Ep. 31 - Powerless Or Powerful: Rethinking Grief, Prayer, And What Remains

What if impermanence isn’t a reason to detach, but a reason to care more deeply right now? We take a clear-eyed look at grief, loss, and the practice that carries us when ideas don’t. A surprising story at a garbage dump becomes a Zen lesson: repulsion is a label, value hides in messy places, and steady effort—keep digging—reveals what cynicism would abandon.

From there, we tackle the “Zen disease” of trying to end worry by hating it. Instead of fueling the loop, we lay out a practical rhythm: see it, throw it aside, and keep going. We reframe death through a simple incense metaphor and a richer view of transition over annihilation. The pain of lost access is human; the leap to helplessness is optional. Prayer matters. Even if you can’t “receive,” your “broadcast” still carries. That’s why the 49-day period is so meaningful—consistent petitions can illuminate merit, soften karma, and remind us there are no good or bad people, only actions shaped by conditions.

We also open the door to the wider support network in Buddhist cosmology: guardians who prefer rescue over retribution, Jijang at the thresholds, Amitabha presiding with compassion. Much of our suffering is the friction of forcing earthbound rules onto subtler realms. A more honest stance—understand that I don’t understand—keeps us flexible, kind, and effective. Think of departure and arrival as simultaneous, like a newborn leaving water for air in a single breath, or a cut branch blooming when the tree blooms. Relationship remains.

Join us to reorient grief around presence, practice, and power: care fully while it’s here, let go when it’s gone, and keep digging. If this moved you, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a steadier way to face loss.

Chapters

• 0:00 Reframing Truth, Loss, And Impermanence
• 5:20 Misusing Impermanence As “Don’t Care”
• 9:45 The Garbage Dump Lesson: Keep Digging
• 17:30 Worry About Worry: Escaping Zen Disease
• 22:20 Death As Transition, Not Annihilation
• 27:00 Prayer As Power When Access Feels Cut Off
• 31:10 The 49-Day Service And Petitioning Merit
• 37:40 No Good Or Bad People, Only Actions
• 42:30 We’re Supported: Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Guardians
• 48:00 Limits Of Perception And Hidden Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Welcome back to another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I'm Jung Anson here with Dr. Ruben Lambert. And we are back for I guess part two of the loss grief episode that we did last week. We did sort of last week we talked about the view of loss and grief from it is as it is kind of perspective, if you will. So everything's impermanent, yes, etc. etc. So these these um truths are true.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

And uh the thing is, you know, you can't handle the truth is the bit, right? So it's uh just because a thing is true, well, I mean that's I think if there was ever an understatement, that's the one. Because I was going to say just because a thing is true doesn't mean no, that's just because a thing is true means nothing for the most part in the practicalities of life, right? Right. The thing is true, do people for by and large they say I care about the truth, I want the truth, etc. etc. But it's it's such a extreme point of view, I think. Very extreme. Because the truth not only is it pliable, um or the smaller truths, but the fixed truths are are just so grand that uh sometimes living according to these truths in a day-to-day life is a very challenging thing, or at least we have to practice for it. Yeah. And that's sort of what we talked about last week, that prepare for the small, uh, exercise the the lens of perspective through which you look at life through those truths. Right. But that's uh I I didn't I wanted to do a part two because I don't want our listeners to inasmuch as though truths and that the points we made last week are of course valid, there are also things we need to fall back on or at least approach it from a holistic perspective. And that is to say, unlike Yuk Cho Henung, the six-patriarch, who declared, Why are you all crying? on the at the thought of my leaving this world. You're crying because you don't know where I'm going. I know where I'm going, so I'm cool as a cucumber.

SPEAKER_03: 3:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 3:38

And this is the thing.

SPEAKER_03: 3:41

That reminds me of a great book that you had back in the day. I think it was called Graceful Exits.

SPEAKER_01: 3:46

Ah, right. I think it's in our libraries that's there. Yeah. It's the stories of masters from various traditions and how they exited the world. Um yogis and Zen masters.

