Speaker 1: 0:14

Welcome back to another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Myung Han Sunim doing another solo episode simply to just tidy up before the Ogun. Many of you know that I will be away for three weeks or so and in as much as in my absence we're going to try perhaps to figure out some kind of international podcast setup where we could put something out. I can't promise anything, so there might be programs, sort of talks and recordings of classes, that perhaps we'll use as kind of placeholders for the live, if you will podcast. Or there simply might just be nothing going on for a few weeks, and if that's the case, then I invite you to catch up on whatever podcasts you haven't yet listened to. And as much as we try to make these individual podcasts as individual standalones, it really is not possible to a large extent on the account of that information is cumulative that references to points and principles made in another podcast might be called up, and it would just be impractical to every single time when we use a term or bring up a topic or a concept from the Zen philosophy or psychology or whatever, that we go into explaining it every single time. We would get nowhere. We would get nowhere. And then, as much as we do, let these podcasts sort of flow and, as we say, meander, there's meandering and there's lost in the woods, and so we don't want that. I would invite you to whatever the next few weeks are going to end up being like, namely whether there is a pre-recorded or a class or previous talk that's released as a podcast placeholder, or whether there's nothing at all. I really would love to see questions from the audience, from the audience. We have so far, in the episodes that we have done, laid out so much information. Some we've expanded a little bit on, some we just mentioned and haven't really touched on it again, and some we've been sort of, as the saying goes, beating the dead horse.

Speaker 1: 4:19

And despite that, in my interaction with our members and interaction with people and so listeners still are challenging points to grasp, and this is fine, this is understandable. I do, at times, really try to drive certain points home and it may seem like a sort of fixation or an attachment. Only if you have yet to stumble upon these things in your own practice and in your own path, if you haven't had the experience of a thing perhaps being discussed or talked about or a warning given, beware of such and such. It's very easy to say, oh, that's not a problem. Well, it's not a problem now. It could certainly be a problem when one gets to that Fork in the Road, say, or that precipitous cliff.

Speaker 1: 5:52

And so please understand that there are elements that we have experienced and not yet digested, and so the totality of the experience isn't yet absorbed into the sort of bone marrow. There are things that we have yet to experience, and those things are at times either difficult to imagine, simply because it's difficult to imagine on account of the current level of understanding, or it's difficult to imagine because, where I am, it can very easily be difficult to imagine a lush Amazonian forest while stranded in the middle of the Sahara and of course, sahara was at one point in time just like an Amazonian forest, with so many different animals and lush greenery and water and all of it. And so we must at times stretch our imagination to include the possible. At times, stretch our imagination to include the possible well, not possible, but an absolute reality of change. I may see things differently tomorrow, and so I should not dismiss the things today. Also, if I am not yet there, I shouldn't do what the there requires me to do here, because that's a misalignment, that's applying a medicine while one is well for an ailment or a disease that one may get in the future, not preventatively as curatively. And so, in a nutshell, the ability to navigate life in a way that causes us the least amount of suffering, we could say, is wisdom.

Speaker 1: 8:43

There's so much nuance, so many details when we look at this sort of academic approach to the topic. There are five, usually listed as five types of wisdom, and even in that. So, for example, is the innately existing, silent, still, all possible, all understanding, all available wisdom. But there's a stillness as its quality, and when we think of wisdom we think of coming up with ideas, and I had a good idea, and this is a problem-solving, and this and that this quality renders that. That's not shilsangbanya. Shilsangbanya is the stillness. It's the thing we are after in meditation, not actively pursuing it. But this is the source from which understanding, the profound understanding, comes out of, the knowing of all, comes out of that kind of thing, and so we have it as a root. As you know, the five roots, roots are things unseen, they're below the surface. It's only when they sprout above the ground, in a sense, that they are known. Also, if we're lucky, they're known.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And so we've been talking about, with this mini-series of the five roots, okun and Olyok, which are the five powers, and the transformation of the roots into powers. They naturally inform our lives, they naturally govern our behaviors. Unbeknownst to us largely I mean repressed traumas can govern our behavior and we wouldn't have a clue. Why do I do this? And so we look into it. But what we are really trying to do in our Suhing, in our practice, in our training, is to take the root and make it a power. And what makes power a power is that it is intentional, that it is directed, that we using, expressing the already existing root in our day-to-day life. That makes it a power in a sense.

Speaker 1: 12:18

And so in Shilsang Banya, this silent still, vast still it couldn't say ocean, because ocean is turbulent but this great words, this great storehouse, no, still already existing wisdom, let's call it, let's leave it at that. It, in its stillness, in its presence, in its inexpressed form, is not available to the conscious mind of a normal person, and by normal person I mean someone who has not done sufficient amount of suheng, of practice and training. What we would love to do is to have that Chilsangbanya expressed as wisdom and see. So when we look at this from these academic, organized ways of looking at it, things get rather complex and complicated. It's there, but it's sort of not moving and quiet and still and doesn't say anything. And yet within it, silent, voiceless self, lies the answer to everything and anything you want to know in life and universe. If we could use that that then grows into or gets transformed into a usable wisdom, a usable wisdom, oversimplified as this is that's kind of the point.

