On a Pleasant Autumn Day, Let Us Ask About Anything
Hello, and welcome to the Arhat’s live broadcast. It is Friday evening, October 2, 2026. I am Yoon Deok-man, the twenty-first-century arhat, here to talk with you. Have you enjoyed your week? Now that October has arrived, the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures has grown, and the evenings are a little cool. It is lovely to go for a walk during the day: neither too hot nor too cold. In Korea, the period when we can enjoy weather like this is short—perhaps a month at most. I hope you make the most of it.
Looking back from my university days to the present, I find that good weather is good for both play and work. It is good for studying, too. When it is very hot or cold, I can somehow manage to have fun, but work does not go well. In good weather, working, studying, and enjoying myself all go well. I hope you spend this autumn wisely and enjoyably.
Today is another opportunity to ask questions and talk. Questions about Buddhism, personal or social matters, and doubts or criticisms about things I have said in my videos are all welcome. Since I call myself an arhat, you can challenge me: “What makes you an arhat? From your videos, you do not look like one to me.” Pointing things out and criticizing me are fine. It need not be about a Buddhist scripture or book. If something in philosophy, science, a YouTube broadcast, or any other piece of writing makes you want to discuss it, bring it up.
The same goes for politics, economics, society, and culture. We live in this society through dependent arising. My personal liberation is not the end of the matter. When society suffers, I suffer too. If war breaks out, my family, the people around me, and I suffer together. If those around me face economic hardship, I am affected as well. Almost anything about ourselves and the world can therefore become a topic of conversation. If joining a live broadcast is difficult, you can leave comments on a video. We can have another conversation through those comments.
Are You Using the Breaking of Concepts in Your Day Today?
While I wait for your questions, let me talk about something fairly accessible. In the early days of these broadcasts, I often discussed how to bring what I was saying into our lives. Recently, I have spent more time on principles and criticism, so it may have become less clear how these connect with everyday life. Today I want to ask what my daily life is like and what effect Buddhism has on the way I normally live.
What if practicing Buddhism amounts to nothing more than a game played at a desk? If someone says they have awakened but their behavior is nothing like that of an awakened person, would that not raise a question? I often speak of breaking free of concepts. I say that Buddhism means getting free of what we hold on to as right and wrong. But saying that cannot be the end of it. The remaining question is how we use the breaking of concepts in everyday life. Without that, we are not practicing Buddhism.
Is this actually being applied in my daily life, in this very day? Living wisely and happily ultimately concerns perception and judgment. My life changes according to how I see and judge things. Looking back at my life and thinking critically about it is what I mean by a Buddhist attitude toward living.
“Breaking free of concepts—that sounds good. I understand what it means.” Suppose I think that, yet my words and actions have nothing to do with it. Then either those words have not struck me deeply enough or I have not trained myself to become accustomed to this way of living. Here I want to discuss two broad possibilities. Buddhism usually calls this practice, but let me explain it in more everyday terms.
Judgment Happens in the Body, and Within It Are Our Criteria
Who makes our judgments? I do. It is a bodily activity. I can explain the way our body works in two broad ways, although, if we narrow it down, they ultimately concern one issue. There is some criterion within me, and one judgment is selected from several possibilities.
It is easy to think we have clear convictions and always make decisions according to them. But we do not have a clear conviction about everything. Sometimes we consider doing this or that and then choose one. Should I study or go out and have fun? When I meet my girlfriend, should I say this or that? Various dependently arisen circumstances—my physical condition, state of mind, and surroundings at that moment—affect the judgments and actions that emerge.
If I single out something internal, it is our criteria. Is this right? Is it good? Do I dislike it? Judgment takes place as my criteria and desires collide. We often picture an angel on one side saying, “You should act well like this,” while the other side says, “Who cares? Do whatever you want.” We make a decision amid these competing thoughts.
When we apply Buddhism as an attitude toward life, then, what determines whether a decision is wise? I would point to those criteria. My actions change according to how clearly and strongly I consider something right or good. Is it all right to throw rubbish on the street? Is it all right to make a loud disturbance? I want to do this, but it seems I should do that—what should I do? We live among countless choices like these.
