My Heart is a Golden Buddha Read online

  He focused on the pagodas with this utter sincerity, and the hope that they would be beacons that would guide all beings to this bright path.

  When Asadal began to work on the first pagoda, called the Dabo Pagoda, an image of the four all-embracing virtues arose within him, for with these, anyone would be able to live a true life and would open themselves to innumerable blessings.

  The first virtue is freely giving to those in difficulty. The second is encouraging others to live together harmoniously through gentle speech and a kind face. The third virtue is helping others through words, actions, and even mind. And the fourth virtue is sharing unconditionally, by becoming one with other people and their circumstances.

  Asadal decided to represent these virtues as pillars, so after finishing the foundation of the pagoda, he erected four rectangular pillars, plain looking but sturdy.

  On top of these he built an elaborate and refined structure, representing the functioning of the earth and heavenly realms. Thus, the Dabo Pagoda teaches us that it is these four virtues that support the functioning of all things in the world and universe.

  As Asadal designed and carved the second pagoda, known as the Sokga Pagoda, it was with the hope that beings would put into practice the four all-embracing virtues represented by the Dabo Pagoda, and in so doing, they would awaken to their inherent nature and go on to become Buddhas themselves.

  This he represented with clean, straight lines and smooth squares, one on top of another; thus developed the Sokga Pagoda’s noble form. Even today, these pagodas are still there, speaking silent words to all who come.

  ∴

  Both Kim Daesung and Asadal were deeply sincere people, who worked hard at letting go of self-centeredness and the tendency to see themselves as existing apart from others.

  Kim Daesung wanted to build the pagodas in order to help all beings, while Asadal entrusted every single thing to his inherent nature, and every stroke of his chisel contained his pure heart. And so, the Dabo Pagoda and the Sokga Pagoda are made of much more than just stone.

  If people realized just how precious it is to be born as a human being, they wouldn’t waste their life just wandering around.

  Even worse than this are those who think only of themselves, and so turn their backs upon the tremendous opportunities to create virtue and merit which come from being born as a human being. The thoughts we are giving rise to now can even determine whether we are reborn as a more evolved human being, or whether we wear the mask of an animal.

  So, have a great heart like Kim Daesung, and raise an intention to benefit each and every being. Diligently rely upon your foundation with the sincerity and focus of Asadal.

  Practice like this, and your life will shine forth like the Dabo and Sokga Pagodas, whose light remains undiminished after even a thousand years.

  25

  The Scholar and the Regent

  Long ago there was a poor scholar who, as it turned out, was a distant relation to the all-powerful regent of Korea.

  One season, an occasion came about to make a rare trip to the capital. It was the tradition in those days that when visiting distant places travelers would greet relatives who lived in the area. It didn’t have to be anything fancy, just a bow and a few words, but to skip this would have been unthinkable for a person of good upbringing.

  So, after arriving in Seoul, the scholar set out to greet his famous relative. The regent lived on a large estate, where he guided the affairs of the country. It was almost a palace, with many residences and offices surrounded by a great wall.

  Approaching the guards, the scholar explained why he was there, and after some time he was admitted to the complex. He’d worn his best clothes, but even those were a bit shabby and had been mended more than once. “Another poor, country relative,” grinned the court literati.

  He was given a room in the lesser guest quarters, which were really not much better than servants’ quarters, and told to wait. Day after day he waited. Finally the call came.

  Striding into the audience room, he gave a dignified bow before the regent. The regent, however, appeared to be discussing some important matter with one of his aides and didn’t seem to have noticed the scholar. So the scholar bowed a second time.

  In the next instant, the regent exploded, “What do you think you’re doing! Are you wishing me dead?”

  You see, in Korea, people bowed once to a living person, twice to a dead person at memorial services, and three times to the Buddha or a holy person. So bowing twice to someone was very offensive, almost like cursing them.

  The scholar was in hot water now. The regent had a bad reputation, and those who fell afoul of him tended to meet an unpleasant end. But the scholar didn’t shrink back, and instead responded with confidence and a smile.

  “Your Excellency has perhaps misunderstood my intention. I bowed once when I entered, but as you seemed quite busy with other matters, I bowed once more in farewell.”

  He smiled again at the regent, “With your leave then, I’ll be going. Goodbye.” And then he left.

  The regent just sat there, stunned for a moment. He was the most powerful man in all Korea, yet this country scholar with the shabby clothes had got the better of him.

  After a bit, the regent gave a reluctant smile, and ordered a servant to bring the scholar back.

  “You have some kind of nerve. Thinking I didn’t see you trying to get my attention, and then playing games with me! But you remained calm and had a lot of guts to answer me like that.

  “I need people like that, who can jump into a task with courage and an upright demeanor. Therefore, I’m putting you in charge of military training for your home district. See that the soldiers are properly trained, and develop good leaders.”

