June 13, 2025 • 53 mins
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What happens when we truly embrace silence? Not just the absence of speech, but a deliberate practice of observing the noise within?
In this revealing conversation between Myong-An Sunim and Dr. Ruben Lambert, we journey into the Korean Zen practice of Mugon Suhaeng (observing silence) and discover that not speaking is merely the surface of a much deeper experience. As Myung-An Sunim shares from his recent practice of silence, we learn that the real discovery comes when we notice the "murmuring"—that constant internal dialogue that usually hums unnoticed like a refrigerator in the background of our consciousness.
Through delightful stories, including a monk who could speak only two words per year yet chose to use them solely for complaints ("Robes rough," "Bed hard," "Food cold"), and a Zen master who created comically oversized shoes to expose a practitioner's attachment to appearances, we explore how traditional teaching methods cut through intellectual understanding to create direct experiential learning. These moments of clarity don't always feel comfortable, but they offer what Ruben describes as "a golden opportunity" to patch the leaks in our practice.
The conversation expands to address a listener's question about generational karma and fairness. Rather than seeing karma as punishment or reward, the hosts illuminate how we're all connected through an intricate web of relationships (inyon) spanning countless lifetimes. Like a tennis ball bouncing off a wall following the precise laws of physics, karma isn't personal—it's the natural unfolding of cause and effect. When we question its fairness, we're really expressing our inability to see the complete picture of causality.
Ready to explore your own internal murmuring? Join us each week as we tackle everyday challenges through a Buddhist lens. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or visit soshimsa.org to discover practical wisdom for navigating life's complexities with greater awareness and compassion.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Hello, my name is Louise and I am a member of the
Soshimsa Zen Center in Middlesex, new Jersey.
Have you heard our podcast yet?
It drops every Friday and itaddresses everyday life with a
Buddhist perspective.
The podcast is hosted byMyung-An Sunim, the abbot of our
(00:36):
center, and Dr Ruben Lambert, alicensed psychologist and
Buddhist monk.
Each week they answer listenerquestions and tackle issues that
pop up and affect our everydaylife.
I often listen to them morethan once.
Each time I am left with alittle nugget of knowledge that
helps me navigate my own life.
(00:58):
Myung An Sunim also offersbonus tracks five-minute talks
about almost anything that willdefinitely get you thinking.
Nothing highbrow, just everydaytalk.
To listen, just go to ourwebsite, soshimsaorg, and hit
the podcast button.
You can also find us onBuzzsprout, youtube, apple and
(01:24):
Spotify.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We hope you can join us and give us your support.
You know I had taken thetemporary vow of silence.
If you will, the Mugon SuhaengI was just thinking about that
Since Sunday evening, until well, frankly until today.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
What's the term in Korean?
Say that again.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Mugon, mugon, suhaeng , suhaeng is like a training,
like a practice Mugon.
It actually is worth unpackinga little bit.
But I say this to say that wehave not had a conversation or
(02:10):
discussion of what we're goingto talk about today since I
wasn't talking right andchallenging to yes, welcome back
to this world throughs a nicepodcast meander, as it's going
to be episode, the opposite of m, the opposite of.
Mugon, the opposite of Mugon.
Talky talky now yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Do you have that funky story that you told me I
wasn't able to make it to thelast retreat because my son was
born at the time, but you guysdid half a day.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I think of that, and then the teacher's response at
the end of the movie.
That was pretty funny, that waspretty good actually this was
good.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I had a phone call prior to the retreat.
This was the Taste of Zenretreat.
So it's a weekend retreat, awayfrom here, overnight thing.
And I get a phone call priortoo and the woman says you know,
I'm a, a teacher, and so I talkall day.
(03:06):
This silence thing is reallygoing to be challenging.
I don't know if I could do it.
I said well, the atmospherehopefully will will help you out
it'll set you up you know, anduh, the first day, for so they
would get the friday night.
There's a little orientation andthey say, well, starting
tomorrow morning early rising,early morning, bell chant, etc.
(03:30):
Etc.
And so silence for half a day.
They're sort of released fromthe clutches of of silence and
and the finished program.
I said, well, look at the time,you are now free to talk.
And out of the back of thegroup the woman goes I made it.
(03:55):
That was like old faithful ageyser erupt it was just
building and building, yeahpressure was building and then
release yeah, and, and it wasjust you know it was perfect
because everybody just broke outinto you know a cackle and a go
, fall and laughter, all aboutuh-huh and um, but you know it's
(04:17):
.
There's this uh funny story of amonk who joins a monastery that
is renowned for the vow ofsilence, and so he goes there
and has the initial interviewwith the abbot and the abbot
tells him you know, once a yearyou're able, we will have an
(04:40):
interview once a year and youcould say two words.
So for the rest of the yearit's complete silence.
And so, year by goes by, it'stime for the monks interview.
He comes before the abbot asthe deep bow sits down and the
abbot nods to say what are yourtowards?
(05:02):
And amongst us, robes, rough,the.
The back story of this isnowadays a summer robe in
particular, is a Sundaybae.
Sunbae is like hemp, and thisis the irony of how things flow
(05:33):
and ebb and flow, because thisis true also with tea sets and
tea cups.
A tea cup, nowadays moreexpensive tea cups are the ones
that look artisan, that looksort of you know, imperfect, a
little crackly.
There's a kind of beauty inthat that is being sought out
(05:54):
prior to that.
So it's it.
This is true with, with mung'srobe and and things generally
right.
So it was the.
We started off with these roughthings like brown rice and cups
that are kind of, you know,crooked a little bit, you know,
sad in a sense.
And then we pursued refinement,so you know thin-walled, kind
(06:17):
of china, right, pristine,smooth, smooth, right White rice
, right, right, smooth, smooth,right white rice, right right,
the, the, the robes and the moresort of silk, and, and silk has
untie, antibacterial propertiesand a number of things, so it
(06:41):
was used, but anyway nonethelesskind of smooth and refined
things all around.
And then we are now returned tothe artisan, the handmade, you
know the artisan bakery, wherethe loaf is just a little bit
misshapen and, like you know,grandma made it somewhere in the
(07:02):
oven and you know we want to bein the oven, and you know.
We want to be able to tell thatthe human hand touched it right.
And teacups, same thing.
Teacups, you know, theimperfect ones, the little bit
kind of cockeyed ones.
Those are the ones that areexpensive.
Robes too, I believe.
(07:25):
I don't know what the current,because I had looked into them.
They're supposed to be reallyfantastic for summer.
They're breathable, I mean it'slinen, kind of linen-esque, but
I can't afford them, which isinsane, right.
(07:45):
That monks couldn't afford robes, but anyway.
So that's that.
So we went from rough robes torefined robes.
Back to rough robes.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And back.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And so you know, and that's why the monk after the
year in monastery says robesrough, right, because the color
you know it's.
Even the old school wool usedto be sort of itchy, sure.
I can see that Now it's refined, and you know, now it's all
nice.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I remember seeing those robes what are they called
?
The ones that are really likealmost see-through.
Yes, I remember seeing those atIlbongsa.
Yeah, it was a very hot day.
It was like 100 degrees in theshade and the kunsunim there and
the, I think, the abbot of themonastery.
He was doing a 100 day prayerservice for a kunsunim of the
(08:40):
Bodhisattva of Compassion and hewas doing it outdoors Right
there was a statue and mygoodness, it was hot, yeah, but
when I saw him he was wearingthose robes, right, yep, they
looked almost like the air canflow in and out of them.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, they're called Samba and traditionally, a long
time ago even thinner thannowadays there was almost like
this and nowadays there wasalmost like this.
It's difficult to describe inwords, but these things that
(09:16):
held on to your forearm and itsort of had almost like
scaffolding from very thinbamboo strips so that the
clothes does not lay on yourskin.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
So just you know, you get like wind tunnel.
Yeah, so it doesn't stick toyou.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Anyway.
So this monk year in and he hashis two words with Abbot and he
says robes rough.
Abbot bows, he bows off, hegoes.
You know, perhaps the Abbottended to the needs of the
community and maybe got him atleast a collar.
(09:50):
There's like a thing you put ona collar that makes it softer.
Year two, another year goes by.
The monk presents himselfbefore the abbot.
That's his deep bow.
Abbott nods as to say give meyour two words.
He says bad, hard.
(10:12):
Abbott nods Off, he goes.
You know to think about it.
Really it's probably the badheart came first, knowing sort
of how human beings are.
Year three, so three years in,this monk has been in this
(10:33):
monastery practicing.
Year three time for theinterview.
He presents himself before theabbot does the dipao is invited
to sit.
Abbot nods to say give me yourtwo words, food, cold.
The abbot nods, but the monksort of makes a gesture to say
(11:00):
something.
He doesn't say anything,something doesn't say it.
Year four the monk comes beforethe abbot prostrates himself.
Abbot nods as the monk openshis mouth before he the before
words come out of his mouth.