Quitting Smoking: What Changes Through Repeated Exposure?
Let me give a clearer example. You smoke, but one day your health is not good. Your lungs are not doing well, and your wife, girlfriend, or child keeps telling you to quit. You think, “Yes, I should quit,” but you still like smoking. Drinking can be similar. Certain things have a major influence on the decision to quit or continue.
What happens if the impression that smoking is bad becomes deeply embedded? Even if someone tells you to smoke, you do not want to. Is it not when the thought that you must not smoke becomes stronger than your desire to smoke that you quit? How, then, does “I must not smoke” come to act more strongly than desire? This is where the two possibilities I am describing come in. One is continuous exposure to the idea that smoking is bad.
Our mental life is bodily; it is a phenomenon of the body. We therefore need to understand the brain. If we see many advertisements saying that a particular product is good, it starts to look good. That is what advertising is for. Otherwise, why advertise a corporate image or promote luxury and an upscale image? Even with similar products, greater exposure and recognition are intended to create the perception of a good company and a good product. Coca-Cola, too, continually advertises with exciting, positive images. See those often enough, and it looks good.
Cigarette packets provide an example working in the opposite direction. In the past, packets were colorful, or simple but stylish. Now disturbing photographs appear on the lid and front. They show that smoking can lead to something bad happening in the lungs, mouth, or elsewhere. Why put them there? To make people keep seeing, “That is what happens if I smoke.” After repeatedly seeing those images, would you want to smoke or become reluctant to smoke?
Through continuous exposure, we gradually absorb an impression. If “That is really bad” becomes stronger than “I want to smoke,” we may quit, thinking, “This really is harmful.” Would you eat excrement from the street if told to? Would you eat chemicals? Suppose you know something is a poisonous mushroom. Imagine that eating it immediately causes a stomachache, increases the likelihood of cancer later, and, if eaten every day over a long period, shortens life by ten years. Would you want to eat it? You would not even want to look at it. Changing the image within us through repeated exposure is one route.
A Strong Shock Can Change the Course of the Water
The other route is a powerful shock. Suppose a friend who seemed perfectly fine suddenly dies. You were away briefly on business and had not seen them for less than a week when a death notice arrived on KakaoTalk. This was a close friend who had looked well. You ask, “Why did they die? Was there an accident?” The answer is, “They were diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and died a week later.”
That is a shock. “Lung cancer is frightening. Smoking makes the likelihood of getting it very, very much higher. Cigarettes are pure poison.” After a strong shock like that, you may not want to smoke even if someone tells you to. Repeated exposure and a powerful shock are both ways our brain works. Public-service advertisements constantly telling us to observe some rule also aim to change people’s thinking. We can make use of that process ourselves.
From another angle, we can consider systems in the brain, such as dopamine release. When a large amount of neural chemicals is suddenly released in connection with intense stress, pleasure, adrenaline, and so on, that change remains as a strong impression and memory. I compare this to water in a mountain stream or river.
A river normally follows the same course. But after very heavy rain, when the water rises dramatically, its course can change. The bed may be scoured deeper, or one side of a bend may break through so that the water flows straight ahead. A new branch may form. Afterward, even when the rain stops, must the water return to its old route? It may keep flowing through the newly opened channel.
As an analogy, the brain is like that too. Each time you wondered whether to smoke, you leaned toward smoking. Then suppose your father dies because of smoking, a friend suddenly dies of lung cancer, or you are told, “If you keep smoking, you will die in a year.” The shock leads you to quit. What used to flow in one direction begins flowing in another. Both are bodily processes, changes in the brain. I bring this up because it is one way to understand how practice and an attitude toward living take effect in real life.
When Impermanence Truly Strikes Home, and When We Reflect Each Day
“Look at this moment today. Do not torment yourself over pointless things.” However often we hear this, we keep tormenting ourselves. Tomorrow I have to do this; a week from now I have to manage that; in a year I have to do something else. We constantly suffer because we cannot do what we want or have not done what we think we must.
