Old Friends

I came across this drawing in my archives, it was given to me by Hyonmun Sunim about 15 years ago, shortly before he became a monk. The image of him was drawn by his friend in Poland and I always thought the caption (although in Polish) was really quite hilarious. It says, "Either I will get enlightenment, or I will change my tradition!"

This is the danger facing those who are choosing to invent their own spiritual path. We can choose those things we like and discard those things we don't like. It is usually those places in our lives that we are uncomfortable with that are the places we need to investigate. Jellaudin Rumi once said, "these spiritual window shoppers, shadows with no capital." We have to invest ourselves honestly and truthfully to make a progress in our practice. We have to commit one hundred percent to being completely and blatantly honest with ourselves and the world around us. As the old zen saying goes, "when standing at the top of a one hundred foot flagpole, one more step is necessary."



a recent photo of Hyonmun Sunim.