PREFACE
Your Awakening Beyond the Awakening of Seon Masters
Part 01 Where Are You Right Now?
Someone Said So
Where Did You Come From and Where Are You Going?
Can You Attain Enlightenment Through Sitting Meditation?
¡°Chang-Cheong Chang-Cheong¡±
There Are No Blessings to Be Attained
Bring Forth Your Uneasy Mind
Grave Sin
What Is This Thing That Came?
How to Change Your Fate
Do You Know Yourself?
Part 02 Do You Know Yourself?
How Can There Be Relics from a Wooden Buddha?
Who Made God?
Making Rice with Sand
Is Cow Dung Sacred or Dirty?
When Caught Up in Our Own Thoughts 80 How a Teacher and a Disciple Became Sworn Enemies 86 Holding the Bucket Upside Down
Saying ¡°Yes¡± When You Really Don¡¯t Want To
Part 03 Reflect Upon Yourself
The Story of Lady Bodeok
In the End, It¡¯s Your Decision
Husband Buddha, Wife Buddha
Go to Another Temple
Awakening in Everyday Life
You¡¯ve Been Deceived but You Don¡¯t Even Know It
Part 04 Develop Strength Through Practice You Don¡¯t... Have to Believe it
Does a Dog Have Buddha-Nature?
What Is This?
A Question That Comes Like a Bolt Out of the Blue 172 Beyond This World
Do You Know That You Don¡¯t Know?
Part 05 Practice in Your Daily Life
Realizing That Dirtiness and Cleanliness Are Not Two Different Things
Turning Away from Sentient Beings
Who Are the Sentient Beings?
A Life Not Obstructed by Anything
Awakening Can Happen the Moment the Mind Arises 227 A Golden Opportunity
The Moment Love Turns into Hate
Part 06 Be Awake to the Here and Now
Be a Pine Tree in Front of the Pagoda 249 Holding onto Myself
Are You Awake?
United We Fall, Divided We Stand
Start by Accepting Reality
No Reason to Blame Others
Part 07 Turn Things That Have Already Happened into Something Useful in Your Life
The Pain of Death and Abstaining from Killing
True Understanding
The World as It Is
The Present Is the Sum of Past Causes and Conditions 298 Choice and Responsibility
The Principle of Acceptance
The Path to Loving Yourself as Well as Others
EPILOGUE
How to Live Happily and Freely
¡°If you live alone, it should feel good to live alone. If you live with someone, it should feel good to live with someone. If you have a child, it should be nice to have a child, and, if you don¡¯t, that should feel nice as well. If you trip over a stone in the street, you need to get up, find a shovel, and remove it, preventing any more people from tripping over it. At that point, the fact that you tripped over a stone today becomes a wonderful thing. If you hadn¡¯t tripped, you wouldn¡¯t have noticed the obstacle. Tripping over the stone turned out to be a blessing in disguise.¡±
¡°If you fall into the water, instead of flailing helplessly and screaming for help, search for a pearl. If you¡¯re married, have a child, go bankrupt, have cancer, or grow old, instead of suffering, look for opportunities to be awakened. There are things you can realize only when you are old, sick, divorced, or have been betrayed. Awakening is not far away. Awakening is wherever your mind arises. Depending on whether or not you realize this, you can attain nirvana in a single moment, or you can wander around in the six realms of existence life after life.¡±
"There isn¡¯t much difference in the relationships between couples, parents and children, friends, North Korea and South Korea, North Korea and the U.S., and the majority and minority parties. All problems arise from a self-centered perspective. People argue, feel resentful, and suffer because they look at the world only from their own perspectives. If you stop insisting on your own perspective, there¡¯s nothing in the world to fight about. You come to see that people are naturally different and that these differences can enrich the world in harmony.¡±
¡°We always forget our current role. Some try to teach when they are there to learn. Others neglect their duties when they are there to teach. And still others badmouth the people to whom they should be grateful for the help they received. We won¡¯t have any regrets in our lives if we are awake to these three things: now, here, and why. We regret later because we are not awake now.¡±