I Must Return

12. 나는 돌아가야 한다

12. I Must Return

I was on my way home. The wind was cold, and I decided to buy a warm, fish-shaped, red bean pastry on the street. I had no change, so I offered a 10,000-won note (about nine dollars) as payment. The vendor waved away the money and told me to just take the pastry. I sheepishly pulled back my hand and turned around.

I took a bite of the pastry, then crossed the crosswalk and raced over to my bus stop. As the village bus turned the corner in the distance, people gathered like water flowing through the narrow mouth of an empty bottle; the jumbled crowd moved with quick steps as they jostled their way onto the bus with their shoulders, grabbing any seats that were available.

Those who were too late had to pull the handholds up close to their bodies and prop themselves up against each other’s backs. Outside the windows, red and blue neon signs flickered, while a long parade of lights emanated from the cars packed bumper to bumper on the roads. It was 11 p.m. in Seoul, and the day showed no signs of ending.

Underneath the dim lights, the scene inside the bus was humdrum yet eclectic. A girl who appeared to be studying for her tests flipped diligently through her books; next to her, a youthful-looking boy and girl were asking each other questions, their eyes glittering with curiosity.

A drunk man, entertained by something that only he knew, bellowed loudly while others idly fiddled with their phones, oblivious to his tirade. One passenger was watching a comedy program on his phone while another timidly peeked over his shoulder, and the two laughed together as a funny scene unfurled on the tiny screen.

Some lowered their weary heads and began nodding off. Near the back door, some Korean-Chinese passengers whispered intently in low tones.

As the left turn signal came up and the bus suddenly changed directions, everyone’s bodies leaned in the opposite direction. The bus came to a stop and I took an empty seat; I could still feel the warmth of the previous occupant’s body there. I noticed someone pushing his way through the crowded bus.

He was a high school classmate of mine. The last I had heard was that he had quit his job and was preparing to take the civil service examination. We looked away, pretending not to see each other.

The bus reached the end of the route and stopped. We quickly gathered our things and went on our way. We had all met before and would meet again under similar circumstances, but no greetings were exchanged.

The roadside restaurant serving sausage and rice soup was thick with cigarette smoke. Among the customers, I could see an older man, around my father’s age, sitting on his own and pouring himself a drink.

I stopped in a convenience store, bought a can of beer and a bag of chips, and headed up the hill to my home. I ignored my mother’s greeting, went to my room, and locked the door.

Some senior citizens walk through subway cars during rush hour to collect scattered newspapers and sell them for scrap so they can afford a meal. Some people go to work early in the morning and do not finish until late at night, yet continue to struggle and worry about their future from day to day.

Some of my younger friends have been unemployed for years, unable to find any work, or they have shared with me the struggles of temporary employment. Some of my friends rely on the feeble safety net of full-time corporate employment to earn money for their children’s formula or private education, without the freedom to consider any other options due to housing loans.

There are the supervisors who insist that “results are character” and the co-workers who jokingly compare the momentary bliss of receiving their monthly salary to getting high. And there are the friends who swore on their lives as university students that they would work to help the socially vulnerable, only for reality to force them one by one to compromise and join the middle class, where they console themselves with cigarettes and alcohol and ruminate on how sorry they have become.

My daily commute home ended ten years ago, but I haven’t forgotten its pain, nor my own sadness. And I understand how those feelings became the seeds of my vow, making me into the person I am today.

True cultivation begins when we accept the suffering of all sentient beings as our own suffering, just as all buddhas have done. This is why the Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, who rescues sentient beings from suffering with loving-kindness, is placed at the very beginning of the Prajñāpāramitā Heart Sūtra.

Now, as I make my vow, I borrow words from the diary of Jeon Taeil, a workers’ rights activist who became a beacon in a darkened world by literally setting himself on fire. “I must return,” he wrote. “I absolutely must return and stand by the side of my unfortunate brothers.”