The abbot stops him and saysget out right.
(11:22):
And and shocked now he sayswhat?
Why he says all you do iscomplain.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Boy out of two words a year.
He saved those two words justto make a complaint.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It's such a splendid story.
Oh, my goodness, you know Mugunpractice.
The observance of silence isnot really simply don't talk.
It exposes to you and when wedo retreats we see this it
(12:05):
exposes to you the constant,incessant murmuring going on
inside.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I love that word murmuring.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That is just splendid .
You think you're quiet.
It's a noise.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Murmur, but it arises almost.
You think you're quiet, youthink you're quiet, but then
there's noise that comes out ofthat.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's like your refrigerator when the motor
comes in, it hums right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
But you don't think about it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Murmur.
So our minds murmur incessantlyand Mugong practice helps us to
become more aware of that.
It filters.
The talking bit is really themost superficial element of
(12:57):
Mughun, In fact two times duringmy silence.
For this week I had a tea withAbbott and obviously we had a
conversation, and I'm prettysure there are people who there
was kind of like a spillover.
A person was leaving, havinghad tea with Abbott, while a
(13:20):
participant of another programwas coming in, and they heard me
talk.
And then they kind of laterlook and I had around my neck a
thing that says I am observingsilence, I'm Mugon Suheng, and
I'm sure they've thought tothemselves wait a minute, I just
heard him talking.
Of course, our suheng cannotdeprive us from tending to the
(13:51):
needs of the community, and soI've suspended the suheng for
the needs of people who neededadvice and needed to talk to me.
Sure of people who needed adviceand needed to talk to me.
Yeah, so it's not some weirdothings like.
It's not this kind of dogma,run over your karma thing,
(14:16):
you're doing that right?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, this is again a misconception by many people or
a how do we say a misconstruedunderstanding of religious
practice.
You're undergoing the practiceof silence and this becomes a
chip chuck.
This just becomes a blanketover your whole life, right?
And then someone falls and theysay call for help, right.
(14:42):
And you see, let's say, apolice officer across the street
that can get an ambulance therein two seconds, and what?
You're going to be there allrighteous.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Miming or I don't speak.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I don't speak at this moment.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I'm seeking enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
That is not the true bodhisattva path, right?
So I completely understandwhere you're coming from and I
hope our audience can grasp thisconcept where you know, not for
you.
You suspended your practice forthe benefit of enlightening
those who are in need.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, there's a show, it or IT, it as in computer
work I think it's a British showand one of the gentlemen there,
these two guys, are cast intothe bosom like the basement of
(15:40):
this large corporation.
They're IT guys and it's acomedy.
And a fire breaks out in thatlittle office and one of the
guys sits down as he sees thefire beginning to get more and
more and he starts writing anemail to the fire department
(16:00):
Dear Chief, no.
And he goes through a number ofkind of thing and finally he
goes help, help.
He types it into the, you know,sends an email, so it's, it's
kind of that, that thing, rightit yeah it is um well, I think
it is a living, breathingphilosophy.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
right, right, right, robust.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
And if you are going to make, you know, a drastic
kind of like a vow of a thing orwhatever practice, you make it
within the context of existence.
Right.
If you are going to say, take avow of silence that renders you
(16:48):
unable to provide the teachingor advice etc.
Etc.
Then you position yourself so.
Maybe, you can't be the abbotfor one, Can't be the abbot.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Maybe you can't be at a.
How do you call again the citytemple?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Popyodang.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Maybe you can't be at a city temple.
You go to the hermitage etc.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Etc.
And this is where we have likemumungwan practices, for example
.
Mumungwan means no gate.
The Zen center on Jeju Island,about halfway up the Hala
(17:34):
Mountain.
The Hala Mountain is a volcanic, a volcano, really, and so this
monastery was located abouthalfway, I think, and there
there was an area that wassecluded and no trespassing, and
(17:56):
the only reason why I was ableto see what was there is because
I was a henja at the time, so Iwas practicing, I was a student
in training.
I was practicing, I was astudent in training, so one of
our duties was to bring food tothe monks who resided at that
building, and essentially whatit was?
It was a building with roomsbuilt into it flanking the four
(18:19):
sides, and center there was alarge room like for together
practice or whatever it is thatthey did, but essentially what
this was kind of were cells ofof each individual monk who
lived there and there was amouth reminding you like office
cubicles.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It was almost right, but they're closed off, yeah
they're closed off room.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So from the center you enter into the building
through to a main door.
There's the big central roomand then on all three sides of
it are little cells with thedoor.
The outside of the building hasa little trap door for each
room.
So you open the little door,you slide in a tray of food and
(19:05):
then later on in the day we pickit up, and sometimes they would
leave a little note to saythey're requesting, let's say,
honey, they weren't feeling goodor whatever.
There was a three-year waitinglist to be able to live in.
This is a one-year confinementkind of self-confinement type of
thing and more drastic,mumungwan things is a
(19:30):
thousand-day thing.
So they have a room, fenced-off, little walking area, maybe 12
feet by, maybe 20 feet, a littlebackyard.
It's fenced off from threesides.
You have the sky and sosometimes they would plant,
(19:52):
sometimes they would go outthere to exercise or meditate.
What have you Same idea food isdelivered daily.
You Same idea food is delivereddaily.
So unless you've organizedyourself in that way, you have
to maintain also thatresponsibility that you have.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Let me swing the pendulum in that direction.
So, if you've decided to commit, have a serious commitment to
what's it say in creating a moveon practice and you've you know
, let's say metaphoricallyspeaking signed the contract,
these are the rules in which I'mgoing to follow.
(20:33):
I'm going to do it.
For this certain amount of timeat this monastery, I've cut
myself off from my daily lifeand daily responsibilities so
that there's no negativespillover onto anyone else.
None of my responsibilitieswill have a negative impact on
the people in my life.
Then you have to adhere andfollow to that with rigorous
(20:54):
suheng, right Action andpurposeful action.
And I have a funny story.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So wait, hold on, because the mugon, mugon suheng
is that silent one.
The silent, that's what I mean,you're talking about silent or
silent one.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
No, silent, a silent practice, right?
So mugon, yeah, mugon, right,because our unsanim, our teacher
, told us a funny story aboutnojangnim, right, he?
They would do traditionally anango, which is a hundred day
retreat that dates back to thetime of the historical Buddha
Sokka Muni Buddha.
They do two a year, one in therainy season, one in the hot,
(21:28):
dry season, and the tradition inKorean Zen is that you have to
make it to a monastery by thefirst day, otherwise you can't
get in, you register and thenyou're homeless.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Essentially, Essentially.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And so you know, unsanim was there as a young
monk with Nojangnim, his teacher, our grandfather teacher, and
there was a monk that joinedthem for the 100-day retreat,
and it was a Mugon retreat, andyou could you cannot talk, and
it was something that theystrictly adhered to, and so one
(22:04):
of the things that people do toavoid having the desire right to
speak is don't look at theperson in the, in the face right
, because once you look at aface, you make eye contact.
That's almost like non-verbalcommunication might spark, and
this actually in exchange I havea.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I have a sort of funny picture within.
Sanimo went to korea.
Uh, my son, right, they hadthey are traditional hats.
Yes, right that that cover upjust enough of your face.
That, if you, you head is keptthe way in a natural position,
but the head comes down so muchin the front that, even if you
(22:43):
wanted to, you can't see theperson's face until you tilt
your head up significantly.
So this idea back in the daymonks, when they would even
travel.
The idea was not to look at theface of the person.
You're sort of in a room almoststill.
You know you see their feet,you see their body and and.
(23:06):
But you could just go on aboutyour business, kind of, even
though you're traveling,traveling meditation, kind of
thing.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know that kind of thing but so I guess you know
our grandfather teacher no jungnim.
He was a very eccentric,non-traditional, think outside
of the box, constantly kind ofZen master, and I think his
point is like, if you're trulyengaging in this kind of
practice, you should be able tocontrol your inner mind whether
(23:32):
you're looking or not looking,because, as the story goes, it
seems like there was a monk thatwore a type of hat like that,
trying to be slick, to wigglehis way around where you're not
going to get me to talk.
Look at me, I'm not going tolook at anyone in the face.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So the reliance on tools versus the reliance on the
mind?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Exactly, yeah, and so Nojangne will quickly expose
your weakness and yourshortcomings.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And so what did he do ?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
in his genius thinking is he created what
seems like clown shoes no, Right, they made at the time they
would weave their own sort ofshoe from grasses, but he made
this huge, you know, let's saysize 14, kind of massive like a.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
It reminds me almost of, like the scuba diving flip.
What are those?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
like fins, I think the McDonald's clown or the
McDonald's Ronald McDonald.
It's a typical shoe.
Yeah, humongous shoes.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
And so, as you can imagine, there was an encounter.
And when that monk looked, he'slike Kusinim, what are those?
