Won Buddhism of Manhattan

Humanity has evolved though many different kinds of revolutions including scientific, material, political and social revolution.  However, spiritual revolution is much needed in our world today. The challenge is how to balance between the scientific material revolution and the inner spiritual revolution. Our search for happiness and fulfillment of our potentialities becomes increasingly complex and unproductive. 

We have tried so many things and looked in so many directions that we hardly know what we want any more. In addition, the demands and responsibilities of life are so great that they absorb all of our time, energy and resources.  Thus frustration, exhaustion, anxiety and dissatisfaction with life are found everywhere.

We began to recognize the importance of the inner life and spiritual development of humanity.  We Won Buddhist practitioners are engaging in a slow process of an inner spiritual revolution initiated by the Buddha and reaffirmed by Sotaesan, Gutama Buddha went through the inner spiritual revolution with much anguish, intense struggle to find ways to end human sufferings. His final process of inner revolution was through meditation.  He found answers for what he was searching for. 

Sotesan also went through this inner revolution with much agony and struggle.   His enlightenment confirmed that every human being has potentiality for the inner revolution to uncover the Buddha within.  The good news is that we all have the power, strength, wisdom and compassion within. He envisioned building a paradise on earth through this inner spiritual revolution.

First, the inner spiritual revolution begins with critical thinking. Buddha and Sotaesan had critical thinking skills when they encountered human affairs including birth, aging, illness and death. We need to cultivate critical thinking skills within a holistic and ethical paradigm.  We have to think independently, wholesomely and ethically.  He encouraged to have an inquiring mind and warned not to have a blind faith.  It is not easy to think for yourself and question everything.  It is easier to believe in something and someone.  Unfortunately I have an example of not practicing this critical thinking with my doctor.  My health problem began with a blind faith in my doctor and took wrong medications based on his misdiagnoses of brain tutor.  Now I pay a high price with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  The lack of critical thinking skills and a blind faith harm you and you suffer as a result. 

We have to alert with critical thinking skills encountering all information, belief, custom, tradition and religion.  We have to teach critical thinking skills as early as possible.  If children internalize oppressive belief and custom, they suffer longer.  It is hard to correct childhood trauma.  In addition, we need critical thinking to choose our own religion.  Freedom of religion, conscience and thought is one of fundamental human rights highlighted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.  In my childhood, I learned my parents’ religions; my father’s Confucianism and my mother’s Zen Buddhism.   I could not accept their hierarchical, patriarchal values and systems.   When I moved out of my family, I had freedom to choose my own religion that made sense to me. 

Second, critical thinking skills lead to commitment. Guatama Buddha and Sotesan had a strong commitment after they had critical thinking.  Their commitment was so strong that they gave up everything in order to find the answers for human suffering.  This kind of commitment is needed to pursuit enlightenment. Commitment is a driving force to improve quality of our life. Our mind is a power source.  The mind creates everything including happiness and suffering.  There was a famous monk in Korea named Won Hyo.  He was on the way to China in order to study Buddhism. One night he had to sleep on top of a mountain.  He was very thirsty in the middle of the night and looked for water.  It was pitch dark and he found a large bowl and drank the water.  It was delicious and he went back to sleep.  Next morning when he woke up and went to the same place to get water, he found out that he drank the water out of a human skull last night.  As soon as he found it out, he began vomiting and felt sick.  “Why last night when I didn’t know what I was drinking out of, I was fine and now I have terrible stomachache and am disgusted?” At the moment he was enlightened that the mind creates everything.  He gave up China and returned to his monastery and turned inward to study the mind.  What can we learn from this story?  Don’t look for the Buddha outside any more but look for within your mind.

It is wiser to strengthen your inner self instead of looking for external gratification. Encourage yourself instead of looking for external encouragement.  Motivate yourself to practice instead of seeking for external motivation.  Any external pleasure is not real.  You will suffer with attachment of this temporary enjoyment when they are gone.  Don’t search for happiness and fulfillment from outside but look within.  See the real treasure within.  Cultivate your inner strength and power. If you rely on external power, you will have endless dependence on something or someone.  It is a form of addiction and attachment.  Dependency does not give you freedom.