SPEAKER_03: 4:02

And there's a great quote that reminds me of that moment, and it goes something like this When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. When you die, the world cries and you rejoice. And so that sort of gives me that sensation of when you've lived your life in accordance in accordance with the principles and beliefs that aligned with your spiritual practice, and you've you've come to terms with your mortality or the impermanence of life, then you can go with some kind of grace and peace in your heart. When you've created many knots, when you haven't listened to our past podcasts, I think such as uh karma and the way the the laws of karma works, and you get to the very end, and at that very end, or like you were saying earlier, look in look at these small moments of impermanence, these small moments of loss of these external objects as practic as your practice ground to prepare yourself for the great loss, which would be of this carcass. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 5:18

And so yeah, we can take those things into account and exit so let's call let's call that uh the one approach, the bearing in mind the reality of impermanence and practicing uh really kind of solidifying that in our lives because it's in everything. In everything. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 5:48

So let's let's and let's dispel myths because again, when we say impermanence, the first thing that comes to my mind is really having to explain and clarify that impermanence doesn't mean don't care, or impermanence doesn't mean when you have something, yes, assume that you know, oh, I don't have to take care of it because it's already gone anyway, right? So halfway in, halfway out, one foot in and one foot out. Because I I really do think that yes, impermanence means that things are in flux and things are changing, but it doesn't mean that within the birth and death, there aren't certain things that you should apply or you shouldn't take care of and and and nurture whatever object it is that that holds some kind of value in your life at that very moment. That would not someone that thinks ah, I am living in accordance with the principle of impermanence and I care for no object, or everything that I have, I just you know treat it as as if it's worthless. You wouldn't say that person is that person is living in accordance with the Dharma, with the teachings of Zen. Certainly not, right?

SPEAKER_01: 6:58

It is, I think many, perhaps for for some of our listeners, the idea of someone taking impermanence and using it in that way, which is kind of we could say incorrectly, uh seems like, wait, there's no way, but there absolutely is a way, because you and I have both known either your uh people, let's just say we've known people who have done that very thing, and I've heard others uh mention the same thing. Oh, you know, I have such and such friend, and you know, he says he's Buddhist and he's uh you know, but his X, Y, and Z, you know, and apart from the judgmentalness of the person retelling the story, uh you know, mid-conversation, the point was exactly that. There someone has grabbed onto this principle of impermanence and turned it into don't care, and turned it into something else that it's not care for not anything. Everything's impermanent, so it's uh trash, it's gone, it's this and that. And and it absolutely is not the way to use the principles.

SPEAKER_03: 8:23

Right. Real quick, I learned that lesson pretty early on in our uh journey into Zen with our teacher, our Unsanim, because I'll never forget, I just shared this story, it reminded you of the story the other day, but early on, uh I did hold a lot of these principles as idealistic principles, and I did hold them in my minds as extremes, like you're describing those certain individuals there. I think it's very common as a novice, right, or at the onset of your practice to not be able to integrate all these principles into each other and see how they truly are practiced and turning into turn them into concrete and not living with right living teachings, right? Not things just on paper. And so we were going to a dump site to get rid of garbage uh from one of the houses that was that were cleaned because uh there was some construction going on, and we go and we dump everything into the giant warehouse. It's a giant warehouse full of garbage, and then we were all exhausted and tired and happy to get back into the uh truck. And as we sit down, Unsenim checks his pockets and says, Oh, I dropped my cell phone. Or someone dropped it, or maybe someone is.

SPEAKER_02: 9:35

It wasn't his, it was it was uh someone else. Someone else, yeah. Okay, it was someone else, yeah. And then okay, it's a cell phone and a heap of garbage. All right. All things are imperfect. Can't be attached to anything. All right, we'll be gone and we'll just get it. Or a Zen mass. Or a Zenmaster. And then he goes, All right, let's get out of the car and let's look for it. Okay, now I'm not talking about like a dumpster. This was a warehouse of garbage, right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:04

So like a dump site, like you see mountains of trash, and uh there was a uh bucket loader shuffling the stuff around. It's not like you said, it's not a small thing, it's a it's a mountain made of trash.