He got trapped.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And then Nojang then responded get out.
And it's funny because you seejust flap, flap flap.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
I can imagine the sound of something like duck
feet almost.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Probably he, probably .
I mean this is speculation, butI would suspect maybe he walked
like Charlie Chaplin just toeven make it more impactful, and
that's this is.
This is old way of teaching, isnot to be reproduced as a sort
(25:10):
of monkey.
See monkey do mm-hmm because he.
It's not that he was needlesslysort of entrapment right.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But it's.
He knows the ones who, with alittle dust in their eyes, who
know the minds of others.
He knew what the mind was.
And this seems cruel maybe toour Western way of thinking and
(25:43):
things of that nature, butthere's a compassionate-driven.
These are compassionate-drivenactions, sweeping leaves and
dust and just throwingeverything onto his shoes and
onto his you know, and, and he,the monk, has a rise of emotion,
(26:07):
perhaps, maybe, upside thesunim.
Goodbye, see, ya, see, ya,right this is.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
This is a, for me, a true zen practice.
Right, what's that old zensaying?
It's a an experience outside ofthe scripture, a direct
pointing to the mind.
It's like a finger pointing tothe moon.
Don't focus on the finger oryou'll miss all the heavenly
glory.
You could read about thesethings all day long, but this
was a true suhang experience.
Nojang name exposed to you anarea like a crack in your mind a
(26:39):
an area in your mind where itneeded refinement.
It was a direct highlighting ofthe weak point in your mind.
If those monks had munsasu, ifthey contemplated the experience
and that was a beautifulteaching, a golden opportunity
to right.
(27:00):
If there's a leak in your roofand you don't know, and then a
plumber comes in no, I'm sorry,a roofer comes in and shows you
where it's at, like you can putan end to it right.
You can now patch that up, itis that I think it was Mike
Tyson.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right Family says that everyone's got a plan until
they get punched in the faceright, so it's very difficult
than a face right so it's verydifficult.
I mean we, we to sit on asideline and imagine what I
would do.
I mean, I this is modern times.
We have to to, to a degree,refine and change the, the mode
(27:35):
of operation.
But when there is a, there's atime in the student's
development where thesetechniques are absolutely a must
, because there's a time whenthings we need things explained
and verbalized, and you knowpangpion the way of explaining
(28:01):
things, and then there are timeswhen that kind of thing just
cuts through.
That has to be cut through.
I'm sorry that you know theteaching must be non-verbal,
almost Wordless.
Experience speaks louder because, you never forget the thing on
your skin, and so that kind ofthing, yes, and so the practice
(28:29):
of silence is not only the nottalking bit, is the most
superficial and juvenile really.
Like I said, there'sobservation of the murmur and
then also the content of themurmur.
How much unnecessary stirringof the mind does the mind do?
The complaining of the monkabout clothes and food and bed
(28:53):
and all those things in thatstory are not only funny.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
If your mind is in a complaining mood.
That's what it illustrates is ayear.
So you must imagine that for ayear this monk has been brewing
up a singular point of complaintof all the things going on in
your day-to-day minutiae,because monastic living becomes
(29:29):
just living, right, when weromanticize the setting of, ah,
when I, you know, in a monastery, ah and this and that I would
do such a thing and I would dothis and that.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
That's the movie fantasy that we create, yeah,
how nice, would it be?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
You watch the movie, there's background music and you
think to yourself, and it'sfive minutes.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I would be enlightened, you know
immediately.
Had a not one of our members,but a woman who from time to
time came by just to sit andmeditate, and she had gone on
some retreat and came back andsaid I'm going to India and I'm
(30:12):
going to throw myself into thepractice and do you have any
advice.
And you know we had aconversation.
I asked what sparked it, and soshe said, when she went to the
retreat, the teacher I don'tknow if it was a monk or what
(30:36):
has been practicing for you know30 years or whatever it was.
And they said that, you know,enlightenment eludes them or
something.
And this young woman said, oh,I would just kill myself if I
had to.
You know, sort of really kindof a big, big declaration of an
immature practitioner who thinksthemselves oh, that's I would.
(31:01):
What have they been doing allthis time and this and that,
this kind of thinking of thesimplicity of, ah,
post-enlightenment, theexpressions of simplicity are
that ridiculously simple.
You know the masters would sayoh, it's as easy as touching the
(31:21):
tip of your nose, andpost-enlightenment declarations
of such are different than ajuvenile practitioner making
such grandiose declarations, itis the building blocks and if
not already rooted ego of thepractitioner who's gone to mind
(31:43):
you one retreat?
And they think to themselves ohman, if I was, you know it
really not right.
But it is our.
You know human nature, we couldsay, and modern times are going
to produce ways of thinkingthat are going to need different
(32:06):
ways of dealing with.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I do have… Really fast.
You also, I know in the past,have done, I think, like
half-day retreats here atSoshimsa, yeah, starting early
in the morning, where people doengage in the practice of Mugon.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So that is available.
We haven't done that in a while.
Actually, I don't know if we'vedone it here at this location.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
At the prior location .
I know it was done severaltimes.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, we used to do it every few months, I think.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So it can be done at a retreat setting, which we have
done, and we can also do thistype of practice here for our
members or people that want toengage in that type of practice.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, it is.
You know, the other element ofMughon is I want to sort of just
make a little disclaimer ofwarning of taking up practices
(33:12):
on one's own right and what wesometimes have is a person finds
that, oh, this thing speaks tome and they just go ahead and
kind of mimic the thing.
Oh, this thing speaks to me,and they just go ahead and kind
of mimic the thing, and let'ssay, nine times out of ten
everything is nice and dandy andwhatever, but that one time
there is a danger of spiritualpractice out of context, or when
(33:38):
the practitioner is not primedor trained, or what have you.
I remember when we moved fromWarren, then we had almost like
a two-year hiatus right Beforewe were in Plainfield.
In that time of inactivity, oneof our members was a member at
(34:02):
the Warren location and then wewere sort of in a dormant state
and took precepts at a differenttemple.
When we reconnected, namelywhen he called me after we
reopened, he was in the depthsof depression on the account of
(34:28):
precepts, on the account oftaking the precepts, having no
guidance, having nounderstanding, having not
knowing how to, and this is whywe say things like not.
We say things.
Things have been said like.
This is said about precepts,but it could be said about any.
(34:48):
Really, practice is like ablade of grass held awkwardly,
may cut you mm-hmm so to.
Precepts held awkwardly can cutyou, and so the the things, the
spiritual practices that aremeant for good, in a sense, when
(35:09):
done awkwardly, meaning not noton the right time and time.
Sometimes this means times ofthe year, sometimes this means
time of the practitioner'scurrent state, the journey, time
of the journey.
Sometimes it's too late,sometimes it's too early,
sometimes it's you know.
So it there's a caution to betaken that taken why you need
(35:31):
guidance.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Right, we cannot highlight or stress enough the
importance of having a teacher.
And, as that old saying goes,the farmer knows when the soil
is ready to receive the seedyeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
You know, if you have someone who's sort of tour
guide, right, or a journey guide, or when you go climbing
kilimanjaro, you usually have aguide who's been up the face of
kilimanjaro a number of timesthey could say you know, be
careful.
Here the ice and the snow tendsto be.
(36:08):
You know x, y and z, that kindof thing and here's what you
need to bring Right and when wetake up a practice.
This seems banal and kind ofyou know, it's just a thing.
It's just what wrong or whatbad could come out of it.
Consider going into an areawhere you've never been before.
(36:35):
The fantasy of it.
Like we said, the fantasy of itmay seem oh, that's you know,
that's going to be x, y and z,and this isn't to say.
what it simply says is that wehave imagined a thing before
arriving and you know, we'vetaken a journey to the moon and
(36:58):
we were able to calculate thetrajectory of the spaceship and
the landing and all of this andall of this, and we were able to
calculate all the thingscalculable from here, from Earth
, to the location, but no onewas able to calculate or foresee
just how deeply the boot of theastronauts sank into the lunar
(37:21):
dust.
And this is a very much similarsituation.
We take up a practiceeverything nice and dandy, it
will calculate, but we'recalculating from where we.
Are someone gone and come backand say, hey, I'm interested in
going to the moon?
I said, well, just so you knowmm-hmm such-and-such will go
(37:43):
three years four inches deep.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, the you need to have such-and-such footing.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So that's the similar thing, we do have a fan mail
that addresses or asks we'vedone two episodes of karma and
so this came out of it.
Maybe a suggestion if there'sgenerational karma, how is that
(38:15):
fair?
Do we have to pay back karmicdebt that our predecessors
accumulated?
How do we make up for someoneelse's deed, whether good or bad
?
Hmm, thank you.
Okay, and yeah, the fairnessbit is, we have to remember we
(38:44):
try to cover as much ground aspossible in terms of the karma
and the principle of it in thetwo episodes and the intricacy
of that spider web or the web,but you know we could say spider
web the intricacy of it must beremembered when thinking of it.
