Leave on a journey for your

54. 길을 떠나라

54. Leave on a journey for your practice

“It is time to descend the mountain,” I thought. It was not because I had achieved enlightenment, or gained psychic powers or immortality.

Despite my age of over 40, I was still a mediocre practitioner of the same level as 3 years ago when I had ascended Mt. Jiri schlepping my heavy wheeled-luggage.

Some visitors used to praise me as a real monk, who could rarely be seen these days, witnessing my living in a renovated container “sunburned” in the summers and without tap water in the harsh winters in the middle of the second-highest mountain in South Korea.

It was just their perception of me based on typical wrong stereotypes of Buddhist monks in Korea. I was not impressive or proud of myself at all living in such a lifestyle. Neither did I consider it as a practice since aceticism is not the “Middle Way,” which Buddha emphasized as essential for practice. Honestly speaking, it was simply “doable” for me. (Some might interpret it as a progress in my practice)

It was simply a matter of accustomization as a pine seed growing in a barren land never blaming the wind that blew into it.

Money was not a concern during my stay since I could sell brackens I pulled in the springs and Napa cabbages I planted in the falls. Donation from village neighbors and fellow monks gradually filled my empty refrigerator and container house. For the rest of a day, I read, wrote, and meditated.

After 3 years of such a peaceful time, one day I realized such a “golden time” would not last long. I thought to myself, “This kind of hermit lifestyle would degenerate my practice, wasting all the effort I have made and spiritual credits that I have built up so far.

Before getting sick and dying, I should jump into the intense secular world to practice in a living life to get closer to the ultimate truth.”

Then, I happened to hear that my Zen master was planning to visit Mt. Jiri soon. Since it is a courtesy for me to visit him before he visits me as a disciple, I fixed my uniform and headed to Guryong Village in Iksan.

An acolyte welcomed me before he went into Ven. Chwasan’s chamber made of ocher to inform him of my visit. He was lying on the mat as he recently became elderly and frail.

As he arose to sit on the floor, he welcomed me with tea and cookies. After we chatted and caught up on our sangha news for a while, he said, “You should go to Laos,” as he held my hands. I replied, “Ok, I will, Master,” without asking any questions.

I was not scared at all of going to a distant and unfamiliar country as a stranger, but I felt burdened to think how much I could fulfill his expectation.

However, the best way to become free from sufferings and overcome obstacles to Nirvana is a hardened and strengthened spiritual power developed in the Sahā world, the “sea of suffering,” which means the mundane world.

Firmly believing it, I got on a plane to Laos without any hesitation.

I grant ye leave, brethren! Fare ye forth on the mission that is for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, to take compassion on the world and to work profit and good and happiness to gods and men. Go not singly but in pairs; teach ye, brethren, the Truth, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation, both in the spirit and in the letter; proclaim ye the higher life in all its fullness and in all its purity. Beings there are whose eyes are hardly dimmed with dust, perishing because they hear not the Truth; they will become knowers of the Truth. Moreover, brethren, after every six years have passed come ye to Bandhumati, there to recite the Patimokkha. – Digha Nikaya Chapter 14. The Sublime Story