SPEAKER_03: 10:18

So I was like, all right, let's go back and we're in there digging through the garbage after some time, you know, and and and it's very interesting. This is why you need to have this we say munsasu, this reflection on what's going on, right? Understand the teaching that's being implemented, apply it, and then you can get that insight from that moment. At that time I didn't have it, but I remember digging through the garbage and I found the cell phone. I was like, aha, I got it. Right? And so, you know, on one hand, it's like, why the wasted effort, but it wasn't a wasted effort. Right. Look at that. We went back there and we found it. It is now that's wisdom, right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:59

Yeah. You say digging, you know, through the garbage. That's unsanim's uh one of his kind of things. He he says, dig. So when he gives a teaching, he says, I only give you seeds. Right. You know, I don't give you give you points, you have to dig deeper. And uh yeah, absolutely. I mean there's so many points, other points to dig out of this. Digging already dig, right? That's a big one. So it's you're digging in trash. Yeah. Uh first of all, when the word trash comes to mind, um the negative connotation of it comes to mind. It's like a codun van, right? Oh, it's dirty, oh, it's this, it's yucky, it's whatever, and they were oozing things and it was trash, right? But it's the repulsion associated with having to dig through trash, right? Was one point that Ansani was making. Right. You're repulsed by the thing on account of this name, that it's trash from the more refined standpoint, you're judging the things, like and dislike, etc. etc. The other element is no mud, no lotus, right? No trash, no cell phone. Exactly. So it's that kind of thing. So the other lesson is how much trash we had to kind of dig through and throw aside and and and shuffle through to find a thing that that were of value, right? And so this is the same thing. How much how much our punne, how much our worries and anxieties we keep shuffling through to get to the nugget of enlightenment, let's say. Keep digging, keep digging, keep digging, keep digging, right? And and uh the expression of suhang, of putting thing, the teachings into practice in our day-to-day lives, is exactly that. Uh, there's a stage uh when uh sometimes people get sort of stuck and bugged down at which is the repulsion of their mind producing ponne or producing worry, you know. So they they they know uh I shouldn't, I don't want to, but their more that they are rejecting their ponne, their worries, their anxieties, their mind noise, the intrusive thoughts, the more they fight against it, the more plagued they become by it. Right, and it turns a quick disease.

SPEAKER_03: 13:46

Right, the more you fight, the deeper you sink.

SPEAKER_01: 13:49

And it becomes a sort of zen disease, if you will. The the wanting to rid oneself of the and and that's an account of some idea of repulsion. And to understand the fact that suhang means it's not right. Looking for the end of it is problematic. Yeah. Ponne comes, throw it aside. Anger comes, throw it aside, jealousy comes, throw it aside. Anger comes, throw it aside. Worry comes, throw it aside. Anxiety comes, throw aside, depressive thoughts come, throw aside. You keep on digging and digging and digging. Uh there's a this sort of diseased state at times, this that it's like, when is it gonna stop? When is it gonna stop? And the thought, when is it going to stop, produces more of it. So maybe you've dieged to 90%, you only have 10% to go, but you start going, oh, this is so annoying. Oh, I can't, oh, when is it gonna stop? And you're filling up the the the heap again by your anxieties now associated with having anxieties, your worries associated with having worries.

SPEAKER_03: 15:07

Yeah, it's almost like anger with having anger, exactly, which makes which feels more it spawns a new child, a bigger, stronger situation that has a greater grip on you.

SPEAKER_01: 15:19

Right. So it's this, you know, this idea of like uh you know, you take a shovel, uh, you throw it behind you, and just kind of slips right back into the hole, you know, this sort of cyclical reincarnating thing where you're just shuffling for no end to be seen. So it is we could say it there's right effort, and this isn't one of those, but we digress, sure.

SPEAKER_03: 15:46

So, uh how about the moment of passing? Because there's another lesson that I learned, and and I hear you talk about it when we do our uh chondoges or achesas, this idea of death, right? And the perspective of there is no death, death is just a new beginning, right? And so the way that this was taught to me, and the way this example is highlighted to me was by burning a unimaginable, he burnt the stick of incense, and then he asked a question. You know, as that stick burns, where did it go? Is it gone? And that had that needs some mun sasu or more introspection to really understand is it truly gone? Is it truly ever gone?

SPEAKER_01: 16:36

Was it truly ever to begin with? All the things.

SPEAKER_03: 16:42

We have to break free from these uh habitual forms of viewing even the self or death.

