Buddhist Assembly and Dharma Talk - A Scientific Way to Predict the Future

Most Ven. Jinwoo’s Seon Meditation Academy for Leaders

Part 2

1. What Is the Mind? – It Begins with Emotions

The mind is defined as the collective state of emotions, thoughts, and perceptions. I believe emotions are the most important aspect of the mind, a view also emphasized in sutras and treatises on Buddhist doctrine. From its inception, Buddhism’s key mission has always been to free oneself from suffering. Prince Siddhartha left his palace after witnessing universal human suffering at the four gates of his city, an event recorded as the Four Gates of Enlightenment. Through this experience, he deeply pondered the root causes of suffering and distress, which led to his renunciation of the world. Buddhism begins and ends with the Four Noble Truths. Ultimately, it is about eliminating suffering, and all suffering comes from emotion. Whether we are in a bad mood, struggling, or facing difficulties, what we experience in that moment is an emotion. Collectively, these emotions are referred to as suffering. In Buddhism, these are categorized into Four Sufferings and Eight Sorrows.

To end our suffering, we must first understand why we are suffering. When we feel upset, we may scream or try different ways to relieve stress and trauma. However, these are only temporary fixes. They only briefly alleviate or postpone suffering without resolving the root cause. Ultimately, it is impossible to completely eliminate the experience of suffering. Only those who have attained full enlightenment, such as the Buddha, his Ten Great Disciples, and the Five Hundred Arhats, have ever been completely free from suffering. This is why unenlightened ordinary beings are referred to as “sentient beings”; the term “sentient” means “in possession of emotions.”

2. Happiness Is Suffering

Siddhartha Gautama did not renounce the world in search of happiness, pleasure, or material gain. As a prince in the small kingdom of Kapilavastu, he enjoyed a life of privilege beyond the reach of ordinary people. Yet, he chose to renounce it. While people with great wealth and power may seem to be happy on the surface, such circumstances are fleeting. We resent people who are born to wealthy parents, or who suddenly become rich by winning lottery. We get upset when we see people get rich because their stocks increase in value, their businesses thrive, or they receive an inheritance passed down through generations. Just as there are billionaires such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk, there are also people who struggle to make ends meet as day laborers. That said, their lives are not necessarily all rosy. Even people with seemingly perfect circumstances can suffer from depression and choose to end their own lives. Conversely, many ordinary people are born into difficult circumstances, yet live happily within their means, wise enough to be content with what little they have. Would our suffering disappear if we became wealthy? We tend to think that having great power and high status means no suffering, but that is not the case. This is because suffering does not stem from external factors.

To eliminate suffering, we must understand the essence of pain and pleasure. Only by accurately understanding these emotions can we clearly see the path ahead and solve the problem. No matter how good we feel when achieving what we desire, will we be happy forever? No, we will not. We will simply continue to cycle through samsara. Since they are like two sides of the same coin, the amount of pleasure always evens out that of pain. They are not different by even 0.1 gram. The only difference lies in the timing. Happiness and pleasure are followed by suffering and pain, sometimes within a single second and at other times over the course of an hour, a day, or a lifetime. This cycle does not end even with death. Suffering and happiness continue to ebb and flow across the “three lifetimes”—the past, present, and future. Just because things are good now does not mean we can simply revel in them forever. Sooner or later, we will inevitably face karmic consequences of suffering and pain equal to the happiness and pleasure we have experienced.

Our feelings of suffering and happiness are not necessarily dependent on the phenomena occurring around us. Mahayana sutras such as the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Vaipulya Sutras, the Lotus Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, the Agama Sutras, and the Abhidharma teach that the phenomena we perceive right now have no inherent reality in and of themselves. The Avatamsaka Sutra in particular emphasizes that the phenomena of the Four Dharma Realms (the Realm of Principle, the Realm of Phenomena, the Realm of the Mutual Non-obstruction of Principle, and the Realm of the Mutual Non-obstruction of Phenomena) exist only interdependently; therefore, we should not be deluded by them. The idea that one’s karma, manifested as pain and pleasure, does not depend on phenomena is a consistent theme in all sutras and treatises. The words of the patriarchs echo this same teaching.