Third, commitment leads to practice. Practice is vital in our busy multifaceted modern day of life. We begin spiritual journey toward the inner revolution with joyful interest and excitement.  We cultivate innate wisdom, compassion and serenity since we cannot find the lasting happiness and fulfillment of our potentialities from outside.  However this inner revolution is a very long, difficult and arduous journey.  Thus we need a lot of patient.   In the process of inner revolution you can free yourself from yourself. You can let go of thoughts, especially your negative thoughts.  Letting go of all worries, anxieties and fears. Let go of worldly desires. Simplicity is better. Remember to take time out each to relax breath deeply and meditate.  Practice of meditation is creating a shelter of lasting peace and happiness.  A man asked the Buddha skeptically, “What have you gained through meditation?”  The Buddha replied, “Nothing at all.”  “Then, Blessed One, What good is it?” said the man.  Buddha replied, “Let me tell you what I lost through meditation: sickness, anger, depression, insecurity, the burden of all age, the fear of death.  That is the good of meditation, which leads to enlightenment.”

Forth, practice increases self-awareness. Self-awareness is one of the central teachings of Buddhism.  It requires the clear and single-minded awareness to see what is actually happening to us and in us by observing our minds, emotions and bodies.  Be aware of what you do mentally, spiritually and physically.  Socrates said, “Know yourself.”  How much do you know about yourself?  Do you spend enough time to get to know yourself?  We spend too much time to get to know others and try to please others.  It is harder to keep silence and meditation and turn inwardly to get to know yourself.  If anything goes wrong in your lives, it is time to evaluate why we do what we do.  When you spend long enough quiet time to examine yourself, you can find the root causes of the problem including your attitudes and habits.  We need a period of silence in our life to examine our philosophies, update our beliefs and modify our lifestyles. 

We need to pay attention to why we do what we do.  According a Zen story, a man approached a Zen master and asked, “Master, will you please write for me some of highest wisdom.”  The master took out a brush and wrote ATTENTION. The man asked, “Is that all?” The master then wrote, “Attention and attention”. “Well” said the man, “I really don’t see much depth in what you have written.”  The Zen master then wrote “Attention, attention, attention”. The man demanded, “What does the word attention mean anyway?”  The master gently responded, “Attention means attention”.

Self-awareness is to pay precise attention to exactly what we are experiencing right now, right here, moment by moment.

Finally, self-awareness leads to transformation. We need to transform our habits and attitudes.  Our everyday minds are in a state of reaction.  We have to transform this kind of automatic reactions.  If you are driven by greed, hated and delusion, you will remain ignorant of your own Buddha nature and ignorant of the transitory and unsatisfactory nature of the world.  We need to correct this misconception.   It is possible to transform and release from suffering through a change in your perceptions.  We want to grow and develop toward a state of fulfillment.  It means a series of changes in us.  Erich Fromm, in his book, Escape from Freedom wrote, “Life has an inherent tendency to grow, to expand and to express potentialities.   It is our human intrinsic tendency to nurture and develop our potentialities.  We hope to become a full human.  We want to become everything that a human can become.  We wish for self-actualization and self-realization.  We are yearning for the truth.  We aspire to be creative and good.  We wish to attain enlightenment and Buddhahood.  In Buddhist understanding, it is possible because each and every one of us have Buddha Nature within. 

It is possible to purify and transform greed, anger, clinging and self-centeredness.

In conclusion, we have the instinct wisdom, serenity and compassion to cultivate happiness and fulfillment of our potentialities.  Inner spiritual revolution, through critical thinking, commitment, practice, self-awareness and transformation, will awaken our potentialities to find the Buddha within and experience enlightenment.  Then you become yourself the spiritual revolution.

ven. Chung Lee
September, 2003