SPEAKER_01: 16:48

Well, and and again, so these are these are the elements of the the truths and and growing accustomed and exercising these principles. Um I think what is worth mentioning as a big element that is perhaps more readily available uh to people is that there is perhaps beyond it's it's the similar principle, right? The the idea of death or someone being gone is that the access is no longer, and so the mourning is the mourning one person oneself is mourning for the loss of the other person because they are now sort of as if as if it were denied access to that person, and um the with that denial of access, there is a uh helplessness, and and that's uh perhaps the bigger element in in loss of someone is that we are helpless. They're uh if they were here in physical form and they had pain, I could tend to it, you know, if they needed help and had fallen, I could help them get up, etc. etc. I I can do something uh body to body. But now I have a body and I'm tethered to it, they no longer have a body, and so my sort of inability to be of use or of service or or tending to them uh is is um the the element of distress that I think comes with it. And so this is where, of course, uh perhaps not necessarily directly experienced by some, uh but this is where the power of prayer comes in. We are not helpless, and we are not hopeless, and we are not cut off. Uh what we are cut off from, perhaps, is the receiving, you know. If they were um say a person who is here and then moves to the next town, and uh we have cell phone conversations, and something happens to my speaker in my phone. My microphone works, but my speaker doesn't. So I could talk and they hear me, but when they talk, I cannot hear them. We could think of prayer in that way too. Sometimes when we when we we could get our speaker fixed and we could receive, right? But uh until then we have to remember that our microphone works. If the mind state is right, if the intention is true, prayer works. And it's the broadcasting, it's me broadcasting out uh the intention, the prayer, the whatever it is that you are intending to accomplish via prayer. And it provides us with the understanding that we are not sort of useless in the face of what's happened. We have not only are we useful, um it's advised that one exercises that simply because you know we we d don't have maybe the speaker element to receive the thank you note, if you will. Uh but things are affected in our lives anyway. So uh to that end, we have the the prayer services that are associated with loss and associated with when someone passes. And you know, so this is our exercise of our power, and we have to view it as such, we have to view it as this is I have power still here in this moment, I have power that transcends my inability to receive the signals from the person who has passed, if we're sticking with this uh idea of cell phone and speaker and such. And so the chance to be effective and to petition on behalf of someone who has passed, uh we have to think of it as uh that we are not, like I said, disempowered by it. And so we have the usual the 49-day service.

SPEAKER_03: 22:12

I was gonna say there's a window, the opportunity, you're talking about an opportunity, there's a window that that opens up at that time period. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 22:19

So traditionally the 49-day service, uh, you know, every seven days or every day, depending on well, depending on circumstances, but uh the traditional way is 49 days of prayer after a person has passed away. Every seven days, a different element of their lives, a different element of their karma is inspected, and uh we in a sense function as a petitioner who petitions on behalf of the person who has passed to say please acknowledge all the good things, and and there are these lovely uh uh lines in some of the prayers, and basically the principle is all right, let's say someone has seemingly led a life that was really uh let's just say, not good. They were mean, they were selfish, they were this and this and that. And uh in a sense what we do, we say things like you know, there was this one time when this person was walking and uh their foot was about to land on an ant and they purposely, consciously moved their foot in a such a way that they will not step on said ant. See, we say, right? See, there it is. This is proof that this person fundamentally is not a selfish person, is not a careless person, is not a vile, vicious, murderous person. This person fundamentally at the core of their being is a good person who doesn't want to even step on an ant. The conditions, the upbringing of their lives, the the childhood, the traumas, the this, the that, the confusion, the misunderstanding, the ignorance may have led them to do X, Y, and Z things, but the person themselves is still the person. Right. And so out of that we have these sayings there are no good people, there are no bad people, there are only good and bad actions. Sure. And this is, you know, we we have a karmic burden with which we have to which we have to carry and we have to somehow appease and we have to somehow uh process and digest, but we have we're not alone in that. As we are not in our living days, not alone. We have Doban, our friends on the path, we have uh parents and teachers, etc., etc., all trying to bring light into the unenlightened parts of our psyche and our mind. Um everyone's got pockets of ignorance and pockets of darkness, therefore, in their mind, simply of not understanding or being confused about a thing or other. And the why, there are multitudes of why that is. Yeah. But so when we pray, we are petitioning on behalf of this person to say, you know, we kind of highlight the best in the person. We petition the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas. You know, even the Siwang, you know, the guardians or the emperors or the kings, Wang is a king, so the ten kings, if you will, or the ten emperors of the hell realms, none of them want us to be there. This is the different kind of um uh view from say this, you know, this demonic ruling monstrous city who wants you to banish you for all eternity. Burn and suffer and blah wa, and takes joy out of it. Siwangnim don't want you to go to the bad places. Right? Yeah. And and so they they their their um tendency and their lean is towards what can we do for not to have this happen. You know, Jijang Bosa stands at the gates of hell realms and trying to grasp and get people out. Amitabul presides over the thing in Loang Bosa's there providing the you know transportation services, uh, etc. etc. And the whole pantyon of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who at all times tend to the welfare of beings, and depending on the Riyam, which Bodhisattva oversees whichever Ryam we are in, whether it's the earth realms or the heavenly realms, also whichever subdivision, right? So human beings, there's a there's a representative, right? Animal Riyams, we have a representative, if you're etc etc. So um the whole arrangement is in such a way that we are not uh left, we are not abandoned in a sense, and we are always uh with a magnificent support network. We have to uh plug into it, we have to connect to the network, we have to have some relationship with with said uh Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, etc. etc. But whether on this side or that side or whatever other side or in between or wherever we have uh that available to us. So the destitute, the the abandonment, the powerlessness are manufactured only because of uh our sensory perception is pathetically limited. We can only see the things that our eyeballs can see. Right, right. You know, and funny and badly.