Then one day a realization may hit us hard: “I do not even know when I will die, yet I have been suffering like this every day. I have been tormenting myself over pointless things.” It sinks in that we have spent our lives stressed over trivial or misplaced concerns. It has to be this way; this is right; I have to do that; that is good; I suffer because I do not have it. Holding on to these thoughts, we have thrown ourselves into a whirl of worries, anxiety, hatred, resentment, envy, dislike, and jealousy.
At that moment, someone says, “Your friend died suddenly.” You ask why and hear that there was a traffic accident. “Ah, life is impermanent.” Familiar words can suddenly strike home. You see that you have been holding on to something misplaced and tormenting yourself in each moment of today over things that do not matter very much. The shock helps you loosen your grip. You may have heard endlessly about impermanence and non-self without applying them, and then your thinking changes.
The other route is to keep exposing yourself to critical reflection and to the momentary nature of life, and to train yourself in that. “I was distressed today. Why? What is making things hard for me again?” You look back. Gradual practice and a sudden, powerful shock look different, but both affect the brain.
Beyond “You Are Already a Buddha,” Does Your Life Actually Change?
People say, “You are already a Buddha. There is nothing to awaken to. Just recognize it, and you are a Buddha.” But if recognizing it makes you a Buddha, does that not mean you were not a Buddha before recognizing it? Why say you were one all along? Some say, “There is nothing you need to do. Just listen to me.” Others say you only need to have an experience. What is that experience? That, too, ultimately means that I change.
Whether it is an awakening to the misconception I was caught in and what I was clinging to, or a change in the anxiety, worry, depression, anger, and strong attachment that torment me moment by moment, I am describing those two routes. When “That really is so; life truly is impermanent” becomes a deeply felt understanding, life changes. Buddhism is a religion in which life changes. You say your life has not changed? Then you are not practicing Buddhism.
Even a small shock that changes your thinking changes the direction in which judgment flows. The other approach involves exposing yourself consistently: observing how you think, how your mind works, your body, your mind, and the world, and continually checking on yourself.
Since I have recently criticized various things and discussed emptiness and the Heart Sutra, someone may ask, “You say those things do not exist, but what use is the Heart Sutra to me?” Whether it is the Heart Sutra or another scripture, it must apply to even one small thing in my life—to the thorn caught in my throat right now. My boss at work is making life difficult. One day the girl sitting next to me in high school suddenly looks very pretty. There is an issue directly in front of me, a thorn in my throat.
Can I judge that immediate issue wisely? Is Buddhism helping me deal with it? If I say I practice Buddhism but neither my life nor my mind has changed at all, what kind of Buddhism is that? Buddhism applies to my attitude toward life, the workings of my mind, today’s decisions and judgments, and the act of observing my mind, so that I can live a little more wisely. Where, specifically, do emptiness and the Heart Sutra apply?
Reconsider the Criteria You Take to Be Right
The clearest example is critical reflection on what I pursue, like, dislike, and consider right. It means reconsidering my criteria. This is right, that is wrong, this is good, that is evil. Our heads are full of concepts like these. Reconsidering them is one way to apply emptiness to life.
An example I often give is the rule that boys and girls should not sit together after the age of seven. Who likes that rule today? Yet it was once a powerful standard in Joseon society. “How dare boys and girls sit together!” people would scold. They lived immersed in that idea. Does that mean we have nothing similar? People living in twenty-first-century society are also tightly bound by such concepts.
Let me give a representative example. When I become angry during a broadcast, people say, “He has not even overcome greed, anger, and delusion, yet he calls himself an arhat. Look at his attitude,” and so on. What is at work here? They have an image in their heads of what a Buddha is supposed to be.
Yet people have different ideas of what a Buddha is. They form such images by looking at a statue, seeing someone, reading a book, or listening to another person. They have not critically considered whether that image really is a Buddha. Like people in the Confucian society of Joseon who lived bound by the rule separating boys and girls, many who say they practice Buddhism are so immersed in “A Buddha is this sort of being” that they cannot look back at the idea itself. They are bound by a concept.
