PRIMARY POINT® Kwan Um School of Zen 99 Pound Rd Cumberland, RI 02864-2726 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED Primary Primary int P Volume 31 • Number 3 • Winter 2015 2015 Winter • 3 Number • 31 Volume Primary Point 99 Pound Road, IN THIS ISSUE Cumberland RI 02864-2726 U.S.A. Telephone 401/658-1476 A Time of Complete Transformation www.kwanumzen.org Zen Master Seung Sahn ...............................................................4 [email protected] With commentary by Jo Potter JDPSN online archives: Fresh Breeze Every Step www.kwanumzen.org/about-us/publications/ Gye Mun Sunim JDPS ................................................................6 primary-point/ That’s Not a Bad Business Deal, Yah? 6 Published by the Kwan Um School of Zen, a nonprofit reli- Zen Master Dae Kwan ................................................................. gious corporation. The founder, Zen Master Seung Sahn, 78th Patriarch in the Korean Chogye order, was the first Korean Zen Nothing That Is Not There and the Nothing That Is Master to live and teach in the West. In 1972, after teaching John Holland ...............................................................................7 in Korea and Japan for many years, he founded the Kwan Um sangha, which today has affiliated groups around the world. He Pilgrimage in China: A Trip to Jiu Hua Mountain .................9 gave transmission to Zen Masters, and inka (teaching author- ity) to senior students called Ji Do Poep Sas (dharma masters). Book Excerpt: Who Is Singing in Chinese? The Kwan Um School of Zen supports the worldwide teaching David Peters ..............................................................................15 schedule of the Zen Masters and Ji Do Poep Sas, assists the member Zen centers and groups in their growth, issues publi- Book Review: The Hidden Lamp cations on contemporary Zen practice, and supports dialogue Barry Briggs JDPSN ..................................................................18 among religions. If you would like to become a member of the School and receive Primary Point, see page 31. The circulation is 2,800 copies. Book Review: Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen Seon Joon Young ........................................................................20 The views expressed in Primary Point are not necessarily those of this journal or the Kwan Um School of Zen. Poetry ..................................................................................24 Buddha’s Birthday Poem 2014 [3 © 2014 Kwan Um School of Zen Zen Master Bon Hae..................................................................25 Founding Teacher Dharma School Poems .........................................................26 Zen Master Seung Sahn Kwan Um School of Zen Centers .............................28, 29, 30 School Zen Master Zen Master Soeng Hyang Membership in the Kwan Um School of Zen–America ........31 Editor-in-Chief Ken Kessel JDPSN Editor for Europe Zen Master Ji Kwang Editor for Asia Kathy Park Managing Editor Tamarind Jordan Managing Editor for Europe Eduardo del Valle Pérez Book Review Editor Judy Roitman JDPSN Layout and Design James Gouijn-Stook Content Editor Ben Gleason Proofreader Peter Voke Manufacturing Manager Eugene Lim Publishing Advisor Paul Majchrzyk JDPSN Cover: One of six devas (Buddhist deities) making an offering to the giant Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Photo by Nick Gershberg. PRIMARY POINT Winter 2015 2] PRIMARY POINT Winter 2014 Primary Point 99 Pound Road, IN THIS ISSUE Cumberland RI 02864-2726 U.S.A. Telephone 401/658-1476 A Time of Complete Transformation www.kwanumzen.org Zen Master Seung Sahn ...............................................................4 [email protected] With commentary by Jo Potter JDPSN online archives: Fresh Breeze Every Step www.kwanumzen.org/about-us/publications/ Gye Mun Sunim JDPS ................................................................6 primary-point/ That’s Not a Bad Business Deal, Yah? 6 Published by the Kwan Um School of Zen, a nonprofit reli- Zen Master Dae Kwan ................................................................. gious corporation. The founder, Zen Master Seung Sahn, 78th Patriarch in the Korean Chogye order, was the first Korean Zen Nothing That Is Not There and the Nothing That Is Master to live and teach in the West. In 1972, after teaching John Holland ...............................................................................7 in Korea and Japan for many years, he founded the Kwan Um sangha, which today has affiliated groups around the world. He Pilgrimage in China: A Trip to Jiu Hua Mountain .................9 gave transmission to Zen Masters, and inka (teaching author- ity) to senior students called Ji Do Poep Sas (dharma masters). Book