Speaker 1: 14:26

The idea Wisdom is frequently, we could say, synonymous almost with enlightenment, the knowledge of something. And this is again where the mechanism and the step-by-step progression of transformation is delineated in various sutras and in various ways. And the intellect, the curiosity, the natural curiosity would want to argue and it will argue that well, I should certainly lead this. I want wisdom, I should read and understand the step-by-step process. The step-by-step process and this is the reading of a cookbook to make a peach cobbler. Situation. In making peach cobbler there is a step by step, there are instructions, yes, but the actual making of the peach cobbler, the making of it to become real from word and print into real, tangible hunger, satiating food, food is a different story.

Speaker 1: 16:03

And so as we move through our spiritual path, we pick up a thing and then we suheng we do the thing, we do the work, we do the thing. Our curiosity will say well, but the next step and the third step, I want to get there. And so then it shifts the focus. If you were walking on a treacherous path, a forest trail with rocks and divots and what the Appalachian Trail through hikers will call Pennsylvania, known as the state where boots go to die on the account of that kind of environment you're trudging through. And so if you are navigating something that has these rocks and roots and places where you could snag your foot and twist your ankle and break your leg, and there are precipitous cliffs and divots and all that sort of thing, it only makes sense to be cautiously watching your steps, watching your steps here. Steps, now steps. The next step, not 500 steps ahead, but here the next one, not gazing at the tip of the mountain while walking, risking breaking a foot, tripping, falling, falling off a cliff on the account of being mesmerized by the possibility of arriving at the peak, while taking a very real risk in where the next foot is going to step, where the next step is going to land. Is it the right place or the not right place? Is it safe? Is it stable? Is it volatile? Is it what?

Speaker 1: 18:09

And so Kwanjo Banya, the wisdom of, so we have the, the five divisions of wisdoms. Kwanjo Banya is the wisdom of seeing clearly the thing, as is, with this very penetrating Kwan means, like Kwan Seun Bosa, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, kwan, the one who sees the sound of the world or the cries of the world, as it's frequently explained. Kwanjopanya is the kind of wisdom that doesn't get stuck on level one of the thing. What does that mean? If you look at noodles, you see noodles, not only noodles, but knows that the noodles are the currently available, currently existing manifestation of. If they're regular sort of noodles, then egg and flour and water and salt and such and such and such and such.

Speaker 1: 19:59

We have a tendency to arrive at some understanding of a thing and never to move past it, never to inspect it further. And there's wisdom in using that kind of wisdom. Of course. You see, this is the commingling, this is the perfumation, this is the infusing. Neatly organized lists Kwanjo Banya, munja Banya, shilsang Banya, etc. Etc. Are so neatly organized for us and thankfully the Buddha did do that so that we could look, ah, and understand something and have some idea.

Speaker 1: 20:54

But the actual reality of it, how they play out, must be inspected further, not just sheer, looking on the surface, to look with, to empower or to use our Kwanjo Banya, this wisdom that looks deeply, the wisdom that understands beyond the sheer surface of the thing, that alone has so many fantastic implications in our lives. But not by knowing the definition of it, not by knowing the term. Those are one and two steps, but by further, not only inspection, but how does one inspect? It's not to do further research into it in the academic term or the use of the word research, search and then research. Where is the place of research? Our life, not somebody else's experience, yours.

Speaker 1: 22:18

And so this idea of when we learn a thing, to try and dive deeply into it, what Nsayam calls dig, to dig If we take, let's say, just this one of number of types of wisdoms, to see in its current state, and to know that there is a before state and that there will be an after state, and to know that the current state is created and made by causes and conditions, numerous causes and conditions Within that kind of looking at a situation, looking at life, looking at a thing. If we really have it, if we really are able to consider those things, think about how much suffering is relieved. Why do we suffer when my favorite thing breaks? I suffer. The favorite thing is a thing in a way that a photograph is. It's a snapshot of a single moment in a long life of the thing, in the long, continuous changing life of the thing. That, this changing life of the thing, that, to understand that we then don't suffer so much in our day-to-day lives because we understand. Ah, of course, of course there will be a time when every favorite thing that I own will. I want to say break, I want to say die, I want to say malfunction, but those are wrong terms to use, aren't they? Every favorite thing that I have will what Change? It wasn't what is a very short while ago and it isn't going to be what is any second. In fact, on a more subtle level, that is currently the truth. The thing, whatever the thing is, even if it's one nanosecond later. Currently the truth, the thing, whatever the thing is, even if it's one nanosecond later, is already different. Passing of time, materials, whatever, aging changing, if we really can turn Kwanjo-Banya, this wisdom, into an active part of our lives? What power do we have to unbind ourselves from the myriad unnecessary sufferings when to use which one of the wisdoms?

