FIRST, and foremost, Marmot, thank you so much for posting this video. I had not yet seen it, and really appreciated having it. Love it or hate it, I think this guy does an amazing job of bringing Zen closer to our everyday experience. And for that alone, he deserves at least a fraction of the enormous respect which is heaped on him by people in Korea. I don’t know yet if the guy can walk on water, but I do know that, when I walk out of the temple at the end of one of his shockingly clear talks, I can SMELL the air, I can HEAR the wind chimes, I can SEE the falling leaves, one by one, and I know, in that moment, that I am right THERE.

There are no other monks I have listened to who have had such a BRACING effect as that. And a lot of people in this country (and around the world) also don’t seem to be being fooled. One of the commentators called him “abrasive” — I would say “bracing.”

NEXT, it is very interesting to read the many comments about Hyon Gak Sunim. Lots of interesting reactions! Whatever you like or dislike about this incredibly controversial monk, he certainly DOES inspire a strong reaction in people. I think that this is probably his intention. The guy seems congenitally unwilling to be the conventional “holy man,” a.k.a. someone’s comments (above) comparing HG’s style to some hypothetical composite of “what the Dalai Lama would do.” (Maybe that reader would have us all start wearing “What Would the Dalai Lama Do” bracelets, in line with the “What Would Jesus Do?” movement…. Hee hee heee!)

Recently, I came to know someone who is a long-standing student of Hyon Gak Sunim. We had many, many long discussions about his teaching and his life, and I was able to learn many interesting things about him which might address some of the misunderstandings about him which a few of the commentors seem to possess.

(And, as a caveat, I must say at the outset that I am not one of his died-hard “fans,” in the sense of many of the people who gather at his talks. I have just been helped enormously by the boldness of his Dharma, and find it a refreshing — you could say, bracing — alternative to much of the religious talk going on out there. AND this student of his who I recently spoke with is also by no means a fanatical devotee, but someone who seems to see him more or less in a frank way, while still respecting him pretty solidly. So, what he had to say about HG I found to be very insightful….)

As to the reasons for HGSN’s leaving Korea: Apparently, from what this student said (and I confirmed this with other members of the Seoul International Zen Center community), Hyon Gak Sunim has been deeply disgusted about this fame thing that has grown up around him. Even entering the mountains for intensive practice, he has people in this incredibly small and ubiquitously wired and talkative country locating him and making demands on him — kind of hard as a big-nosed monk to blend in to the forest scenery, it seems, as any one of us foreigners who has walked down a street in Seoul, much less Jinju, understands!!! His student said that Hyon Gak has even had people breaking into his retreat places to find him!

He is apparently as surprised as anyone that so many people wish to make him into something he does not want to be.

SO, he has been agonizing with several of his students on how best to “get out” of what he feels is a confining performance, because in “uri nara,” once they label you, you’re stuck with it.

This student said that he decided to just spend more time practicing and teaching in other Zen centers OUTSIDE Korea.

Recently, too, there was a new Abbot installed at his temple, a very tough Korean monk who is fiercely anti-American, having led protests against American base expansion in Pyongtaek. The new Abbot has frowned on many, many aspects of Zen master Sung Sahn’s “internationalized” teaching style, considering it not “true” Korean Buddhism. AND the fact that it is being promoted by an American monk who is so incredibly popular among Koreans seemed to be more than he could take. So, last spring he decided to take over the Zen Center. He pressured HG Sunim out, which drew a reaction from other Western monks and the Korean people coming to the temple. The Abbot (a good monk, by the way, just one who doesn’t understand the “internationalizing” of Korean Buddhism style promoted by ZM Sung Sahn) was so heavily criticized all over the Internet that he had to flee into hiding for two weeks last summer!!!!! And he didn’t show up to greet all the hundreds of Westerners who descended on Seoul last month for ZM Sung Sahn’s 3-Year Memorial, fearing their reaction to his radical changes. He literally went on his first-ever trip outside Korea on the day before all of these Westerners arrived for an event SPONSORED by Hwa Gye Sah, his temple!!!!

So, from what I understand, this Hyon Gak has just decided it’ll be better for him to practice and teach outside Korea. A lot of his students are upset, but….

ANOTHER THING: Some commentators talk about his “abrasive” style. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve been to his talks; I know what you are talking about. But I guess you haven’t read your Lin-Chi, where when stduents approach him for a question, the master shouts at them, pours curses down on their heads, even BEATS them. The slapping and beating going on in these situations would NOT be considered “abrasive”? I guess we want our religious figures to make us FEEL good.