Master Seo-ong often said, “Sueoju jakju, Ipcheo gaejin (隨處作主 立處皆眞),” which is usually translated as, “Wherever you become the master, that is where the truth lies.” This naturally leads to further questions: ‘Why the master?’ or ‘What does it take to be the master?’ When one reaches a point where the cycle of pain and pleasure—the wheel of rebirth—disappears, karma is said to have been dissolved and there are no longer any karmic obstacles. Once one attains this state of mind, the Middle Way, one’s location is no longer important. Time does not matter anymore. This is what it means to be the master.

3. Reincarnation and the Causality of Pain and Pleasure

Karma stems from pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Once we experience pleasure, an equal amount of pain is destined to be generated, though we cannot know when it will manifest. When we see, hear, feel, taste, or think something that makes us happy now, suffering will inevitably follow. Just as a coin has two sides, suffering arises immediately after experiencing happiness. We may not know when or how it will appear, but it certainly will. Our stocks go up and generate pleasant feelings. Now, we are primed to feel pain when they suddenly plummet in value. Happiness creates the cause of suffering in stock investing. If we were happy about our robust health when we were young, the inevitable loss of health in old age would make us that much more miserable. The result can manifest even decades later. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Therefore, we must accurately understand the causal relationship between pain and pleasure: when one arises, the other follows. This causality perpetuates the cycle of pain and pleasure, which we call samsara. Even if we are intelligent, wealthy, powerful, and famous, this does not free us from suffering. This is because suffering does not arise from external phenomena, which simply repeat the process of formation, existence, decay, and extinction. Ultimately, the problem lies with “I.”

Most of us believe that devotion to one’s family is the most important thing in life. Yet, despite having a wife and son named Rahula, the Buddha renounced the world. From a Confucian perspective or from our modern viewpoint, abandoning one’s family to pursue another path would be hard to justify. The relationship between parents and children is often described as “mandated by heaven.” While this may be true to some degree, there is a point worth examining. When viewed through the lens of emotions—the cycle of suffering and happiness—and the law of causality, it becomes clear that each individual has their own distinct karmic balance. Since our bodies are separate, surely our emotions and minds must be separate as well. However, attachment serves as a connecting link. Just as the saying goes, “Birds of a feather flock together,” suggesting that there is a force that draws similar things together. 

From a Buddhist perspective, similar emotions attract one another, forming the bonds between parents and children, siblings, and other family members. The same is true for romantic love between a man and a woman. These emotions lead to attachment, reinforcing and attracting each other with tremendous force—to the point of being uncontrollable. At that moment, we feel so wonderful and joyful. However, this also means the karma of joy must be immense. The corresponding karmic price—suffering and pain—has already been generated, and we do not know when it will manifest. We cannot know whether it will appear in small doses or all at once, but it will certainly appear in the exact amount it is owed.

How can we prove that? It is a natural law that when one emotion arises, its opposite inevitably follows. Just as the sun rises and sets, when a pleasant feeling of happiness arises, so does its opposite. This emotion may have originated in a past life and manifested in the present, or it may have originated in the present and manifested in the next life. This concept is called “the twofold causality across three lifetimes.” Only by understanding the causes of emotions can we understand why we are angry, happy, or sad. How are you feeling right now? If you feel good now, it means your emotions and the circumstances align.

Why do negative emotions arise? Simply put, they arise because of positive emotions. One exists precisely because the other exists. This is the cycle of pleasure and pain. No matter how smart or educated we may be, it is just a label. It does not make us any less distressed when we suffer. If we cannot solve the problem of suffering, then money and power are meaningless. The monks here renounced the world because they realized this truth. To the Buddha, the sum total of pain and pleasure is zero. He was able to break the cycle of samsara because he was free from the emotions of suffering and happiness and attained the Middle Way. We must thoroughly understand and internalize this truth because that is what faith is. Being a Buddhist does not mean having blind faith in Buddha. It means thoroughly understanding and believing in his teachings with our whole being and embodying them.

The cycle of pain and pleasure, with one causing the other as an effect, continues throughout repeated rebirths and deaths. Breaking this cycle is precisely “seeing one’s true nature and attaining Buddhahood” and “Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi”, which is the Middle Way. Although we are repeatedly told to do well in school, pass exams, and succeed in our careers, these are merely temporary and superficial improvements in circumstances brought about by the karmic balances accumulated in past lives. Rather than taking pleasure in these outward appearances, it is important to understand how the cycle of pain and pleasure is perpetuated and to practice attaining the Middle Way, because the causal relationship between pain and pleasure never fails to be realized. 

