What Separates a Crank from a Wise Person?
I have repeatedly said, “There is no such thing,” and “I am a frog in a well.” Here I explain how those statements help in life and why they matter on the path to awakening. Consider a son’s bad report card. If a parent is rigidly convinced that the son must excel at school, the response begins with anger, restrictions, and forced study.
The parent no longer asks why the son did not study, what interests him, or what matters to him. The parent’s own view comes first. Similar demands fill every relationship: how daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law, husbands, wives, parents, teachers, students, citizens, and politicians must behave. They usually take two forms: like versus dislike, and right versus wrong. The more I identify these judgments as truth and as myself, the harder my mind becomes. That produces the inflexible person with whom no conversation is possible.
Buddhist practice moves in the opposite direction. The more I understand that I am a frog in a well and may be mistaken, the more curiously I look around, converse, debate, and ask questions. My head lowers, my mind softens, and room opens. If studying Buddhism only makes someone feel brilliant and insist that everything must follow his views, he has practiced something else.
Without Obstruction in the Mind
The Heart Sutra says that there is no obstruction in the mind. I render the next movement not as “without fear” but as “without agitation.” In my reading, fear does not fit the context as well as non-agitation does. No obstruction means that no rigid view inside me stands ready to collide with external reality.
Suppose a husband returning after a hard day expects his wife to comfort him and accept that he drank after work. That wish becomes the view that a wife must behave in a certain way. If her actual words do not match it, reality strikes the hardened thought within him, and anger, depression, irritation, or resentment arises. Her action alone did not cause the collision; an internal object was already braced against it.
A wife is one unique person among billions and has her actual disposition. Accepting that does not prohibit correcting wrongdoing. It means dropping the demand that she conform to the image I made. With nothing rigid inside to resist an external force, the whole mind need not stagger. This is non-agitation: a clear mirror, still water, equanimity, and an immovable mind.
Leaving Inverted Dream-Thinking and Reaching Nirvana
The cessation of agitation is nirvana. When a candle flickers in a dark room, shadows across the room move. When the wind stops, the flame and room become quiet. The word muni in Sakyamuni evokes a quiet or silent sage. Nirvana can be understood as this quieting of mind.
To leave inverted dream-thinking is to release images of how wives, husbands, children, friends, and juniors must behave. As the Diamond Sutra says, conditioned things are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, dew, and lightning. Every image is false. My images are temporary views produced within limited experience, yet I insist that they are truth and suffer because of them.
Once I genuinely know that fire is hot, I do not need a command to release it. Likewise, deeply understanding that my views have tormented and shaken me makes the grasp loosen by itself. “There was no such thing; I was a frog in a well” becomes an understanding embodied in life.
I demanded that actual people and the actual world match my wishes, as if demanding that the sun rise in the west. That is inverted thinking. Releasing a view does not bar criticism or correction. I can identify a wrong and propose a better course. The difference is that I do not first drown in rage, gloom, and irritation. A violently shaking mind cannot see the world as it is. When the internal obstruction is gone, I can see what happened and respond as needed.
Why Feelings Run Wild Against Our Wishes
When a car cuts in without signaling, the thought “It must signal—why is that bastard doing this?” produces immediate anger. I may honk to warn the driver. But if irritation, stress, and jealousy twist my mind even though I did not choose them, then I do not control my mind. Thought unfolds on its own, and hardened views react reflexively.
Emotion is therefore evidence through which I examine myself. Why did I become upset? By what standard did I decide that another person had to act differently? What right, wrong, like, or dislike am I holding? Following the change of feeling back to the underlying view reveals that I was absorbed in inverted thought. Distinguishing external events from my projection allows reality to be seen without every event controlling me.
Buddhist Practice Begins with a Question
At Buddhism’s foundation are doubt and questioning. Because I may be a frog in a well trapped in the illusion of knowing, I ask of each view: “Is it really so? Where did this thought come from? Is it correct?” A person who has already declared himself right cannot ask. Disassembling one’s ideas and seeing that they caused suffering is one beginning of Buddhism.
Surface knowledge that I am limited must become a deep understanding applied whenever feelings change. I examine what I judged and what view told me I had to win. Seeing that suffering came not only from outside conditions but from my view loosens attachment. Many things in the world can be this way or that way; we turn minor matters into absolutes and tremble every day. As the internal obstruction diminishes, agitation diminishes and nirvana-like equanimity appears.
I jokingly call this practice “my affair is an affair, another’s is romance,” reversing the usual hypocrisy. I allow that others may be as they are, while asking why I became angry, elated by praise, frightened, hurt, sad, or depressed. Ultimately self and other are not separate, but at the beginning I grant others room and examine myself rigorously. Asking which view makes the mind move is practice.
A Pilgrimage and a Statue Cannot Replace Practice
Buddhism is study of the mind. Jaseung’s faction and Jogye monks spend tens of millions of won walking in India and label it practice, thereby misrepresenting Buddhism. I go so far as to call the organization non-Buddhist and harmful to Buddhism. Rather than claiming that erecting a giant statue will restore the nation and Buddhism, they should first straighten themselves and their own minds. Helping citizens cultivate their minds and correcting social wrongs restores Buddhism; building a statue must not consume the Jogye Order’s energy.
Walking in India along a route the Buddha may have walked does not become practice merely by being called pilgrimage, 2,500 years after his death. What is needed is looking into one’s own mind. Jaseung, let us practice. Let us study the mind.
Removing the Obstruction from the Mind
“There was no such thing” removes the obstacle lodged in the mind, the beam in the eye, and the shell of views. Leaving inverted dream-thinking and releasing obstruction ends agitation and reaches nirvana. That is how the phrase relates to awakening.
Does denying absolute good and evil mean never criticizing society or becoming angry? How is necessary criticism and moral judgment different from attachment? The next episode continues this question at the social level.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.