Zen is about waking people up, not Benny Hinn-style slickness and pablum. This is why I admire Hyon Gak Sunim, for all of his obvious excesses: The guy just seems relentlessly focused on pounding people into waking up, and he doesn’t seem to care a whit if people “like” him for it.

#38 misunderstands it best when he says, “If someone is a totally rude, condescending prick, you want me to respect him?” I doubt that Hyon Gak Sunim (or any other genuine Zen monk, for that matter) is genuinely interested in having you come to his talks so that you RESPECT him. From what I’ve heard about this guy’s situation in Korea, there are practically people out there who would drink his bath water. I don’t think he needs or wants respect. Hyon Gak SN is more in the Lin-Chi line: WAKE the %$#!+&*@ UP!

“Peninsular Aborigine” says that Hyun Gak Sn is “remarkably abrasive,” supposedly “yelling and browbeating” his listeners. I wonder how long such a one as this would last in the assembly of the epithet-wielding Lin-Chi, the one who literally bitch-slapped his listeners at the front of the assembly! Would the Dalai Lama bitch-slap his students, like Lin-Chi? Or curse? And —- does it really matter?

#23 says that a friend was accosted at the “temple in Taejon which (HGSN) runs.” Funny, from what I heard from HGSN’s student, the monk doesn’t run any temple there, and hasn’t stayed there at all!! One of the banes of life at Mu Sang Sah (a Sung Sahn international Zen center near Taejon) for many of the Wewstern monks is that so often, Korean visitors coming into the temple constantly mistake one or another of the Western monks — and even a Western NUN, from Canada!!! — for the Great Hyon Gak. So I wonder about the veracity of this encounter. (And ESPECIALLY when he claims his friend was “accosted” — I would have that monk ARRESTED………)

I don’t go to the temple to see peaceful little birdies whispering Dharma niceties. I go there to return to my own forgotten mind. And if shock is what it takes, hats off to the old Hyon Gak SN.

‘Nuff said

@40: Very interesting. I see your point. In my experience, there is a time for study and there it is always the time for contemplation. On the one hand, too much study indeed feeds the hungry ghost in us, leading to more cravings. On the other hand, it provides a context in which insight in meditation is given meaning, i.e., relationship, so it can be applied in daily life, when not meditating. For example, some texts or oral explanations remain obscure for years until progress in meditation suddendly clarifies the intention of the authors. This is especially true for Buddhist poetry, which contain a lot of wisdom in a self-encoded form. In the case of Ch’an/Seon/Zen, knowledge of the classics is a must.

When I said that what Hyun Gak Seunim was explaining actually has a deeper meaning than it sounds, I had particularly in mind the explanation of the Four Noble Truths (which should more accurately be translated as the Four Truths for the Noblemen, perhaps). “duhka” (skt.) has a metaphysical meaning which goes beyond what commonly is understood as “suffering”. That is why he cleverly tried the translation “discontentment”, but that falls short too. It is impossible to really understand what it is without years of practice. That was my point.

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the improper usage of Christian references when expounding Buddhism. Even the Dalai-lama do this. I always feel that saying that “Jesus was a bodhisattva” is akin to a preemptive strike using roses.

I am guessing he would disagree with you on this! No study at all will help you with: when driving, drive. When eating, eat.

Yes, it’s hard to do. I’ve sat my share of countless hours staring at a blank wall and read hundreds of useless ancient Chinese antics. In fact, studying only greases the gears of the brain more and more. That being said, I do think HG has one of the most succinct and best articulations of what Zen is really about. You can tell he’s digested it and made it his own, rather than just imitating old, dead asian guys.

One caveat though: it’s irritating when people use Jesus’ quotes to somehow give legitimacy to their ideas or to imply Jesus’ teachings are similar or the same as theirs. For example, HG pulls out quotes from the NT to suggest that Jesus was implying the same thing that HG (or Zen) is talking about…”They have ears but do not hear, they have eyes…” The worldviews of Zen and Christianity are worlds apart.

I wrote of one particular point the monk made that I have heard expressed by a Christian pastor elsewhere, using different terminology; not the whole Buddhist experience.

That’s right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN3j-nJW1EE

to hear and compare the same message expressed in different ways

You are mistaken. It is a different message expressed here in the same way. The biblical references were a skillful means, not the message. The message of Seon is not to compare religions but to sit and practice, here and now, single-pointedly. As such, and if we add the refutation of God, Buddhism is as far as you can imagine from theist religions. The problem is that we lack of imagination in the West, due the pervasiveness of Christianity in the culture, as secular we believe it is.