(39:10):
We had so many elements of thehyon in hyongwa, hyon in mungwa,
on top of the table, on top ofthe table, under the table, all
those things.
Then we had the past and thefruition, the time of the
fruition, etc.
So, when considering all ofthose things simultaneously as
factors, as playing factors,what we, in shorthand, almost
(39:37):
call a relationship that we haveto anything, we call that inyon
, and inyon is, yeah, we couldsay, a relationship, a
relationship to something, thatis to say, you and I have union,
right, we've been friends for athousand years, few of those
(40:06):
years in this life, yeah, andbut also that chair you're
sitting on and the chair I'msitting in.
We have an inion to it too.
I mean there are numbers of them, and this could get so complex,
right, but the understanding issimply this we are so
(40:29):
intertwined and interwoven intoexistence that is around us,
this microphone I'm speakinginto, why this one?
Why there were thousands uponthousands of these microphones
made, why this one is in frontof my face?
Why this one?
Why not the one you're usingRight?
So all of those things arereally an intricately woven
(40:51):
tapestry, and these roots andthreads connect the way that
rivers, if you will, a flowingwater might one water and a
little offshoot of it will flowinto another river, etc.
(41:12):
So this kind of tapestry,interwoven, all things are
interwoven in that way, and sothe thing to remember when
thinking of karma is let me seejust want to get the verbiage
here.
If there's generational karma,how is that fair?
Well, the parents that we areborn into as our parents,
(41:39):
there's a karmic connection tothose two people.
Between those two peoplethere's a karmic connection, and
that is a two-way street in alldirections.
That is to say, sometimes weare born there.
There's a such thing as a sortof revenge birth, right when
we're born on a kind of karmicrevenge trip where we, you know,
(42:01):
take revenge upon someone thathas done it, considered the
lifetimes upon lifetimes ofinteraction between beings,
karma and its cause and effect,all of that kind of thing.
So we have the parents.
That we have is because it'skarmically, it's a inyan, it's a
(42:22):
karmic relationship.
Those parents have us aschildren because it is also
their inyan to us If you havesiblings, etc, etc.
So think about you have themother and the father and then
you have the, let's say, a sonand a daughter.
The son connection of the sonto the mother is one.
(42:45):
Connection to the son to thefather is one connection.
Daughter to the son.
Daughter to the mother is oneConnection.
Daughter to the son, daughterto the mother is one.
Connection of the daughter tothe father is one Connection of
the daughter to the brother isone Connection of the brother to
the daughter is one Connectionof the husband to the wife and
the wife to the husband, and Imean just there.
That's pretty entangled net Now, mind you, if you consider also
(43:10):
the fact of the time offruition of karma.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
So there's also that that's a konop.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
We are born in this time period, time period, the
location, whether the family iswell off or in hardship, etc.
All of those things are stringsof karmic connection interwoven
, whether the family is well offor in hardship, et cetera, et
cetera.
All of those things are stringsof karmic connection interwoven
.
We must beware ofoversimplifying the oh this
(43:42):
because of that, and so to thinkof it as fair and not fair.
It is absolutely fair becauseit is made by us.
These relationships andconnections are made, they're
forged by us, forged by us notnecessarily in the single
lifetime as we've talked about,right.
(44:04):
So each think about eachlifetime.
Let's say, five lifetimes ago Iand somebody else had a
relationship.
Let's say we produced offspring.
Let's say the next life, youknow, there's a another
correlation, another connection,and then the next life, and
there's this thing, and you knownow, five lives later, I am
married to or I have a offspringof sorts, and and there are
(44:29):
various layers of connectionsstill existing from that time.
How is that fair?
Cause and effect are just.
That's the.
It's the fair and unfair is asaying of our ego, mind, of our
fair and not fair.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
You're imposing your own idea onto the.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Right and fair and not fair simply means we cannot
see the causality.
If we did, the fair and notfair would be ah, the dots would
be connected.
Kurokuna, it is so Right,that's what it would be.
It would be a declaration, ah,it is so I think I want to just
(45:11):
highlight that.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
And do you think that the nature of the in the return
is impersonal?
You made it right, meaning you.
So you, you plant pumpkin,pumpkin returns.
It's not.
That's what returns.
The pumpkin is not returningbecause it hates you or just
(45:34):
likes you.
It was the seed that you plantedthat came to fruition, because
I think when you engage in toomuch of this, it's not fair.
There's a lot of comparisonsthat are taking place where
you're trying to collapse thenature to match your idea.
Again're saying then that's theego, right, right, and I don't
think you can learn.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I think you're going to really limit your ability to
understand and learn and it has,and it has roots in that, in
that kind of judy, christian,you know, right, father figure
kind of bestowing you know, knowyou're being punished or you're
being rewarded for your action,type of thing.
Oh, it's gonna go.
(46:15):
I've um, I didn't notice thetime random and so, yes, that's
the.
Don't think of it as fair Thinkof it as fair.
Think of it as it is cause andeffect.
And if we saw the causality andthe kind of I believe the word
(46:44):
of it is amelioration, sort ofreorganization, that kind of
thing it would make for anacceptance as opposed to for
it's fair or unfair.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
You won't see the nature of the objects or the
interplay, or the union, theconnections between the objects.
Let me just give an example andsee if I can make this a little
practical for the audience andthis person.
It's like if you have a tennisball in your hand and you're
standing in front of a wall.
You know the tennis ball has anature, the nature is to bounce
(47:23):
and the wall has a nature to besolid, right.
And then you decide to put thattennis ball in motion at a
prior time.
You enact that On the timeline.
It's like I'm going to throwthis ball towards the wall and
then what comes later in thetimeline is when that ball,
whose nature is to bounce, whenit touches a solid object, it
(47:44):
touches a solid object and thenit bounces back.
It did not bounce back becauseit goes this person.
I did you just did you justthrow me against the wall.
You know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna now no, I'm not gonnago at the angle towards the
floor.
I'm going to now shift thedirection in which I was
(48:04):
supposed to go and I'm going tochange my trajectory and go
right back towards you and hityou in the nose, right and we
can, because I hate youcalculate, we can mathematically
calculatethe trajectory exactly and and
it would have to just followthat course.
It doesn't change coursebecause of a personal factor,
right?
So it's not a vendetta.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
The.
The tennis ball doesn't have avendetta against you.
It's simply responding to a waythat was put into action and so
then the reaction isappropriate.
Do we have?
Uh, so if there's generationkarma, how is that fair?
There you go.
It's a fairness, is ourperception and a perspective of
(48:48):
things as there are on and aperspective of things as they
are unfolding in our lives.
And simply fair means I like itor dislike it.
Right, ultimately Right, do wehave to pay back karmic debt
that our predecessorsaccumulated?
Well, again, there is a negativeconnotation to this.
(49:08):
If you have a genericpredisposition to certain
disease, you've inherited thatYou're also going to pass onto
your offspring certain things,and so it is to pay back.
Again, if we consider thattwo-way street of the thettering
(49:38):
of karmic things, it's almostas if it's one cardiovascular
system, like the veins that pumpblood.
So it's almost as if the karmicflow of life, when we think of
another person in generations,like there's a person there and
then there's the me here what ifwe're sort of connected, an
(50:03):
intravenous kind of exchange wastaking place.
We are not separate, so to say.
I have to pay back the debt ofsome other person.
Well, we're paying for theirdoings.
As we speak, if you're borninto an affluent family and
you're afforded the ability togo to an Ivy League school
(50:25):
because your parents, you know,had generational wealth that you
were enjoying.
If you're born into poverty,then of course there's our
individual karma, which makes itpossible to change these
situations, but nonethelessthere's that intricate
connection there.
How do we make up for someoneelse's deed, whether good or bad
(50:50):
?
We're not to make up forsomeone else's deed, whether
good or bad.
Um, we're not to make up forother person's deed.
This is our doing again.
This is flying away fromourselves towards other things.
There's a lot of speculation,because then, kind of the
(51:10):
question, maybe the Zen kind ofanswer would be well, what are
you doing for you?
And that's the thing we work onourselves, because we have this
.
This is why the outcome of myactions for myself does not
(51:36):
exist in a vacuum.
There are many, many otherpeople who are participating in
this, whether we like it or not.
Nothing that we do is kind ofisolated in a vacuum and if you
think to yourself, even well, ifI punch myself in my face, no
one's no, there's no one else isaffected.
(51:58):
So, on one layer, you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
You have little platelets that are right like
firemen sleeping waiting, andyou punched yourself, maybe cut
yourself.
Well, you just woke those guysup and they were relaxing.
Now you put them to work.
Now they're tortured.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
So there's that right and then also, somebody has to
deal with the repercussions, andwe see this um in in frequently
with self-destructive behaviors.
