The lineage I was trained in is the Kwan Um School of Zen. It was my good fortune to know intimately our Founding Teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn. While in the United States, he made frequent trips to Las Vegas over a period of years for medical appointments with Dr. Ju – Cheon Lee. Dr. Lee was an esteemed Doctor of Oriental Medicine. His visits were often on weekends, but from time to time I scheduled vacation and personal days at work to be his chauffeur throughout his stay. Every morning I would arrive at his hotel room before breakfast and he would give me kong an interviews.
Zen Master Seung Sahn taught me: “Don’t make, don’t attach, don’t check, and don’t want. If you follow these four teachings very well, your practice will grow up.” This is very interesting. Our usual habit mind is to always make something, then we attach to what we make. Attaching to anything – whether it be a philosophical, political, social, religious, or personal ideology, our intellect immediately fabricates a narrative to go along with it. This I, my, me narrative invites polarization: My way is correct, your way is wrong. We feed the ego, protecting and justifying everything in our path as some sort of personal validation. As a result, we are always then checking people and situations. The desire to always be right grows and grows, looming over us like an ever present albatross. We continue to mold a vacuous collective of ideas and constructs on just about everything. What a heavy burden to be lugging around. Ha-ha.
To rid ourselves of this “habit mind,” Zen Master Seung Sahn gave us all a tool. This tool is keeping the great question “What am I?” By cutting off all thoughts of “good and bad,” breaking the wall of your fictitious mind construct of “self” is then possible. After keeping this question “What am I” very sincerely, one discovers that don’t know begins to appear in all of life’s myriad constructs and circumstances.
“Don’t know cuts off all thinking” Seung Sahn Sunim insisted, “by cutting off all thinking” we arrive at “before thinking.” Before thinking is the gateway to infinite time and infinite space.
When your mind remains simple and direct, before thinking awareness is ever present.You naturally don’t make, hence there is nothing to attach to, and no one to check. Desires diminish and cease to arise. The results? Nothing to want. You are free…
This freedom does not mean that you pick up your marbles and go home. True freedom is the embodiment of great love and great compassion. This whole universe is “an ocean of suffering” as Buddha said. Your job is to reflect this freedom making it available through example.The first great vow teaches: “Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them all.”