  For the scholar, this was an unexpected blessing, because it was an important position with a good income attached to it. It also provided entry into the upper ranks of the civil service, and the opportunity to help many, many people. In fact, it completely changed the fortunes of his family.

  ∴

  We, too, can live with the same upright dignity, courage, and wisdom as that scholar.

  All you have to do is learn to believe in your foundation. Then, regardless of what kinds of circumstances you find yourself in, you can respond calmly and naturally, with courage and dignity.

  In appearance, we can be divided into men and women, and by our different roles. But in our fundamental mind there is no male or female, old or young. So, regardless of who you are, if your faith in your foundation is unshakable, you’ll be able to entrust everything to it.

  In so doing, you will be able to take care of everything throughout heaven and earth.

  26

  Bodhidharma’s Sandal

  The first patriarch of Chan (Seon) in China came from India and was called Bodhidharma.

  One day he came across a huge snake coiled up in the middle of a path. It was so big that he couldn’t walk around it, and it wouldn’t budge even an inch. Bodhidharma saw that the snake was intensely cultivating its mind in order to be reborn as a human being, but he knew that if the snake was startled, in a moment of panic it could accidently kill someone.

  Bodhidharma saw what he had to do. His mind left his body and entered the snake. Becoming one with the snake, he led it far away to a place where it could practice in peace, without risk to anyone else.

  However, when he returned to where he had left his body, it was gone! Someone had taken his body, which was quite nice, as bodies go. Left in its place was the body of a fat, ugly man, who looked like a bandit.

  Without a body, Bodhidharma wouldn’t be able to help unenlightened beings, so he had no choice but to use the body that was there, even though it was so completely different from his original body. This is why he looks so ugly in paintings!

  Because Bodhidharma was such an enlightened master who could freely manifest as needed, even King Wu of the Yang Dynasty would ask him for advice.

  One day, the king said to him
, “I’ve made huge offerings of food and clothing to the Sangha, and I’ve built many temples. Can you tell me how much virtue and merit I’ve accumulated?”

  What he was really asking was what his reward would be. Bodhidharma answered him, “Nothing. You haven’t created any virtue or merit at all.”

  The king was deeply stung by this. His shock turned to resentment, which began to fester and grew into hatred. In the end, he ordered his men to poison Bodhidharma. This they did, and Bodhidharma was buried in the temple where he had taught for so many years.

  One day, the king’s envoy was returning from a diplomatic mission to India. On the way home, he met Bodhidharma!

  The master was walking toward the west, carrying a staff with one sandal hanging from it. The envoy hadn’t heard about Bodhidharma’s death, and greeted him warmly, inquiring where he was bound for.

  “Oh, I’m heading west. I’m going back to the place I came from,” answered the great master.

  Later, when King Wu heard about this, he was stunned. “What happened? He drank poison and died!” The king ordered Bodhidharma’s grave dug up, and in the grave was one sandal, nothing else.

  ∴

  The story of Bodhidharma teaches us three very deep principles.

  The first is the principle, or truth, of non-duality. “A thief is my shape, a handsome man is my shape, and a snake is also my shape.”

  This is how Bodhidharma viewed the world because he completely understood that nothing was separate from himself. Everyone and everything he met was another shape of himself. If Bodhidharma had been full of thoughts of “I,” he couldn’t have entered the snake and saved it.

  The second deep truth of this story is that even as we experience life and death, ultimately we are not born, nor do we die.

  Although King Wu had Bodhidharma killed, there was never a moment when Bodhidharma died. From the very beginning, there has never been a thing called “I” that could die. In an instant, we change our shape and go, and in an instant, we change our shape and reappear in this world.

  We’re only changing our shape. “Bodhidharma coming to the east and returning to the west” refers to this process of dying and being born. You should know that we go through death and birth just like we walk up the stairs and down the stairs.

  The third deep principle of this story is that of doing without doing.

  When the king gave offerings, he needed to do it while letting go of any thoughts of giving. Only then could his act of giving become virtue and merit capable of saving the king, as well as the people of the nation.

  True virtue and merit is possible when you do things without the thought of “I did something.” Then, there’s nothing you’ve done, and nothing you haven’t done.

  It was this principle of doing without any thought of doing that Bodhidharma was teaching the king. By teaching one man, the leader of the country, Bodhidharma had been trying to help all the people of the nation.

  The sandal in the grave was left there to show that within each one of us there is a “fundamental self,” or a foundation, through which everything in the universe is combined together as one. Our existence is the manifestation of this foundation, and that’s the meaning of Bodhidharma having one sandal hanging from his staff.

  Our life itself is like someone walking with a staff over their shoulder, and a sandal hanging from it. The political realm is no different. When we can put one sandal in the heavens and one on the ground, beneficial policies and leadership will be the result.

  If those who wish to lead carry around thoughts of “me” and “I’m doing,” they won’t be able to govern properly, nor will their actions result in any merit or virtue for the land.