Right, oh, I'm not hurtinganybody, anybody else, you know,
if I'm drunk driving through adesert, I'm not hurting anybody.
(52:34):
It is not a correct way tothink so we tend to ourselves.
As we said in the bonus track.
I am not for me.
You know what, perhaps thisdual and I don't even know if
(52:55):
we've talked about this alreadyI Am Not For Me.
Anyway, things to think aboutfor the future.
Perhaps Our time is up.
This was a as, as a asimpromptus, uncoupled together
(53:18):
and as a meandering an episode,as one could imagine.
And this is what we get.
Anyway, thank you, I am youngand sitting here, withim, here,
with Dr Ruben Lambert, take careof yourselves and each other,
from my heart to yours.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
If you like what you hear, pass it on to someone else
so that they can enjoy andbenefit from this podcast.
Hello, my name is Louise and I am a member of the
Soshimsa Zen Center in Middlesex, new Jersey.
Have you heard our podcast yet?
It drops every Friday and itaddresses everyday life with a
Buddhist perspective.
The podcast is hosted byMyung-An Sunim, the abbot of our
(00:36):
center, and Dr Ruben Lambert, alicensed psychologist and
Buddhist monk.
Each week they answer listenerquestions and tackle issues that
pop up and affect our everydaylife.
I often listen to them morethan once.
Each time I am left with alittle nugget of knowledge that
helps me navigate my own life.
(00:58):
Myung An Sunim also offersbonus tracks five-minute talks
about almost anything that willdefinitely get you thinking.
Nothing highbrow, just everydaytalk.
To listen, just go to ourwebsite, soshimsaorg, and hit
the podcast button.
You can also find us onBuzzsprout, youtube, apple and
(01:24):
Spotify.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We hope you can join us and give us your support.
You know I had taken thetemporary vow of silence.
If you will, the Mugon SuhaengI was just thinking about that
Since Sunday evening, until well, frankly until today.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
What's the term in Korean?
Say that again.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Mugon, mugon, suhaeng , suhaeng is like a training,
like a practice Mugon.
It actually is worth unpackinga little bit.
But I say this to say that wehave not had a conversation or
(02:10):
discussion of what we're goingto talk about today since I
wasn't talking right andchallenging to yes, welcome back
to this world throughs a nicepodcast meander, as it's going
to be episode, the opposite of m, the opposite of.
Mugon, the opposite of Mugon.
Talky talky now yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Do you have that funky story that you told me I
wasn't able to make it to thelast retreat because my son was
born at the time, but you guysdid half a day.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I think of that, and then the teacher's response at
the end of the movie.
That was pretty funny, that waspretty good actually this was
good.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
I had a phone call prior to the retreat.
This was the Taste of Zenretreat.
So it's a weekend retreat, awayfrom here, overnight thing.
And I get a phone call priortoo and the woman says you know,
I'm a, a teacher, and so I talkall day.
(03:06):
This silence thing is reallygoing to be challenging.
I don't know if I could do it.
I said well, the atmospherehopefully will will help you out
it'll set you up you know, anduh, the first day, for so they
would get the friday night.
There's a little orientation andthey say, well, starting
tomorrow morning early rising,early morning, bell chant, etc.
(03:30):
Etc.
And so silence for half a day.
They're sort of released fromthe clutches of of silence and
and the finished program.
I said, well, look at the time,you are now free to talk.
And out of the back of thegroup the woman goes I made it.
(03:55):
That was like old faithful ageyser erupt it was just
building and building, yeahpressure was building and then
release yeah, and, and it wasjust you know it was perfect
because everybody just broke outinto you know a cackle and a go
, fall and laughter, all aboutuh-huh and um, but you know it's
(04:17):
.
There's this uh funny story of amonk who joins a monastery that
is renowned for the vow ofsilence, and so he goes there
and has the initial interviewwith the abbot and the abbot
tells him you know, once a yearyou're able, we will have an
(04:40):
interview once a year and youcould say two words.
So for the rest of the yearit's complete silence.
And so, year by goes by, it'stime for the monks interview.
He comes before the abbot asthe deep bow sits down and the
abbot nods to say what are yourtowards?
(05:02):
And amongst us, robes, rough,the.
The back story of this isnowadays a summer robe in
particular, is a Sundaybae.
Sunbae is like hemp, and thisis the irony of how things flow
(05:33):
and ebb and flow, because thisis true also with tea sets and
tea cups.
A tea cup, nowadays moreexpensive tea cups are the ones
that look artisan, that looksort of you know, imperfect, a
little crackly.
There's a kind of beauty inthat that is being sought out
(05:54):
prior to that.
So it's it.
This is true with, with mung'srobe and and things generally
right.
So it was the.
We started off with these roughthings like brown rice and cups
that are kind of, you know,crooked a little bit, you know,
sad in a sense.
And then we pursued refinement,so you know thin-walled, kind
(06:17):
of china, right, pristine,smooth, smooth, right White rice
, right, right, smooth, smooth,right white rice, right right,
the, the, the robes and the moresort of silk, and, and silk has
untie, antibacterial propertiesand a number of things, so it
(06:41):
was used, but anyway nonethelesskind of smooth and refined
things all around.
And then we are now returned tothe artisan, the handmade, you
know the artisan bakery, wherethe loaf is just a little bit
misshapen and, like you know,grandma made it somewhere in the
(07:02):
oven and you know we want to bein the oven, and you know.
We want to be able to tell thatthe human hand touched it right.
And teacups, same thing.
Teacups, you know, theimperfect ones, the little bit
kind of cockeyed ones.
Those are the ones that areexpensive.
Robes too, I believe.
(07:25):
I don't know what the current,because I had looked into them.
They're supposed to be reallyfantastic for summer.
They're breathable, I mean it'slinen, kind of linen-esque, but
I can't afford them, which isinsane, right.
(07:45):
That monks couldn't afford robes, but anyway.
So that's that.
So we went from rough robes torefined robes.
Back to rough robes.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And back.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And so you know, and that's why the monk after the
year in monastery says robesrough, right, because the color
you know it's.
Even the old school wool usedto be sort of itchy, sure.
I can see that Now it's refined, and you know, now it's all
nice.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
I remember seeing those robes what are they called
?
The ones that are really likealmost see-through.
Yes, I remember seeing those atIlbongsa.
Yeah, it was a very hot day.
It was like 100 degrees in theshade and the kunsunim there and
the, I think, the abbot of themonastery.
He was doing a 100 day prayerservice for a kunsunim of the
(08:40):
Bodhisattva of Compassion and hewas doing it outdoors Right
there was a statue and mygoodness, it was hot, yeah, but
when I saw him he was wearingthose robes, right, yep, they
looked almost like the air canflow in and out of them.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, they're called Samba and traditionally, a long
time ago even thinner thannowadays there was almost like
this and nowadays there wasalmost like this.
It's difficult to describe inwords, but these things that
(09:16):
held on to your forearm and itsort of had almost like
scaffolding from very thinbamboo strips so that the
clothes does not lay on yourskin.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
So just you know, you get like wind tunnel.
Yeah, so it doesn't stick toyou.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Anyway.
So this monk year in and he hashis two words with Abbot and he
says robes rough.
Abbot bows, he bows off, hegoes.
You know, perhaps the Abbottended to the needs of the
community and maybe got him atleast a collar.
(09:50):
There's like a thing you put ona collar that makes it softer.
Year two, another year goes by.
The monk presents himselfbefore the abbot.
That's his deep bow.
Abbott nods as to say give meyour two words.
He says bad, hard.
(10:12):
Abbott nods Off, he goes.
You know to think about it.
Really it's probably the badheart came first, knowing sort
of how human beings are.
Year three, so three years in,this monk has been in this
(10:33):
monastery practicing.
Year three time for theinterview.
He presents himself before theabbot does the dipao is invited
to sit.
Abbot nods to say give me yourtwo words, food, cold.
The abbot nods, but the monksort of makes a gesture to say
(11:00):
something.
He doesn't say anything,something doesn't say it.
Year four the monk comes beforethe abbot prostrates himself.
Abbot nods as the monk openshis mouth before he the before
words come out of his mouth.
The abbot stops him and saysget out right.
(11:22):
And and shocked now he sayswhat?
Why he says all you do iscomplain.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Boy out of two words a year.
He saved those two words justto make a complaint.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
It's such a splendid story.
Oh, my goodness, you know Mugunpractice.
The observance of silence isnot really simply don't talk.
It exposes to you and when wedo retreats we see this it
(12:05):
exposes to you the constant,incessant murmuring going on
inside.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I love that word murmuring.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That is just splendid .
You think you're quiet.
It's a noise.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Murmur, but it arises almost.
You think you're quiet, youthink you're quiet, but then
there's noise that comes out ofthat.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
It's like your refrigerator when the motor
comes in, it hums right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
But you don't think about it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Murmur.
So our minds murmur incessantlyand Mugong practice helps us to
become more aware of that.