When I say we are bound by concepts, I am not making an abstract point. Living in society, we absorb all kinds of concepts. This is right, that is wrong, this is good, that is unpleasant, this thing is such-and-such—these ideas collect in our heads. Looking at them is looking at ourselves. “It should be like this. I want to do that. A Buddha is this kind of being. A practitioner should behave this way.” I am asking you to examine those thoughts in your mind.
Usually, we do not think critically about these concepts. If you ask a believer in a god to examine that god critically, will they readily do so? If you ask someone who believes in Buddha-nature to examine that idea critically, will they? You may feel that discussing the rule separating boys and girls is different from discussing gods or Buddhas. You may object, “How are those the same?” So let me give an example involving different worldviews.
Can Those Who Believe in Odin and Those Who Believe in Yahweh Question Their Own Worldviews?
The Vikings of the past believed in Norse mythology, including Odin and Thor. They thought that if they died fighting bravely in battle, a Valkyrie would come and carry the warrior’s soul to the heavenly realm. Within that worldview, one had to fight bravely and die in battle. That was how one reached heaven.
Think of the period when Vikings invaded Britain and various other parts of Europe. I am speaking roughly of the years in the 700s, 800s, and 900s. Christianity had spread widely in England, where there were Catholic monasteries. People who believed in Norse mythology invaded and plundered those monasteries because they contained gold and silver, food, and people who could be taken as slaves.
What would the Christians there have thought? They spoke of Jesus, Yahweh, and angels, believing in an entirely different god and worldview. On one side were stories of Odin, Thor, Valkyries, and a great tree; on the other was the Christian god. In India at the same time, people would have believed in other gods. Each group believed in its own gods and worldview, but could it critically examine that worldview itself?
Later there was some integration. Some of the Vikings who had invaded converted to Christianity. As Christians continually tried to convert them, they moved from their own religion to another. But on either side, had they been told to question the fact that they were believing in imagined concepts, to think critically, and to try breaking free of concepts?
Usually, people say the opposite. Whether in Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam, they say, “Faith is supreme. You must believe. Do not doubt.” But I say, question it. I need to examine my worldview critically: what misconceptions am I living in, and what sort of worldview am I believing?
Suppose Christians believe in Christianity, others in Norse mythology, people in South America in Quetzalcoatl, and people in India in Shiva. Whether someone believes in Avalokiteshvara or Amitabha, each is believing something. Might I simply have been born into that world, accepted what people there said without criticism, and come to believe such things exist? Might I simply have grown accustomed to it?
This is also why I bring up the separation of boys and girls or the three obediences. The absence of a god’s name from those Confucian concepts does not make the issue different. People in that time and cultural setting could think that way. But we must be able to ask whether it is absolute, truly right, correct, or something that actually exists.
Only by looking back in that way can we see that merely believing in Yahweh, Quetzalcoatl, Avalokiteshvara, or Amitabha is no different from believing in a cockroach god, a maggot god, or a shoe god. Nor is it different from accepting the separation of boys and girls as something obvious and absolutely true. The point is that we did not examine it critically when we accepted it.
No Obstruction, No Disturbance: What Catches the Mind and Makes It Waver?
Let us return to the question, “How does the Heart Sutra apply to my life?” What worldview do I live within? What do I believe? What have I accepted without questioning? There are ideas about capitalism, democracy, and communism; judgments about what is right or evil; notions about sexuality; and standards insisting that things must be a particular way. I need to realize that I can critically examine these myself.
“Ah, this may simply be something I have absorbed. I may have been conditioned into it. I have absorbed it from society, culture, and family. It is not absolutely right, yet I am steeped in it.” Only when I recognize that possibility do I begin to examine myself.
You are tied to something. Something catches in your mind, so whenever something comes along, it collides with it and you are shaken. The Heart Sutra says, “Therefore the mind has no obstruction; having no obstruction, there is no fear.” Here, I speak of “no fear” as “no disturbance”. You are shaken because something obstructs your mind. So you must ask, “What is catching in my mind? What am I gripping tightly without even realizing it?”