SPEAKER_03: 29:22

Whenever there are like earthquakes and storms, you always hear those stories of certain animals like toads and things like that, heading for the high hills, and then you hear human beings you know mocking animals as as to how dumb they are. But then in those moments I look and I'm like, damn, yeah, here it comes, and and things literally have to be right in front of underneath our nose for us to register it. And you have these animals that are fleeing way long before the human even begins to register that something is happening.

SPEAKER_01: 29:53

And you know, and if that were only so that's not even the extent of what is. If that were only so, yeah, because. That then suggests that you know the fermentations of the mind of an animal who who ex who who perceives the subtle signals that earthquake or a tsunami is coming or or uh a storm is coming. We are so as human beings preoccupied with other things. I mean, if you have hair, right, there's a simple example. If you have hair, and and I think people with long hair and women in particular might know frizzy day, frizzy hair day, right? It is an antenna perceiving this the the state of the world around us, right? But it's viewed as like, oh, my hair looks bad, it's a frizzy hair day, right? But the conditions up to the sky, right? But the conditions of which, I mean, it's a sort of barometer, thermometer, it's a whole uh weather station. If you consider, wait a minute, my you know, why? And and frequently before you know that the the more significant change happens. So, you know, a toad or a snake perceiving the thing, they're like, all right, that moment they perceive is like all right, I'm out of here. Get out of Dodge. And if human beings were only so smart, because we have sirens go off, right? Warnings go on the radios, your force your phone starts, you know, uh beeping and and and um um alarms going off, and still we have people who would say smart, nah, yeah, I'm not moving, right? I'm not gonna evacuate. This is uh I built this house or whatever it is. It's like you built a house, it's true. You could rebuild another house. The only thing is you can't rebuild your life when you lose it. But that's the thing. So so the perception is uh pathetically limited.

SPEAKER_03: 32:12

And to an extent, because of that limited perception, that is a cause of human beings suffering, right? Right, because they they truly cannot see. Yep. And so because they cannot see, they assume there's nothing there. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 32:29

Cannot see, cannot hear, cannot smell, cannot taste, cannot touch. All of these sensory experiences are attuned to living in this very world in which we live in. And they're finally attuned to the necessary, the necessary uh spectrum. So our visual ability is attuned to a necessary spectrum.

SPEAKER_03: 33:00

Very specific.