It filters.
The talking bit is really themost superficial element of
(12:57):
Mughun, In fact two times duringmy silence.
For this week I had a tea withAbbott and obviously we had a
conversation, and I'm prettysure there are people who there
was kind of like a spillover.
A person was leaving, havinghad tea with Abbott, while a
(13:20):
participant of another programwas coming in, and they heard me
talk.
And then they kind of laterlook and I had around my neck a
thing that says I am observingsilence, I'm Mugon Suheng, and
I'm sure they've thought tothemselves wait a minute, I just
heard him talking.
Of course, our suheng cannotdeprive us from tending to the
(13:51):
needs of the community, and soI've suspended the suheng for
the needs of people who neededadvice and needed to talk to me.
Sure of people who needed adviceand needed to talk to me.
Yeah, so it's not some weirdothings like.
It's not this kind of dogma,run over your karma thing,
(14:16):
you're doing that right?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, this is again a misconception by many people or
a how do we say a misconstruedunderstanding of religious
practice.
You're undergoing the practiceof silence and this becomes a
chip chuck.
This just becomes a blanketover your whole life, right?
And then someone falls and theysay call for help, right.
(14:42):
And you see, let's say, apolice officer across the street
that can get an ambulance therein two seconds, and what?
You're going to be there allrighteous.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Miming or I don't speak.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I don't speak at this moment.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I'm seeking enlightenment.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
That is not the true bodhisattva path, right?
So I completely understandwhere you're coming from and I
hope our audience can grasp thisconcept where you know, not for
you.
You suspended your practice forthe benefit of enlightening
those who are in need.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, there's a show, it or IT, it as in computer
work I think it's a British showand one of the gentlemen there,
these two guys, are cast intothe bosom like the basement of
(15:40):
this large corporation.
They're IT guys and it's acomedy.
And a fire breaks out in thatlittle office and one of the
guys sits down as he sees thefire beginning to get more and
more and he starts writing anemail to the fire department
(16:00):
Dear Chief, no.
And he goes through a number ofkind of thing and finally he
goes help, help.
He types it into the, you know,sends an email, so it's, it's
kind of that, that thing, rightit yeah it is um well, I think
it is a living, breathingphilosophy.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
right, right, right, robust.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
And if you are going to make, you know, a drastic
kind of like a vow of a thing orwhatever practice, you make it
within the context of existence.
Right.
If you are going to say, take avow of silence that renders you
(16:48):
unable to provide the teachingor advice etc.
Etc.
Then you position yourself so.
Maybe, you can't be the abbotfor one, Can't be the abbot.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Maybe you can't be at a.
How do you call again the citytemple?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Popyodang.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Maybe you can't be at a city temple.
You go to the hermitage etc.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Etc.
And this is where we have likemumungwan practices, for example
.
Mumungwan means no gate.
The Zen center on Jeju Island,about halfway up the Hala
(17:34):
Mountain.
The Hala Mountain is a volcanic, a volcano, really, and so this
monastery was located abouthalfway, I think, and there
there was an area that wassecluded and no trespassing, and
(17:56):
the only reason why I was ableto see what was there is because
I was a henja at the time, so Iwas practicing, I was a student
in training.
I was practicing, I was astudent in training, so one of
our duties was to bring food tothe monks who resided at that
building, and essentially whatit was?
It was a building with roomsbuilt into it flanking the four
(18:19):
sides, and center there was alarge room like for together
practice or whatever it is thatthey did, but essentially what
this was kind of were cells ofof each individual monk who
lived there and there was amouth reminding you like office
cubicles.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It was almost right, but they're closed off, yeah
they're closed off room.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
So from the center you enter into the building
through to a main door.
There's the big central roomand then on all three sides of
it are little cells with thedoor.
The outside of the building hasa little trap door for each
room.
So you open the little door,you slide in a tray of food and
(19:05):
then later on in the day we pickit up, and sometimes they would
leave a little note to saythey're requesting, let's say,
honey, they weren't feeling goodor whatever.
There was a three-year waitinglist to be able to live in.
This is a one-year confinementkind of self-confinement type of
thing and more drastic,mumungwan things is a
(19:30):
thousand-day thing.
So they have a room, fenced-off, little walking area, maybe 12
feet by, maybe 20 feet, a littlebackyard.
It's fenced off from threesides.
You have the sky and sosometimes they would plant,
(19:52):
sometimes they would go outthere to exercise or meditate.
What have you Same idea food isdelivered daily.
You Same idea food is delivereddaily.
So unless you've organizedyourself in that way, you have
to maintain also thatresponsibility that you have.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Let me swing the pendulum in that direction.
So, if you've decided to commit, have a serious commitment to
what's it say in creating a moveon practice and you've you know
, let's say metaphoricallyspeaking signed the contract,
these are the rules in which I'mgoing to follow.
(20:33):
I'm going to do it.
For this certain amount of timeat this monastery, I've cut
myself off from my daily lifeand daily responsibilities so
that there's no negativespillover onto anyone else.
None of my responsibilitieswill have a negative impact on
the people in my life.
Then you have to adhere andfollow to that with rigorous
(20:54):
suheng, right Action andpurposeful action.
And I have a funny story.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So wait, hold on, because the mugon, mugon suheng
is that silent one.
The silent, that's what I mean,you're talking about silent or
silent one.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
No, silent, a silent practice, right?
So mugon, yeah, mugon, right,because our unsanim, our teacher
, told us a funny story aboutnojangnim, right, he?
They would do traditionally anango, which is a hundred day
retreat that dates back to thetime of the historical Buddha
Sokka Muni Buddha.
They do two a year, one in therainy season, one in the hot,
(21:28):
dry season, and the tradition inKorean Zen is that you have to
make it to a monastery by thefirst day, otherwise you can't
get in, you register and thenyou're homeless.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Essentially, Essentially.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And so you know, unsanim was there as a young
monk with Nojangnim, his teacher, our grandfather teacher, and
there was a monk that joinedthem for the 100-day retreat,
and it was a Mugon retreat, andyou could you cannot talk, and
it was something that theystrictly adhered to, and so one
(22:04):
of the things that people do toavoid having the desire right to
speak is don't look at theperson in the, in the face right
, because once you look at aface, you make eye contact.
That's almost like non-verbalcommunication might spark, and
this actually in exchange I havea.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I have a sort of funny picture within.
Sanimo went to korea.
Uh, my son, right, they hadthey are traditional hats.
Yes, right that that cover upjust enough of your face.
That, if you, you head is keptthe way in a natural position,
but the head comes down so muchin the front that, even if you
(22:43):
wanted to, you can't see theperson's face until you tilt
your head up significantly.
So this idea back in the daymonks, when they would even
travel.
The idea was not to look at theface of the person.
You're sort of in a room almoststill.
You know you see their feet,you see their body and and.
(23:06):
But you could just go on aboutyour business, kind of, even
though you're traveling,traveling meditation, kind of
thing.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
You know that kind of thing but so I guess you know
our grandfather teacher no jungnim.
He was a very eccentric,non-traditional, think outside
of the box, constantly kind ofZen master, and I think his
point is like, if you're trulyengaging in this kind of
practice, you should be able tocontrol your inner mind whether
(23:32):
you're looking or not looking,because, as the story goes, it
seems like there was a monk thatwore a type of hat like that,
trying to be slick, to wigglehis way around where you're not
going to get me to talk.
Look at me, I'm not going tolook at anyone in the face.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So the reliance on tools versus the reliance on the
mind?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Exactly, yeah, and so Nojangne will quickly expose
your weakness and yourshortcomings.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And so what did he do ?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
in his genius thinking is he created what
seems like clown shoes no, Right, they made at the time they
would weave their own sort ofshoe from grasses, but he made
this huge, you know, let's saysize 14, kind of massive like a.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
It reminds me almost of, like the scuba diving flip.
What are those?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
like fins, I think the McDonald's clown or the
McDonald's Ronald McDonald.
It's a typical shoe.
Yeah, humongous shoes.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
And so, as you can imagine, there was an encounter.
And when that monk looked, he'slike Kusinim, what are those?
He got trapped.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
And then Nojang then responded get out.
And it's funny because you seejust flap, flap flap.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
I can imagine the sound of something like duck
feet almost.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Probably he, probably .
I mean this is speculation, butI would suspect maybe he walked
like Charlie Chaplin just toeven make it more impactful, and
that's this is.
This is old way of teaching, isnot to be reproduced as a sort
(25:10):
of monkey.
See monkey do mm-hmm because he.
It's not that he was needlesslysort of entrapment right.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But it's.
He knows the ones who, with alittle dust in their eyes, who
know the minds of others.
He knew what the mind was.
And this seems cruel maybe toour Western way of thinking and
(25:43):
things of that nature, butthere's a compassionate-driven.
