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> Daehaeng Kun Sunim > Biography of of Daehaeng Kun Sunim
> The Path that is not a Path |
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The Path that is not a Path
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In the spring of 1950, Sunim was ordained as a Shortly after this, the Korean War broke out. As Daehaeng Kun Sunim witnessed the suffering and misery of the war, she wanted to know more thoroughly the meaning of life and continued to practice. “You will see your true self after you die” was the message that always arose within from her. Sunim gradually became more and more determined to completely solve this question. With a yearning to know the answer to this mystery, she attempted to kill herself in many ways.
One day she reached the edge of a cliff. The moment she looked down at the water, she forgot all about dying. She may have spent half a day standing there, looking at the water. Gradually her awareness of her surroundings returned and she started walking again. Tears flowed down her face. Now she understood that destroying the body was not the path. She had realized that she would be able to see her true self when she entrusted everything, including all that she had thought of as "me," to her foundation.
Sunim was never content to settle for what she had realized. Instead, she just kept going forward while trying to sincerely apply and experiment with what she had realized, without clinging to any experience or understanding. At night she would stop walking and just sleep wherever she was, usually in a field or in the mountains. Wet from the morning dew, she would welcome the dawn when it arrived at the opening of each day. As the light spread across the land, she wandered wherever her feet took her. If she was lucky, she would find some wild fruit, but usually she just went hungry. All she had to wear was one thin set of summer clothes. When winter came, she would spend the cold nights in empty mountain shrines, if possible. If she was fortunate, she would come across a haystack, which she thought was the most wonderful bed possible. Her feet were frozen from frostbite and her skin would swell and split, but even this pain did not hinder her. She said that she never attempted to find a particular teacher. “All beings and things were my teachers. Wild animals, birds, a clump of grass, and even a stone kicked underfoot were all my teachers, and they gave me immeasurable teachings. I gained an understanding of truth from tiny things, rather than from studying Buddhist texts or sitting in meditation. Above all, the supreme teacher who led me was my inner self, Juingong. And sentient beings, blind while their eyes were open, laughing when they are happy and crying when they are sad, were also my teachers. Had it not been for them, how could I have realized the principle that the Buddha and all sentient beings are not separate?”
Although to others, Sunim seemed to experience much suffering, she never thought of her practice as such. She wasn’t intentionally trying to engage in some sort of physical hardship, it’s just that all of her attention was directed towards only her true nature. For example, when questions such as “What principle is this?” and “Who is doing this?” arose within her, she observed them very deeply, without noticing that it was getting dark, or how cold it was. Sunim wasn’t even aware of her body. Only her mind was clear and bright. Even when her eyes were closed, inside it was the same as if she was awake. One time, it happened that she spent a few days like this without moving at all, and afterwards her whole body was so stiff that she couldn’t even move her hands or feet.
Later, while Sunim was in the mountains, she experienced a huge light. She had been sitting in meditation and suddenly was surrounded by a huge brightness. The light extended in all directions for about four kilometers and filled her with indescribable fulfillment and comfort. Every direction was filled with light, and it seemed like the light was filling even the tiniest of spaces. After this experience, she felt like she was always surrounded by this light and that all things and lives were helping her.
From that moment, Sunim kept going forward from the stage where all things are not two, where self and the foundation of the universe are not different. By testing what she had experienced so far, Sunim was confirming the power of mind. She began to explore the planets, the solar system, the galaxy, and beyond our galaxy. She also paid special attention to diseases, having seen so much suffering caused by them. She would experiment with using the power of mind to cure diseases and later would check to see how the disease had been affected.
* Samini (沙彌尼, sramaneri) This is the first level of ordination for a sunim. Women are called Samini(沙彌尼, sramaneri)sunims, and men are called Sami(沙彌, sramanera) sunims. Full ordination usually takes place after at least four more years.
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