  27

  It’s Hard to Say

  Long ago in China, there lived an old man who raised horses. One day, his most prized horse, a magnificent stallion, ran away.

  His friends and neighbors came by to console him, saying what a shame it was to lose such a fine animal. But the old man didn’t seem particularly bothered. In fact, he spoke as if nothing much had happened.

  “Well, it’s hard to say. If you have something, eventually it has to leave, doesn’t it? And when something goes, something else comes, doesn’t it?”

  Sure enough, a few days later the stallion returned, and brought with him a truly magnificent mare. Everyone could tell that this horse was something special.

  “Hey, congratulations! Instead of losing a horse, you gained a beautiful new one! What luck!”

  But the old man was unmoved. “It’s hard to say. When you gain something, you often lose something else, so there’s no point in getting too excited about it.”

  Sometime later, the old man’s son was riding the mare when he was thrown off and broke his leg. They set his leg as best they could, but it was clear the son was going to have a bad limp for the rest of his life. With his only son crippled, people expected the old man to be shattered, and tried to console him.

  However, he surprised them again, “It’s hard to say. There might be some good in this somewhere.”

  A few years later, the country was plunged into a series of endless civil wars. In the chaos that followed, one of the contending armies came through the village and took away all of the young men—except one.

  There was one young man with a bad limp who they left behind.

  ∴

  Gain and loss are like two sides of one coin—you can never have one without the other.

  Most people devote so much energy to celebrating gain and mourning loss; however, if you understand that they always go together, you won’t get caught up in either of them.

  The old man knew that these always go hand in hand, so regardless of huge gains or terrible losses, he was always able to remain calm and centered. He wasn’t filled with delight at an unexpected windfall, and a sudden loss didn’t plunge him into despair. Isn’t this a wise way to live?

  If you think deeply about the joy and sadness people feel over gain and loss, you will realize that these arise from greed. And greed itself is caused by ignorance.

  How do you want to live your life? If you want to live wisely, with clear insight, you have to start with letting go. Entrust everything you encounter, along with all of the emotions arising within you, to your foundation.

  The ability of your foundation is vast beyond imagining. No matter how much you take from it, it will never run out. No matter how much you put into it, it can take all of it in without missing a thing. It can become as big as the universe or as small as the point of a needle. At the level of your foundation, important or unimportant and good or bad do not exist. It is the place where everything dissolves and disappears, and the place that sends forth everything into this world.

  Thus, if you can keep returning everything to this place, then even though you haven’t awakened and don’t understand how things truly work, you’ll be less and less caught by the good and bad things that confront you, and you’ll find yourself taking the middle way in whatever circumstances arise.

  28

  Mother-in-law Saves the Family

  In the city of Wonju there was a woman who sold bean sprouts in the market. She and her young son were quite poor, and life seemed like an endless cycle of just scraping by.

  The burdens of poverty can often make a person ruthless, or hopeless, but throughout it all, the woman remained kind and upright. Further, through her behavior and the stories she told, her son also absorbed those qualities.

  Her heartfelt desire was to see her son live a life free of poverty and hardship. Thus, she worked every single day in the market, in the rain and in the snow, and in this way she put her son through college.

  Upon graduation, he immediately landed a very good job, and not long afterwards married a nice girl. She too came from a poor family, but had a good heart. He bought a house where they could live with his mother, and together the three of them were happy.

  Although his mother was now living with her married, success
ful son, she didn’t want to be a burden to him or his wife, so most days she still sold bean sprouts in the market.

  About six months later, her son’s company sent him to work on a project in the Middle East. He was to be there for nearly two years, and his wife had to stay behind.

  Home alone for most of the day, the hours weighed heavily on his wife. One day when her friends were visiting, she wound up playing a popular card game called hwatu for the first time. The time flew by as they played, betting pocket change as mini-fortunes were won and lost.

  This was how it started for her; gradually she began playing for increasing stakes. She had been receiving most of her husband’s pay, together with his overseas bonuses, and it was enough to have been able to save a decent amount. But before long she was pouring it all into her gambling habit.

  Her mother-in-law realized what was happening, but no matter how she scolded or tried to persuade her daughter-in-law, it made no difference—the young wife was completely addicted to gambling. Unable to sit by and watch, her mother-in-law moved out.

  About a year later, the son returned to Korea a few months sooner than expected, and his wife panicked. Not only had she gambled away all of the money she was supposed to be saving, but she didn’t even know what had become of her mother-in-law.

  Desperate, she lied to her husband. “Your mother just moved out one day. I wasn’t home, and I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find her,” she said, her voice trailing off. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d worry.”

  Her husband stormed out and went to the market, where he started looking up his mother’s old friends. He eventually found her, and when he brought her home, his wife fell to her knees and begged her husband’s forgiveness.