These are compassionate-drivenactions, sweeping leaves and
dust and just throwingeverything onto his shoes and
onto his you know, and, and he,the monk, has a rise of emotion,
(26:07):
perhaps, maybe, upside thesunim.
Goodbye, see, ya, see, ya,right this is.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
This is a, for me, a true zen practice.
Right, what's that old zensaying?
It's a an experience outside ofthe scripture, a direct
pointing to the mind.
It's like a finger pointing tothe moon.
Don't focus on the finger oryou'll miss all the heavenly
glory.
You could read about thesethings all day long, but this
was a true suhang experience.
Nojang name exposed to you anarea like a crack in your mind a
(26:39):
an area in your mind where itneeded refinement.
It was a direct highlighting ofthe weak point in your mind.
If those monks had munsasu, ifthey contemplated the experience
and that was a beautifulteaching, a golden opportunity
to right.
(27:00):
If there's a leak in your roofand you don't know, and then a
plumber comes in no, I'm sorry,a roofer comes in and shows you
where it's at, like you can putan end to it right.
You can now patch that up, itis that I think it was Mike
Tyson.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right Family says that everyone's got a plan until
they get punched in the faceright, so it's very difficult
than a face right so it's verydifficult.
I mean we, we to sit on asideline and imagine what I
would do.
I mean, I this is modern times.
We have to to, to a degree,refine and change the, the mode
(27:35):
of operation.
But when there is a, there's atime in the student's
development where thesetechniques are absolutely a must
, because there's a time whenthings we need things explained
and verbalized, and you knowpangpion the way of explaining
(28:01):
things, and then there are timeswhen that kind of thing just
cuts through.
That has to be cut through.
I'm sorry that you know theteaching must be non-verbal,
almost Wordless.
Experience speaks louder because, you never forget the thing on
your skin, and so that kind ofthing, yes, and so the practice
(28:29):
of silence is not only the nottalking bit, is the most
superficial and juvenile really.
Like I said, there'sobservation of the murmur and
then also the content of themurmur.
How much unnecessary stirringof the mind does the mind do?
The complaining of the monkabout clothes and food and bed
(28:53):
and all those things in thatstory are not only funny.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
If your mind is in a complaining mood.
That's what it illustrates is ayear.
So you must imagine that for ayear this monk has been brewing
up a singular point of complaintof all the things going on in
your day-to-day minutiae,because monastic living becomes
(29:29):
just living, right, when weromanticize the setting of, ah,
when I, you know, in a monastery, ah and this and that I would
do such a thing and I would dothis and that.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
That's the movie fantasy that we create, yeah,
how nice, would it be?
Speaker 4 (29:48):
You watch the movie, there's background music and you
think to yourself, and it'sfive minutes.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I would be enlightened, you know
immediately.
Had a not one of our members,but a woman who from time to
time came by just to sit andmeditate, and she had gone on
some retreat and came back andsaid I'm going to India and I'm
(30:12):
going to throw myself into thepractice and do you have any
advice.
And you know we had aconversation.
I asked what sparked it, and soshe said, when she went to the
retreat, the teacher I don'tknow if it was a monk or what
(30:36):
has been practicing for you know30 years or whatever it was.
And they said that, you know,enlightenment eludes them or
something.
And this young woman said, oh,I would just kill myself if I
had to.
You know, sort of really kindof a big, big declaration of an
immature practitioner who thinksthemselves oh, that's I would.
(31:01):
What have they been doing allthis time and this and that,
this kind of thinking of thesimplicity of, ah,
post-enlightenment, theexpressions of simplicity are
that ridiculously simple.
You know the masters would sayoh, it's as easy as touching the
(31:21):
tip of your nose, andpost-enlightenment declarations
of such are different than ajuvenile practitioner making
such grandiose declarations, itis the building blocks and if
not already rooted ego of thepractitioner who's gone to mind
(31:43):
you one retreat?
And they think to themselves ohman, if I was, you know it
really not right.
But it is our.
You know human nature, we couldsay, and modern times are going
to produce ways of thinkingthat are going to need different
(32:06):
ways of dealing with.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I do have… Really fast.
You also, I know in the past,have done, I think, like
half-day retreats here atSoshimsa, yeah, starting early
in the morning, where people doengage in the practice of Mugon.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So that is available.
We haven't done that in a while.
Actually, I don't know if we'vedone it here at this location.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
At the prior location .
I know it was done severaltimes.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, we used to do it every few months, I think.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So it can be done at a retreat setting, which we have
done, and we can also do thistype of practice here for our
members or people that want toengage in that type of practice.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, it is.
You know, the other element ofMughon is I want to sort of just
make a little disclaimer ofwarning of taking up practices
(33:12):
on one's own right and what wesometimes have is a person finds
that, oh, this thing speaks tome and they just go ahead and
kind of mimic the thing.
Oh, this thing speaks to me,and they just go ahead and kind
of mimic the thing, and let'ssay, nine times out of ten
everything is nice and dandy andwhatever, but that one time
there is a danger of spiritualpractice out of context, or when
(33:38):
the practitioner is not primedor trained, or what have you.
I remember when we moved fromWarren, then we had almost like
a two-year hiatus right Beforewe were in Plainfield.
In that time of inactivity, oneof our members was a member at
(34:02):
the Warren location and then wewere sort of in a dormant state
and took precepts at a differenttemple.
When we reconnected, namelywhen he called me after we
reopened, he was in the depthsof depression on the account of
(34:28):
precepts, on the account oftaking the precepts, having no
guidance, having nounderstanding, having not
knowing how to, and this is whywe say things like not.
We say things.
Things have been said like.
This is said about precepts,but it could be said about any.
(34:48):
Really, practice is like ablade of grass held awkwardly,
may cut you mm-hmm so to.
Precepts held awkwardly can cutyou, and so the the things, the
spiritual practices that aremeant for good, in a sense, when
(35:09):
done awkwardly, meaning not noton the right time and time.
Sometimes this means times ofthe year, sometimes this means
time of the practitioner'scurrent state, the journey, time
of the journey.
Sometimes it's too late,sometimes it's too early,
sometimes it's you know.
So it there's a caution to betaken that taken why you need
(35:31):
guidance.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Right, we cannot highlight or stress enough the
importance of having a teacher.
And, as that old saying goes,the farmer knows when the soil
is ready to receive the seedyeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
You know, if you have someone who's sort of tour
guide, right, or a journey guide, or when you go climbing
kilimanjaro, you usually have aguide who's been up the face of
kilimanjaro a number of timesthey could say you know, be
careful.
Here the ice and the snow tendsto be.
(36:08):
You know x, y and z, that kindof thing and here's what you
need to bring Right and when wetake up a practice.
This seems banal and kind ofyou know, it's just a thing.
It's just what wrong or whatbad could come out of it.
Consider going into an areawhere you've never been before.
(36:35):
The fantasy of it.
Like we said, the fantasy of itmay seem oh, that's you know,
that's going to be x, y and z,and this isn't to say.
what it simply says is that wehave imagined a thing before
arriving and you know, we'vetaken a journey to the moon and
(36:58):
we were able to calculate thetrajectory of the spaceship and
the landing and all of this andall of this, and we were able to
calculate all the thingscalculable from here, from Earth
, to the location, but no onewas able to calculate or foresee
just how deeply the boot of theastronauts sank into the lunar
(37:21):
dust.
And this is a very much similarsituation.
We take up a practiceeverything nice and dandy, it
will calculate, but we'recalculating from where we.
Are someone gone and come backand say, hey, I'm interested in
going to the moon?
I said, well, just so you knowmm-hmm such-and-such will go
(37:43):
three years four inches deep.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, the you need to have such-and-such footing.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
So that's the similar thing, we do have a fan mail
that addresses or asks we'vedone two episodes of karma and
so this came out of it.
Maybe a suggestion if there'sgenerational karma, how is that
(38:15):
fair?
Do we have to pay back karmicdebt that our predecessors
accumulated?
How do we make up for someoneelse's deed, whether good or bad
?
Hmm, thank you.
Okay, and yeah, the fairnessbit is, we have to remember we
(38:44):
try to cover as much ground aspossible in terms of the karma
and the principle of it in thetwo episodes and the intricacy
of that spider web or the web,but you know we could say spider
web the intricacy of it must beremembered when thinking of it.
(39:10):
We had so many elements of thehyon in hyongwa, hyon in mungwa,
on top of the table, on top ofthe table, under the table, all
those things.
Then we had the past and thefruition, the time of the
fruition, etc.
So, when considering all ofthose things simultaneously as
factors, as playing factors,what we, in shorthand, almost
(39:37):
call a relationship that we haveto anything, we call that inyon
, and inyon is, yeah, we couldsay, a relationship, a
relationship to something, thatis to say, you and I have union,
right, we've been friends for athousand years, few of those
(40:06):
years in this life, yeah, andbut also that chair you're
sitting on and the chair I'msitting in.
We have an inion to it too.