4. Emotions Come from Within, Not Without

Joy and sorrow, as well as other positive and negative emotions, are entirely of our own making. It is a grave mistake to believe that we get mad or happy because of others. All phenomena are interdependent and influence one another. Everything, from a single speck of dust to the entire cosmos, is interconnected. We call this Indra’s Net. It is impossible to determine what is the cause and what is the effect because the cause is simultaneously the effect, and vice versa. Phenomena are constantly in flux, always forming, changing, decaying, and going extinct. They are impermanent and devoid of a fixed self. Yet we continue to delude ourselves and continue to suffer. Although the cause and effect are one and the same, and a single cause does not necessarily produce a single result, we suffer because we try to identify a cause separate from the effect. Just as different seeds bear different fruits, we are all born with the seeds of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. This is why the alaya-vijnana is called the seed consciousness. The affinities of these seeds in the alaya consciousness lead to similarities in emotions, which result in relationships between parents and children. 

Sometimes we believe that we can specify the causes and effects of external events. However, this may be beyond our perception because the past, present, and the whole universe are all involved in creating any given phenomenon. When we experience negative emotions because we fail to achieve a desired goal, we may believe that these emotions were caused by a specific event. In reality, though, these emotions arise because the seeds of pain and pleasure residing in the alaya and manas consciousnesses have manifested. The Buddha, enlightened patriarchs, bodhisattvas, and arhats are free from these seeds of pleasure and pain. Therefore, no matter what happens, they do not experience negative emotions, nor are they led astray or tempted by any phenomenon.

So, how can we become like the Buddha and the patriarchs? How can we break free from the cycle of pleasure and pain? The answer lies in Ganhwa Seon, the practice of letting go and taking one more step forward from the top of a hundred-foot pole. It sounds simple, but for those with low spiritual capacity, it is an incredibly difficult task. That is why the Seon meditation is necessary. The purpose of the Seon meditation is to achieve peace of mind so that we can be free from distress, unpleasant feelings, and suffering.

The phenomena we perceive are shaped by causality and interdependence. Since one phenomenon’s emergence leads to another’s, it is necessary to observe phenomena by comparing them. Examples include comparisons of existence and non-existence, high and low, large and small, this and that, near and far, and beautiful and ugly. There are also comparisons in terms of spatial direction, such as east, west, south, north, center, and the ten directions. The concept of “the nine and ten times being mutually identical” from the Gatha on the Nature of Dharma (法性偈) encompasses the nine times of the three-fold past, present, and future combined with the present moment. Phenomena can also be viewed and compared subjectively, such as right versus wrong, correct versus incorrect, like versus dislike, positive versus negative, and good versus evil. 

Phenomena can be divided into various categories. However, we must be cautious about categorization because, when viewed from a self-centered perspective, phenomena become directly linked to the karma of pain and pleasure. Phenomena influence one another. Natural phenomena, such as earthquakes, occur through the overlap of various factors in space and time. Typhoons and tsunamis result from the convergence of an immense number of causes. Next week’s discussion will focus on these interconnected phenomena.  

5. Practice of the Seon Meditation – Observing Emotions

To break free of the karma of pleasure and pain, we need to practice Seon meditation for at least five minutes a day. Let's try practicing it for at least five minutes, at any time of the day. I’ll explain how to do it. First, regulate your breathing. If your mind is restless, your breathing will become irregular. Check to see if your breath is steady. Then, minimize movement. Regulating your breath lowers your heart rate. Long-lived animals keep their heart rates to a minimum. That is why they move slowly. Therefore, it is important to practice Seon meditation at a slow pace. It is also helpful to close your eyes or focus your gaze on a single point. Maintaining proper posture is essential, so sitting meditation is best, but you can also do it while standing. To maintain proper posture, stand straight, sit straight, and lie straight. As long as you can find peace, it is fine to practice while chanting mantras or reciting sutras. It is best to practice regularly, either upon waking or before bed. Start with five minutes, and gradually increase the time to about 50 minutes as you get used to it. At monasteries, meditation sessions are typically 50 minutes long during retreats, so aim for 50 minutes of meditation a day and gradually increase the duration. Starting today, no matter where you are or what you are doing, observe your emotions without becoming attached to them and use them as a mirror to minimize emotional turmoil and practice Seon meditation.