When you were young, you may have looked at an older person and thought they were a rigid, overbearing know-it-all: “They are so bound up in old ideas that all they say is, ‘How dare you?’” But is that limited to older people? Is it absent in people in their twenties, thirties, forties, or teens? The very thing we criticize in an older person’s rigidity is present in you and in me too.
We live bound because we do not clearly know what misconceptions we are caught in or where we are tied down. When I realize, “I was attached to the wrong thing,” the binding loosens. Seeing what has bound me releases it. When I do not see, I hold on without even knowing it is a misconception. First, then, I must be able to recognize, “I too may be caught in a misconception. I too may be a frog at the bottom of a well.”
Questioning “Ruler, Teacher, and Father Are One,” Take a Step Back from Your Own Concepts
Consider the idea that the ruler, teacher, and father are one. Suppose Confucian society ingrained that in people. A ruler is a ruler, a father is a father, and a teacher is a teacher—why call them one? Why proclaim their unity? Was it not a frame devised to compare the ruler to a father and serve their own damn interests? Yet people cannot question the idea itself.
It may seem that I am criticizing only Confucianism, but this problem also exists in Buddhism and Christianity, and in religion, society, and culture both past and present. Among our present systems, social structures, and countless concepts are things like the unity of ruler, teacher, and father or the rule separating boys and girls. We must acknowledge where we are bound, acknowledge that we too may be bound, and look back at ourselves.
Examine your thoughts, state of mind, and actions. Actions ultimately follow internal criteria and thoughts. How I think and feel determines my behavior. When I say that getting free of concepts is Buddhism and liberation, I am pointing to whether I can observe the concepts that have colored and bound me.
Can you step back and have a conversation? When discussing your behavior with another person, can you put yourself before you as though you were a third party? “This person behaved like this. Was it right? Why did they do it?” Can you analyze, observe, and reflect? Can you ask questions? This is what it looks like when the Heart Sutra is applied to my life.
What am I suffering over today? What am I tied to? In what cave am I held? These are questions to ask myself. Merely talking about what binds other people does not apply it to my life. I need to see what I am holding on to.
Learn Observation Like Riding a Bicycle, and Question Body, Feeling, Mind, and Concepts
The Heart Sutra’s emptiness and Buddhist practice connect in this way. “You say it is empty, but how does that apply to my life?” Merely saying “emptiness” applies nothing. I need to observe where I am bound and what catches in my mind. Consistent observation is necessary.
Our brain can become accustomed even to looking critically at ourselves. Repeat it. Think deeply, think again, look analytically at your actions and state of mind, observe, talk, and reflect. In one respect, this is training. It is like learning to ride a bicycle. You can train.
If someone who has spent ten or twenty years consistently looking back at themselves, examining their concepts, and deeply considering their actions, ways of thinking, and emotional states meets someone who has not, the difference shows. A Buddhist attitude toward life concerns whether I can look back at myself. The same questioning, observation, and reflection—“Is that really so?”—must also arise in relation to society, because we live in a dependently arisen world.
Focusing on individual practice and using Buddhist terminology, people often speak of observing body, feeling, mind, and dharmas. I do not particularly like using such terminology, but to unpack it: body means the body; feeling means feeling and receiving; mind means the state and workings of the mind; dharmas means concepts. We are asked to observe these.
But is observation the end? We must ask questions and reflect. Why does it work this way? How does it work? Why did I act that way? Why did that feeling arise? The deeper our understanding of human beings and ourselves, the wiser we become. We see the concepts within which we have been living.
Buddhist Practice Needs an “Ochungi”
I call this ochungi, a further adolescence. We do not get to experience it. In adolescence, after living as our parents tell us, physical changes bring the protest, “Why should I listen to Mom?” We briefly take a rebellious attitude toward parents and society. But that attitude is suppressed, so we pass through it as little more than a rebellious phase or a step toward independence, without actually thinking critically and deeply.