I mean there are numbers of them, and this could get so complex,
right, but the understanding issimply this we are so
(40:29):
intertwined and interwoven intoexistence that is around us,
this microphone I'm speakinginto, why this one?
Why there were thousands uponthousands of these microphones
made, why this one is in frontof my face?
Why this one?
Why not the one you're usingRight?
So all of those things arereally an intricately woven
(40:51):
tapestry, and these roots andthreads connect the way that
rivers, if you will, a flowingwater might one water and a
little offshoot of it will flowinto another river, etc.
(41:12):
So this kind of tapestry,interwoven, all things are
interwoven in that way, and sothe thing to remember when
thinking of karma is let me seejust want to get the verbiage
here.
If there's generational karma,how is that fair?
Well, the parents that we areborn into as our parents,
(41:39):
there's a karmic connection tothose two people.
Between those two peoplethere's a karmic connection, and
that is a two-way street in alldirections.
That is to say, sometimes weare born there.
There's a such thing as a sortof revenge birth, right when
we're born on a kind of karmicrevenge trip where we, you know,
(42:01):
take revenge upon someone thathas done it, considered the
lifetimes upon lifetimes ofinteraction between beings,
karma and its cause and effect,all of that kind of thing.
So we have the parents.
That we have is because it'skarmically, it's a inyan, it's a
(42:22):
karmic relationship.
Those parents have us aschildren because it is also
their inyan to us If you havesiblings, etc, etc.
So think about you have themother and the father and then
you have the, let's say, a sonand a daughter.
The son connection of the sonto the mother is one.
(42:45):
Connection to the son to thefather is one connection.
Daughter to the son.
Daughter to the mother is oneConnection.
Daughter to the son, daughterto the mother is one.
Connection of the daughter tothe father is one Connection of
the daughter to the brother isone Connection of the brother to
the daughter is one Connectionof the husband to the wife and
the wife to the husband, and Imean just there.
That's pretty entangled net Now, mind you, if you consider also
(43:10):
the fact of the time offruition of karma.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
So there's also that that's a konop.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
We are born in this time period, time period, the
location, whether the family iswell off or in hardship, etc.
All of those things are stringsof karmic connection interwoven
, whether the family is well offor in hardship, et cetera, et
cetera.
All of those things are stringsof karmic connection interwoven
.
We must beware ofoversimplifying the oh this
(43:42):
because of that, and so to thinkof it as fair and not fair.
It is absolutely fair becauseit is made by us.
These relationships andconnections are made, they're
forged by us, forged by us notnecessarily in the single
lifetime as we've talked about,right.
(44:04):
So each think about eachlifetime.
Let's say, five lifetimes ago Iand somebody else had a
relationship.
Let's say we produced offspring.
Let's say the next life, youknow, there's a another
correlation, another connection,and then the next life, and
there's this thing, and you knownow, five lives later, I am
married to or I have a offspringof sorts, and and there are
(44:29):
various layers of connectionsstill existing from that time.
How is that fair?
Cause and effect are just.
That's the.
It's the fair and unfair is asaying of our ego, mind, of our
fair and not fair.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
You're imposing your own idea onto the.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
Right and fair and not fair simply means we cannot
see the causality.
If we did, the fair and notfair would be ah, the dots would
be connected.
Kurokuna, it is so Right,that's what it would be.
It would be a declaration, ah,it is so I think I want to just
(45:11):
highlight that.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
And do you think that the nature of the in the return
is impersonal?
You made it right, meaning you.
So you, you plant pumpkin,pumpkin returns.
It's not.
That's what returns.
The pumpkin is not returningbecause it hates you or just
(45:34):
likes you.
It was the seed that you plantedthat came to fruition, because
I think when you engage in toomuch of this, it's not fair.
There's a lot of comparisonsthat are taking place where
you're trying to collapse thenature to match your idea.
Again're saying then that's theego, right, right, and I don't
think you can learn.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
I think you're going to really limit your ability to
understand and learn and it has,and it has roots in that, in
that kind of judy, christian,you know, right, father figure
kind of bestowing you know, knowyou're being punished or you're
being rewarded for your action,type of thing.
Oh, it's gonna go.
(46:15):
I've um, I didn't notice thetime random and so, yes, that's
the.
Don't think of it as fair Thinkof it as fair.
Think of it as it is cause andeffect.
And if we saw the causality andthe kind of I believe the word
(46:44):
of it is amelioration, sort ofreorganization, that kind of
thing it would make for anacceptance as opposed to for
it's fair or unfair.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
You won't see the nature of the objects or the
interplay, or the union, theconnections between the objects.
Let me just give an example andsee if I can make this a little
practical for the audience andthis person.
It's like if you have a tennisball in your hand and you're
standing in front of a wall.
You know the tennis ball has anature, the nature is to bounce
(47:23):
and the wall has a nature to besolid, right.
And then you decide to put thattennis ball in motion at a
prior time.
You enact that On the timeline.
It's like I'm going to throwthis ball towards the wall and
then what comes later in thetimeline is when that ball,
whose nature is to bounce, whenit touches a solid object, it
(47:44):
touches a solid object and thenit bounces back.
It did not bounce back becauseit goes this person.
I did you just did you justthrow me against the wall.
You know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna now no, I'm not gonnago at the angle towards the
floor.
I'm going to now shift thedirection in which I was
(48:04):
supposed to go and I'm going tochange my trajectory and go
right back towards you and hityou in the nose, right and we
can, because I hate youcalculate, we can mathematically
calculatethe trajectory exactly and and
it would have to just followthat course.
It doesn't change coursebecause of a personal factor,
right?
So it's not a vendetta.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
The.
The tennis ball doesn't have avendetta against you.
It's simply responding to a waythat was put into action and so
then the reaction isappropriate.
Do we have?
Uh, so if there's generationkarma, how is that fair?
There you go.
It's a fairness, is ourperception and a perspective of
(48:48):
things as there are on and aperspective of things as they
are unfolding in our lives.
And simply fair means I like itor dislike it.
Right, ultimately Right, do wehave to pay back karmic debt
that our predecessorsaccumulated?
Well, again, there is a negativeconnotation to this.
(49:08):
If you have a genericpredisposition to certain
disease, you've inherited thatYou're also going to pass onto
your offspring certain things,and so it is to pay back.
Again, if we consider thattwo-way street of the thettering
(49:38):
of karmic things, it's almostas if it's one cardiovascular
system, like the veins that pumpblood.
So it's almost as if the karmicflow of life, when we think of
another person in generations,like there's a person there and
then there's the me here what ifwe're sort of connected, an
(50:03):
intravenous kind of exchange wastaking place.
We are not separate, so to say.
I have to pay back the debt ofsome other person.
Well, we're paying for theirdoings.
As we speak, if you're borninto an affluent family and
you're afforded the ability togo to an Ivy League school
(50:25):
because your parents, you know,had generational wealth that you
were enjoying.
If you're born into poverty,then of course there's our
individual karma, which makes itpossible to change these
situations, but nonethelessthere's that intricate
connection there.
How do we make up for someoneelse's deed, whether good or bad
(50:50):
?
We're not to make up forsomeone else's deed, whether
good or bad.
Um, we're not to make up forother person's deed.
This is our doing again.
This is flying away fromourselves towards other things.
There's a lot of speculation,because then, kind of the
(51:10):
question, maybe the Zen kind ofanswer would be well, what are
you doing for you?
And that's the thing we work onourselves, because we have this
.
This is why the outcome of myactions for myself does not
(51:36):
exist in a vacuum.
There are many, many otherpeople who are participating in
this, whether we like it or not.
Nothing that we do is kind ofisolated in a vacuum and if you
think to yourself, even well, ifI punch myself in my face, no
one's no, there's no one else isaffected.
(51:58):
So, on one layer, you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
You have little platelets that are right like
firemen sleeping waiting, andyou punched yourself, maybe cut
yourself.
Well, you just woke those guysup and they were relaxing.
Now you put them to work.
Now they're tortured.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
So there's that right and then also, somebody has to
deal with the repercussions, andwe see this um in in frequently
with self-destructive behaviors.
Right, oh, I'm not hurtinganybody, anybody else, you know,
if I'm drunk driving through adesert, I'm not hurting anybody.
(52:34):
It is not a correct way tothink so we tend to ourselves.
As we said in the bonus track.
I am not for me.
You know what, perhaps thisdual and I don't even know if
(52:55):
we've talked about this alreadyI Am Not For Me.
Anyway, things to think aboutfor the future.
Perhaps Our time is up.
This was a as, as a asimpromptus, uncoupled together
(53:18):
and as a meandering an episode,as one could imagine.
And this is what we get.
Anyway, thank you, I am youngand sitting here, withim, here,
with Dr Ruben Lambert, take careof yourselves and each other,
from my heart to yours.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
If you like what you hear, pass it on to someone else
so that they can enjoy andbenefit from this podcast.
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