musangsa 2025년 11월 24일
In our Zen community I am often asked, “How can we follow our true direction and help others in this time of great change? …… The seasons come and go in ways new to us. Drought, hurricanes, fires, and floods surround us with overwhelming force, often stronger than anyone can remember. …… We climate scientists shout warnings to wake people up to the need to find an answer, because even after a century of science no one has the answer. So, we all must learn new ways to live, and profound learning involves risk. Can our practice open us to the point where we risk learning new ways to live? How do we open ourselves to risk? You must open wider than you can imagine, according to Zen Master Ma Jo.
Layman Pang asked Great Teacher Ma Jo: “Who is the man who doesn’t accompany the ten thousand dharmas?” Teacher Ma replied: “Layman, wait till you’ve swallowed in one swig all the water of the West River, then I’ll tell you.”
This is our practice. There is no edge to don’t-know, no frame in which we can comfortably nestle what concerns us. There is simply this world, this life—an ocean in which everything swims. Within this open frame we watch each thing arise and disappear. What is it that arises, perhaps again and again, and what disappears? What do we dwell on? Who is asking? ……
Exposing the root, our questioning expands to where everything does not swirl around Me, so then what becomes possible? Perhaps in each moment it becomes easy to see exactly what is needed to do to help. As Zen Master Dae Bong said, “In war there are not two sides, there is only the side of suffering.” If there is no outside or inside and nothing to defend, then whatever stands before you, whatever work needs to be done, becomes clear. That frames our direction: address suffering where you find it. Address life or whatever needs a response where you find it.
-Jan Sendzimir JDPSN, Primary Point, Fall 2025: https://kwanumzen.org/primary-point