We really need to go through a deep adolescence, but do not. That is why I say life needs an ochungi. We need a time to look again at the concepts and thoughts we have held, the things we have accepted, our actions and state of mind, and the conclusions we have reached.
Look at what you like and dislike, what you consider right or wrong, your concept of what sort of person you are, and your concept of what something else is. What is a god? What is a Buddha? What is Buddha-nature? Why is that considered sacred? We need to ask, “Is that really so?” and observe and reflect. Only then does life begin to change and Buddhism begin to apply to it.
Bring the Thorn in Your Throat, and Let Us Question Together
To see how the Heart Sutra’s emptiness and the breaking of concepts apply to real life, we must examine the concepts we ourselves are caught in, rather than talking only about other people’s concepts. So I would like you to bring the thorn in your own throat and talk with me.
In what situation am I worrying about what? What thoughts arose when I watched a video or read a book? Someone says something, but am I unsure what to make of it? Bring those immediate issues into our conversation. I cannot give you every correct answer. What am I, a god? I am suggesting that we ask questions and think together.
Let us practice questioning, observing, and reflecting. “I thought this was the case, but is it really?” You must be able to do this yourself. However hard I work at answering, those are my answers. You need to be able to do it, do you not? That is becoming a Buddha. You need to generate your own power. We speak of being a lamp unto oneself and taking the Dharma as a lamp. I must be able, by myself, to question, observe, and reflect on myself and the world.
Living as a Buddha Does Not Mean Becoming Perfect
Buddhism is a religion of living as a Buddha, rather than becoming one. What, then, is a Buddha? Someone who has made questioning, observation, and reflection part of themselves and consistently puts them into action. Yet the moment we hear “has become a Buddha,” we fall into the idea that a Buddha knows everything, is one hundred percent complete and perfect, and is never shaken by anything. A Buddha is not that kind of being. How could a human being be perfect?
What matters is whether we live as a Buddha. Do we understand the heart of Buddhism and remain able to think critically even about ourselves? Can we look back to see whether we are once again caught by something misplaced? If that has become part of us, that is a Buddha. If you can do it yourself and show others how, you are a Buddha: someone in whom a Buddhist attitude toward living has become established.
Before becoming a Buddha and afterward, Buddhism remains a religion of questioning, observing, and reflecting. This is how we make the Heart Sutra part of ourselves and apply it to our lives. Some may imagine that a great awakening and perfect understanding of emptiness will suddenly change the whole world. That is not how it works.
Does hearing that concepts arise through conditions and are made by people change my life one hundred percent? No. Only when I resolve even one thing I have been clinging to or tied to does emptiness finally apply to real life. Understanding grand words cannot be the end.
Does It Apply to My Life? Can I Look Back at Myself?
Since there were no other questions today, I thought about recent questions concerning emptiness and felt I should bring this discussion together. The issue is what Buddhist practice means. We say the Heart Sutra concerns the breaking of concepts and emptiness—but so what? We need to ask whether it applies to my life, whether it helps resolve the thorn in my throat, and whether I can look back at myself.
That is a Buddhist attitude toward life, and that is practice. Doing this before becoming a Buddha and afterward is Buddhism. Without it, it is not Buddhism. This is the Buddhism I advocate.
Today’s discussion has run a little long. It has almost become a one-to-one class with Daus. I would prefer to keep the lecture short and hear more of your questions. Perhaps something is wrong with my OBS settings, because lately I cannot see the number of simultaneous viewers, which makes the presentation a little awkward. If greetings and messages appeared in the chat, I could wait and converse with others, but today the chat was quiet, so I talked a lot on my own. Still, I really did want to discuss this.
Train yourself gradually. Mental activity is bodily activity and bodily change. We need to understand how our brain changes. It may change through a powerful shock or through consistent exposure and training. Examine what is stored within you and how. Let us consider Buddhist practice, our attitude toward life, and where wisdom comes from.
Do not become a rigid know-it-all. Remain flexible and think deeply about what sort of person you are. Do not decide too easily; think more deeply. Thank you to Daus for staying in the chat today and leaving a final message. I hope you all become Buddhas. Have an enjoyable weekend.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.