Excerpt: Who Is Singing in Chinese? The Kwan Um School of Zen supports the worldwide teaching David Peters ..............................................................................15 schedule of the Zen Masters and Ji Do Poep Sas, assists the member Zen centers and groups in their growth, issues publi- Book Review: The Hidden Lamp cations on contemporary Zen practice, and supports dialogue Barry Briggs JDPSN ..................................................................18 among religions. If you would like to become a member of the School and receive Primary Point, see page 31. The circulation is 2,800 copies. Book Review: Korean Buddhist Nuns and Laywomen Seon Joon Young ........................................................................20 The views expressed in Primary Point are not necessarily those of this journal or the Kwan Um School of Zen. Poetry ..................................................................................24 Buddha’s Birthday Poem 2014 [3 © 2014 Kwan Um School of Zen Zen Master Bon Hae..................................................................25 Founding Teacher Dharma School Poems .........................................................26 Zen Master Seung Sahn Kwan Um School of Zen Centers .............................28, 29, 30 School Zen Master Zen Master Soeng Hyang Membership in the Kwan Um School of Zen–America ........31 Editor-in-Chief Ken Kessel JDPSN Editor for Europe Zen Master Ji Kwang Editor for Asia Kathy Park Managing Editor Tamarind Jordan Managing Editor for Europe Eduardo del Valle Pérez Book Review Editor Judy Roitman JDPSN Layout and Design James Gouijn-Stook Content Editor Ben Gleason Proofreader Peter Voke Manufacturing Manager Eugene Lim Publishing Advisor Paul Majchrzyk JDPSN Cover: One of six devas (Buddhist deities) making an offering to the giant Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Photo by Nick Gershberg. PRIMARY POINT Winter 2015 A Time of Complete Transformation Zen Master Seung Sahn Everything that happens in this world is correct. Things tions will appear. If you have no center, you will always go in cycles: spring, summer, fall, winter. Every year this have problems. Think of it like this: not much happens in cycle of seasons occurs. But there are longer cycles too, the winter months, the season of cold and ice. No leaves and this year is the beginning of both a 60-year and a 360- or flowers appear from the frozen ground. When spring year cycle. It is a very interesting time. comes, the ground thaws. Water goes into the soil and There is a very large insect called the cicada, which starts working. Everything erupts. The grass grows. Leaves grows very slowly inside a cocoon fastened to a tree. The appear and get bigger. Flowers appear. All the colors are transformation from cocoon to winged creature takes a changing. Everything is changing, quickly changing. long time, about 17 years, and is very difficult. During It’s the same in our minds, in our “inside” world as this time in the cocoon, the cicada’s internal body appears well as the “outside” world. During winter, for three or disrupted. The skin, the organs, the wings, all appear not four months everything stays the same, so we experience to be working. They aren’t no difficulty. In the spring moving. The body looks as if there are many changes, so it were confused and broken. our minds move and we expe- Then slowly the cocoon rience many doubts and prob- breaks open and the new lems. Just at this time of the body begins to appear. A wing end of an old set of 60-year 4] emerges, then a leg stretches and 360-year cycles and the forth. At first the cicada’s beginning of a new set, many movements are slow and dif- things are happening “inside.” ficult. It crawls out of the co- A strange, complicated mind coon and falls to the ground. is appearing. At this stage the cicada never Just now we need to prac- thinks about the sky or about tice more strongly and make flying—it only thinks about our direction clear. If you Photo: Sven Mahr how to get food, any kind of are not doing hard practice food. Sometimes it takes three or four hours between the or your direction is unclear, any kind of demon might time it leaves the cocoon and the time it is able to fly. But take you. When you die, you will not understand where this is a time of complete transformation. One moment it you go. What kind of hell will you go to? There are many tries to fly and it flies! kinds. If in this life you have killed many animals, when We are very worried about the future. How can we ever you die, these animals will appear to you saying, “Give fly? How can our wings possibly appear? How can we get me my life!” enough food? Many problems are appearing. If we buy a It is necessary to die every day, and every day to give business,