, even if they have to find someone more pitiful. If not someone, then something. And if no one or no thing pitiful enough beneath them, enough is found, they will invent it. The angered rage Frequently, when they can't rage on their abuser, they find someone weaker to rage onto the miserable, seek out those in greater misery. So too it is for the whole gamut of human emotion we share. We share, it is innate in us. We share our hatred and love, our joy and misery, suffering and happiness. We share the good and the bad. The good we share to invite more of it. The bad we share to free ourselves of it. We share to free ourselves of it. We see the good as born of us, birthed from us, gifted into the world by us, but the bad, the bad, we see as imparted unto us, spewed unto us, forced upon us. Wake up, wake up. One is a dream and the other a nightmare. It is all from us. Beware, however, the danger Having found no one or thing blameworthy, find oneself not blamed and punished by simply accountable.

Speaker 1: 23:10

Having forgiven others, forgive yourself and so wipe clean your heart. Forgive. Don't simply listen to the word forgive, look at it. Forgive with your eyes. Forgive with your eyes. Forgive with your skin. Forgive with every one of your senses. Forgive with your heart and soul. Forgive with every twist and turn of your brain and every twist and turn of your intestines.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Forgive your son and your daughter. Forgive your inner child and its trauma. Forgive your siblings. Forgive your mother and your father. Forgive your neighbor, your city, your country. Forgive the world. Forgive with every molecule of your being. Forgive, for therein lies freedom and peace. Forgive the fly it's buzzing. Forgive the lion it's roaring. Forgive the flower it's fragrance. Forgive the winter it's roaring. Forgive the flower it's fragrance. Forgive the winter it's cold. Stop it here and now. Defang the gears of karmic wheels so that they bite no more and therefore turn no more. Cycles broken. Cease to look for who to blame. Then the blameless self appears before you, shining bright and still. And where there is blameless self, there is a blameless other, and a single thought of forgiveness purifies the entire universe and every being within it. So forgive Until next episode. Take care of yourselves and each other and forgive, thank you.