Speaker 1: 26:24

Munjabanya is the wisdom of, essentially, letters and words. So, book knowledge, how to use that also, even that I seem to have developed, not that I wanted to per se develop, but to develop. I seem to have developed a perspective that people have that I'm anti-books, which I am not again here. They are books and words. Knowing how to use said books and words is a wisdom To be trapped by them. Is that wisdom trapped by them? Is that wisdom To fixate on a thing written out and dismiss life living out? It's not wisdom To use the information correctly, to know when the information is taking me in a place of doubt or confusion, to know when the information is useful or not useful, to know when the information is causing more headaches than I want it to, and then to consider, as I have warned a number of times, that perhaps now the thing seems banal, but perhaps there's a time in our spiritual travels where the things will come back to haunt us and when they do, we, as they're saying, they will pound my chest going. I should have known better. And so more work is done because more dust is to be cleaned of the mirror of shilsangbanya.

Speaker 1: 29:24

Ai is a tool and what is becoming more and more now popular in the arena of AI day-to-day world, of this world and its frictions and contradictions and competition and war as a fundamental essence of it, and in the other foot, in this other realm. And so I don't claim to be an authority, just my little observation that, as AI is coming out more and more in every element of life medicine, information, you name it what is now a requirement is how to prompt the AI to get what you want to get, how to use the tool, how to direct it in a way. So if it has whatever information it has, it's pathetic if we juxtapose it against the Silsangbanya, that great still wisdom. But if we were to draw some parallels right, we have the Silsangbanya that knows all, and then we want to transform it into a wisdom that is usable. And then we want to transform it into a wisdom that is usable how to draw out the information, how to prompt the shilsang banya.

Speaker 1: 31:35

Shilsang banya is not just regurgitating, because it's just too broad, too vast, unlimited and unbridled in what is available in it, and so we have to have a skillful means of how to draw out the information that we want. It is in there, it is all in there. How do I take it out? How do I draw out the information that I need, the wisdom that I need? It sort of parallels with the AI. Ai knows what it knows. The information is there. How do I get it out of there? How do I prompt it correctly so that it will give me what I need, what I want, in a fashion that I want, in a format that I want, in a way that is understandable or in a way that I intend to use it? That is a wisdom. I'm sure there's a PhD program somewhere already, and if there isn't one, there will be one, I think, relatively soon PhD in AI, prompting how to use the tool, and so the roots and powers and the transformations of these roots into powers, as you can see, is something that is.

Speaker 1: 33:27

We call this dharma. Things as they are there, already is All of it already is when it becomes adapted to the day-to-day life. We call that sort of advancement. The day-to-day life. We call that sort of advancement. But if the seeds of what the advancements in life are as they are being developed. If the seeds did not already exist, we could not grow the mature plant. In a sense, nothing is invented the seed of the invention, the seed of a matured plant, the seed of its fruit, of its flower, of its root, of its bark, of its branches, of its trunk, whatever already exists inside Silsangbanya. And so wisdom, presented as the fifth of the five roots as they are organized here Again, we could parallel that with the six perfections and the wisdom there being as the final sixth one. This is what we are after Wisdom. We need wisdom to understand what we mean by that.

Speaker 1: 35:26

What wisdom is being talked about? Is it experience of life? Is it experience of something transcendent of life? Is it experience of what we acquire through the senses? Is it experience or wisdom that we acquire through hearing someone else speak, or reading something one has written, or seeing something one has produced? Is it none of them? Is it all of them? Until next time, whenever that time will be, a broad list of topics for the future podcasts, questions, comments, perhaps more of those splendid little recordings that we were putting in before the podcast for each episode, if you've already done one or two. By all means have another. It doesn't have to be the same language in a sense that we've used, that you have used before, just a little. Something is fantastic for other listeners to say Ah, you know that podcast about that thing really, you know, opened my eyes, shook my cage or really rattled me or confused me or something Helped me, hopefully. After all, this is the very point of this, isn't it all this is the very point of this, isn't it? And as I go away for the three weeks trying to direct and roll the wheel of Dharma overseas, I hope that you here are doing the same.

Speaker 1: 38:41

Making of fortune comes up so frequently in the Buddhist tradition fortune making. There is no higher way of making fortune than to help alleviate the suffering of others. How does one alleviate the suffering of others? How does one alleviate the suffering of others? You can't. The Buddha famously saying I have helped no one on his deathbed. Why? We only point the way, no matter what the wisdom of the speaker is, we can only point the way, we can only try and illustrate something, but in the end the work is yours, because your life is yours. Do the work, tell others, help others, find the advice, the wisdom, the teachings that you have benefited from. That is the highest way of fortune that we can make. Until next time, I'm Jan Ansenin. Take care of yourselves and each other.