SPEAKER_01: 33:01

Very specific. It's not an object that it picks up because imagine if if we were in our day-to-day lives, you're walking around and and you're sort of swatting as if you were at a mosquito or or bee or a fly, but you're swatting at your AM waves and your FM waves and your radio waves and your cell phone waves and your Bluetooth waves and all these things flying in front of your nose, you couldn't operate in a day-to-day world. So the transcendence of these uh let's call them grosser uh perceptions is a possible thing, but the more important element is once you transcend it, the control over it, because having uh an ability to perceive a thing and not knowing where the on and off switches, and not knowing when to turn it on or off or dim it or whatever, that's another we could say affliction. One is afflicted by uh extrasensory uh perception, let's call it that. Sure. But that's the thing, because we are attuned in the way that we are attuned, uh naturally speaking, and on top of that, the cacophony of thought, want, desire, dislike, a heap of garbage is vile and stinky and and dirty, and and face and nose get crinkled while digging through it to find a cell phone, etc. etc. All of those things add to our blindness. Um but we have and have to imagine, at least at the initial stages, we could say imagine, we could say believe that there's an efficacy that we are not deprived of once somebody leaves this world. And so I encourage anyone who's lost somebody, of course, to pray. You have the power within that, and so we have the 49-day services, which is the traditional kind of right after the passing. We have the one year, we have the three year, those are the big kind of uh chondo j inspections, if you will. And of course we have the annual uh whether it's pekchung, the ancestral service, or the annual dates, uh the memorial dates for each individual person. They are simultaneously attending to the welfare of the person who has passed say my father, my mother, grandpa, grandma, what have you, but they are also simultaneously bettering our circumstances here. Because we are not attuned unless we develop attunement, I I sometimes make the illustration of a flowering tree branch that you've cut that's outside your house, and you bring it home and you put it in a vase, and they are cut off. It's a severed limb of the tree, and it's now in a vase. Not only is it now no longer attached to the tree, but it's also not even in the same space. This one's inside, tree is outside, and when the tree blooms, this thing blooms also. They're severed, but they're blooming. And then we have these, you know, these principles of uh sounds like quantum.

SPEAKER_03: 37:39

Entanglement.

SPEAKER_01: 37:40

I was just gonna say, yes, the entanglement.

SPEAKER_03: 37:42

Spooky stuff at a distance.

SPEAKER_01: 37:43

Yeah, and all of those things. So there they these things are we are not left powerless. This is an important thing to remember. Um to a large degree, the suffering comes from simply our limitations. It doesn't come from this circumstance, it doesn't come from the situation that has transpired. It comes from my limitation of either access or understanding, right? If I can see the person who's past, I would feel differently. But I can't see. If I could hear them, I would feel differently, but I can't hear them. If I know where they went, I would at least to some degree be appeased and comfortable, knowing the way that, you know, I moved here from Poland. Like you said, and then when I was moving from there, grief there was a real experience for the people left behind, rejoicing on the account of the part of the family that I had here upon my arrival.

SPEAKER_03: 39:07

But now let's take that for example and kind of connect as a practical example of a Sashi Kuche ceremony. What I just thought in my mind was when you were leaving Poland, you had to depart. Where were you going to? So your mother, who loved you and cared for you, didn't just send you to America and say, Ta-ta, figure it out all on your own. Right. They partitioned on your behalf, they contacted someone in the United States. The receiving part of the family. And said, Hey, I'm sending you precious cargo here. Here's my boy, something that I value the most in my life. Please. They come back to the colour. But you wouldn't send Y, Z, keep this in mind. You know, at night he likes a he doesn't like a silky blanket, he likes a furry blanket, he likes his ex-scramble. You know, what whatever it is, right? You know, he has to be in school, an educator, he has to be taken care of. And not only does the mother contact the United States, they also send you with a care package, too. All right, if you're gonna go on this long journey, here are some of the things that you need to take with you.

SPEAKER_01: 40:20

Sudkes of karma.

SPEAKER_03: 40:22

Sudkes of karma, so prayers. Yeah. And and and and maybe on the day that you depart, it's not just her there to see you off. She calls other family members who also cared for you too, and some friends to further support, right? That could be the sung, the sangha on this side, especially on certain days on Pekchun when we all gather together in support of all the young young, all of the departed souls, right?

SPEAKER_01: 40:50

So and then mind you, right? She contacts specific persons of power and ability to furnish me with said necessities of life.

