introduction(1)

Zen Master Seung Sahn. 1997. The Campus of Zen (Shambhala:Boston)

Introduction
Where are you going?

A long time ago, the world was a very simple place. Nowadays this world is very complicated. The main reason for this is that there are too many human beings living on this planet. The human population has increased far too rapidly. In 1945 there were some two billion people living in this world. Through thousands and thousands of years of human history, only two billion people appeared on earth, and that was enough. Compared to today, people’s minds were relatively simple and clear. But in just the last fifty years since the end of the Second World War, three billion more people have appeared, and now human beings have become very complicated. Today there are nearly six billion people in the whole world, and some scientists say that in the next thirty years another three billion people will appear. There facts are directly connected to the sudden increase in the amount of suffering that humans and other beings are now experiencing. Let’s look at this more closely.

Nowadays humans live more closely together, so their relationships have become more complex. Their desire for material things becomes deeper and stronger. Their thinking is more complicated, their lives are more complicated, and consequently there is much more suffering than ever before. Even the kinds of suffering in the world have become more complicated as humans come up with new weapons and new ways of hurting each other. Human beings not only make each other suffer. Nowadays, we bring much more suffering to all of the other beings in this world. We hurt the air, the water, the grass, the trees, everything. Human beings cut down whole forests, and take away the green belt. We pollute the water, the air, and the ground. Human beings always say they want freedom, but actually they are the number one dictators in this world.