Advertise on podcast: Ven.Pomnyun_Sunim's Dharma Talk

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at UBC (Oct. 3,2017) 🔹Question : Students, others may be asking themselves, “what kind of world are we living in?” after Sunday’s terrible massacre in Las Vegas. And there’s so much that are bombardedin the news these days with one massacre out of after another violence and hatred all over the world, and practice by all religions. Not just Christians and Muslims but Buddhists and Miamians in Sri Lanka and plus World War II in Japan. But there’s so much now that people are hearing they may really be disconcerted a great deal and wonder “what do I do about this?” There’s no hope. It’s so awful. I think Buddhism really addresses this partly in the concept of Samsara. So I wonder how you might explain to people how to keep going in a time that seems worse than others. Thank you.   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at UBC (Oct. 3,2017) 🔹Question : There are so much negativity around us. How can we train our thoughts as individuals to become better people in society? Because it's so hard to come to a point of individual peace, having peace within yourself and peace of the surroundings around you. Is there a way that you can everyday train yourself to be at peace so that you are not stressed and angry at the world and people?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at AmericanUniversity (Sep. 27, 2017) 🔹Question : People who are privileged have a lot of work to do today, to be in solidarity with people who are marginalized. Do either love, duty, or selflessness best characterize the basis of the work that privileged people have to do today? So, none of those words are descriptive of the kind of solidarity work we need to do today?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim(November 7, 2021) 🔹Question : I’d like to ask Sunim’s view on the idea of building a Buddhist corporate model in different areas of the industry. So the background of this is, I’ve seen a lot of religion based companies around the world but rarely a Buddhist company. So one great example is Jainism companies in India. They have different companies in IT, media. Jains actually apply strict principles such as nonposession, nonattachment in their business and they utilize their company resources andtechnology to help numerous people. So I’ve been thinking that it’d be great for Buddhist practitioners to build a company that can sort of represent Buddhist values in the industry. So I was thinking it might not be possible to be like Junto Society where it’s like 100% pure but at least I thought that it might be able to implement some degrees. So to summarize I’d like to ask your view on the idea of a Buddhist company. If any Buddhist practitioner were to build such a company in the future, do you have any principles or guidelines you’d like to suggest?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Acceptance Speech - The 37th Niwano Peace Prize (Oct. 26, 2020) 🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/   🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2022. 01. 23 🔹Question : Thank you for giving me this rare opportunity to ask a question in person, Sunim. I’m an Australian citizen who were born and completed most of the education in Korea.At the age around 30, I migrated over here in Sydney about 15 years ago. I have been through many of my personal challenges in terms of jobs, relationships and so forth, in this new territory. While going through this process, I got interested in raising my consciousness to perceive the things around myself more clearly. So, I can face the various challenges in my life with more positive attitudes and minimize the sufferings in the process. And by readingvarious books, I’ve been seeking advice from so called enlightened people for a while. And currently, I am focusing on a way to liberate myself from my ego. Recently, I came across a scholar who passed away a while ago. His name is David Hawkins. While reading one of books, he exemplified Mother Teresa as a person who demonstrated the unconditional love that have healed many people both in a physical and mental way. Then, I had to close the book right away after reading this part. The reason is that ever since I watched the documentarycalled “Hell’s Angel” which might have revealed hidden truths of her life and so called her legacy. I was quite shocked when I watched the documentary realizing that the fact that even the very common belief image about the people that we think we know well could be completely deceiving. I understand thatthere can’t be a perfect human but as a person who seeks the truth and right away to live life, even so called enlightened people, often obviously reproduce, common understanding of falsified images of the public figures. Then, what would be the good approach to weed out false or truth and seeks the rightinformation among the people who claim to be enlightened?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2023.09. 22 🔹Question : During COVID, during the time of loneliness your teachings have helped me a lot. So today I’m actually here as a volunteer to show you my gratitude, and I’d also like to extend my thank you for all the positive things you’ve done for the world. It’s very inspiring for me. My question is this. If I want to help those people who have very hard time trying to help themselves, how should I go about that? Here is my specific example. Where I currently live, there are a lot of homelesspeople, a lot of people who are suffering from drug addiction. During the time of COVID, I decided to help them out by prepare little bags with snacks in them, put them in the back of my car. And whenever I drive around and see them, I would give it to them. One day, I had a friend sitting in the same car who knew about the things that I did for these people. And she saw that I only had one bag left. There was a homeless person in front of us and she goes, “You have one bag left. That person obviously is a drug addict, so you probably should save that for somebody else.” When I first heard that, I thought thatwas a bit harsh. But when I went back home, and started really thinking about it, I thought to myself that her logic does make sense in a way because what if by giving our these goody bags, these people are not really pushing themselves toearn money, try to get a job, to try to get out of the addiction? Instead, ones they get money, since they already have food, maybe they’ll get drugs. So, I got into this whole thinking process and started catching myself, noticing myself that every time I’m running out of bags, I would see homeless people and don’t know how to detect if this person is addicted to drugs or not. Apparently, it shows on their face. I had a really hard time trying to make that decision everytime. So, my question is how should go about in situations like this.   