SPEAKER_03: 41:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 41:04

She's not contacting a homeless guy under a bridge who has no blankets to say, hey, you know, he likes blankets, uh, like you said, a furry blanket and scrambled eggs. She contacts someone who can provide those things. Just like a pilot who will well, that's why we contact Amitabul, the the Buddha of the heavenly realm, to say, my so-and-so is leaving this world. He likes a furry blanket and scrambled eggs. Right. Because we know Amitabul has the power to provide the necessary things. We know the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas we are contacting have the ability to care for, to further care for the person who's traveling over there. The other element to consider is the verbiage. You said when I was leaving Poland, I was departing Poland. And this is where truth, not truth, and the relative truth and the ultimate truths, kind of how you look at it. Because to say, oh, his departed Poland the only people that say that is the people on the departing side of this transaction. Because if the departing and arrival, let's say, were instantaneous, right? You're departing but simultaneously arriving. You're arriving simultaneously departing. And so in the in the umgyong sutra, famously the first interaction with Yuma Gosa and one of the Bodhisattvas who comes, he says, Oh, you've come without having departed, you've arrived or you've arrived without having left, you know, that kind of thing. To say the idea of departing and arrival are separate. The idea of arriving, having departed, um so rooted in the matter of this world that is geographically organized and rooted and pinned down. You have to depart from one thing to get to another thing. It is part and and and a way of operating and a way of seeing and experiencing and uh of this very world of matter and form. When we talk about the other realm of existence, it's a matter of whether the departing or arriving can be viewed from the perspective of the realm of form, the geographically bound type of thing. But what if the departing is simultaneously arriving and arriving is simultaneously departing, then the departing and arriving in a sense cancel one another out, and therefore there is no departing and no arriving. And this is the idea of birth and death. We are in this life uh already reincarnated, we have departed the womb of the mother and its watery environment. And then we've entered into the airspace of this world, and then we've taken the the the breath and and went from uh swimming kind of breadstrokes in the in the womb of the mother to then being born into this world. And so the departing and arriving, or the birth and death, we have died to the watery abyss of the womb of the mother while simultaneously being born into this uh world that we are now in. They're one and the same in a sense, and yet they're not one and the same, and this is where we run into these uh these uh troubles of viewing a world which abides differently. And I'm no physicist, but my uh rudimentary understanding is, or perhaps the way I like to see it, is when we look at the general sort of Newtonian physics of matter and big things and the way they behave, and then we look at the quantum world and the way that things behave there, they do not behave in the same way, they behave very strangely on the quantum side of things than they do on the uh grosser, uh bigger uh elemental uh realm on this side, if you want to call it that. And so to to try and apply or try and view the behavior of things on a quantum level from the and abide by the rules that are here is uh a matter of fixation or arrogance or or inflexibility, or refusal to understand that the rules and regulations there aren't the same that are here. And this is akin to let's say I come from came from Poland to here, and I refuse to learn the language, I refuse to learn the rules and regulations, I refuse to abide by the laws uh on account of some stubbornness. Imagine the kind of life I would have. So it it's it's not the right way to look at it. We have to understand that there are realms and dimensions which are governed by different sets of rules and regulations and laws, and try to understand it. If we can understand it, at least understand that I don't understand. It is the most honest way to look at it. Understand that I don't understand. Do not try in the stubbornness of your human mind to enforce your understanding upon realms that are beyond your understanding. You will suffer because you won't create, you're not a god, you're not a creator entity that's going to enforce a change of rules. So the sooner we come to terms with that, there are things that we understand and things that we don't understand, and to be able to remain then pliable in the idea that ah, things are different there. So I mustn't look at them from a perspective that I'm looking at life now. It is a big help also. But as all of our listeners surely heard the alarm clock go off, uh so 45 minutes have gone by. If you have uh questions or topics that you would like to suggest or suggest, we'd love to have you do so. Uh they really do make it a little bit more connected and alive. A person has a question, a person has a question because that question is a living question in them. Otherwise, we have to uh suppose and imagine that oh these people want to know this or that, and uh or we should share this and that, and uh it makes it more uh fun to be sort of imagining an interaction that we are having uh here in the studio with those who are listening. So do please send us uh further topics, uh questions, uh and of course, um if you'd like to perhaps you notice that we've run out of uh the little um feedback recordings that we would uh insert before the podcast. Those were lovely. We got a number of them. Uh if you've already done one, you're welcome to do another one. Uh certainly your uh thoughts on perhaps specific uh podcast uh episode or the generally speaking, the podcast itself, or you know, you could just share how you feel about it, or uh try and entice perhaps a future listener or a new listener to say, you know, well, maybe you could benefit from this, maybe that you find it interesting or comedic or whatever. So that's our time. I'm Jung Unsenim. I'm Dr. Uber Lamvert.

SPEAKER_03: 51:05

Take care of yourselves and each other. If you like what you hear, subscribe and like. And also, if you enjoyed our podcast today, well, pass it on, pay it forward, and share with someone else. There's great lessons here to be learned by everyone. Thank you.