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2023.09. 12 🔹Question : What kind of work did you do when you were helping people in Asia?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim(April 4, 2021) 🔹Question : On March 6th, a citizen mass shooting occurred at 3 spots in Atlanta, Georgia. And 8 people were killed, 6 of whom is Asian women. This is quite the racist and sexistnature of this crime. The police and government have not officially accepted it as a hate crime. Many of us are feeling grief with anger. As people of color, immigrants, and women, how can we process this anger and sadness? and how should we move forward?   🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2022.1.23 🔹Question : The first question is about world political trend. Someone from the States has responded Ven. Pomnyun Sunim’s ideas about how to stay hopeful in view of the world’spolitical trend towards populist authoritarianism that seems to be threatening formal democracies in Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Venezuela, Brazil, the Philippines, Cambodia, Nicaragua, and the US. The subscriber has asked how to stay hopeful in view of how the world’s political trend is towards populist authoritarianism. Sunim, how is your thought?     🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2024. 01.07 🔹Question : Hello and thank you, Sunim.  I’m currently takingthe Introduction to Buddhism II course. Here’s my question. I have a hard time dealing with suffering in the world. I get too emotional, and it takes days to get over the thoughts and sadness. I imagine the worst scenarios that I’m not even exposed to, and it’s quite tormenting. At some point, I decided to look the other way, and stopped even reading or listening to news, so I can be happy. As we’re learning about social justice in our class, I felt that as a practitioner, I should be more proactive. My question is, how can I actively engage in social justice while protecting myself from the torment? Thank you.     🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2022. 7. 17 🔹Question :  Hello, Sunim. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I often see Sunim suggesting that we could look to nature to draw a more universally acceptable definition of justice. For example, you’ve said that because animals in the wild don’t take care of their parents once they mature, we shouldn’t be seen as evil even if we choose not to take care of our own parents. While I wholeheartedly agree that, at a fundamental level, your approach could be the most sustainable and peaceful approach. But when it comes to the specific examples you give, I can’t help but come up with a lot of counterexamples in my head. I feel everything that doesn’t defy the laws of physics happen in nature. So, it’s hard to see why we would pick out some aspects of it but not others. I have this situation where my heart accepts what you’re saying, but my head is coming up with a bunch of questions. So, I was hoping you could help me reconcile these differences.     🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism): https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/    🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim (October 10, 2021) 🔹Question :  My concern is I feel deeply annoyed andconcerned that people not taking the covid pandemic and climate change seriously. It's difficult for me to see people not wearing a mask or driving an SUV to kids' playgrounds. What can I do to counteract my annoyance, practice my patience and, at the same time, announce issues maybe make people more sensitive towards them? 🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/  🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at Jogyesa Temple, Seoul (June 14, 2019) 🔹Question :  I’m an artist. I’m working as a professionalballet dancer in Korea. I have a question related with art and creation. So I personally need to often detach from my emotions and feelings. So I need to do this quite often. I don’t know, just my emotions can get too wild somehow. And I feel that I have the need to sort of process like detaching of my own feelings in a way. But I feel when I do that, there is something very strongabout it like I can feel it not only inside of me, but they are around me too. But at the same time, as an artist, as a ballet dancer I feel that, also as a creator, I feel like if there is no attachment to feelings, I feel there is noreal creation. I feel that if I don’t really attach to emotions, to any emotion, there is no really something I can create inside of me. I would just make something which it could be like beauty, but you know, that depth, it comes from attachment to my emotions and feelings. So I would like to ask you if there is a way to do not detach these, so then I can avoid suffering in a very high level but at the same time to be able to bring creation. Thank you. 🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/  🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A 2018. 1. 16 🔹Question :  I play a sport here. I play baseball. I haveplayed baseball since I was three years old. Since that point, I have loved baseball. It has become a part of my identity. As I got older, got better at playing. It became a kind of physical meditation in a way that I could turn my mind off through playing the game. But then coming to college, I found that the stresses attached to baseball made it harder to separate my mind and my body while playing the sport. I still see some moments where that kind of freedom comes through in the game. But there are many more times when I feel I am more stressed about baseball. My question to you is, as I move forward and try to regain some of that freedom, some of that control over the game, and my relationship to it. Do you have any tools to redefine that outlook on the sport? 🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/  🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint