Introduction(10)

Why is this book called The Compass of Zen? Buddhist teaching reveals that this world is an ocean of suffering. Everyone is born, suffers, grows old, and dies. We are reborn, we suffer, we grow old, and then we die. Every single being is reborn over and over and over again. Because of our desires and attachment. We have been doing this since beginningless time. The Sanskrit name for that is samsare-everything is always going around and around and around. The Sino-Korean characters for that are go hae, or “ocean of suffering.” The Buddha taught that we must take a boat across this ocean of samsara, a ship of wisdom or “prajna ship.” But like every ocean-going vessel, this ship needs a compass.

Let’s say that you want to take a ship from Los Angeles to Korea. On board you have stowed plenty of food and clothing and medicine. These are necessary for your body to stay alive. But how do you find your destination on this journey? The most important thing to be clear about is your direction. If your direction is not clear, you will wander for years and years all over the ocean. You will be easily lost. In the meantime, perhaps you will run out of food, or get stranded on some island. So more than anything lese on your journey, your direction is most important: “How can I find Korea? How do I get there? Where is Korea?”

To find your correct direction, you need a compass. If sailors have no compass, then even though they may have a very good boat, good maps, and excellent weather, they will not perceive clearly their correct direction. They will certainly lose the way and not reach the destination. But when you use this boat’s compass correctly, you can find your true way. Then you can perceive that actually your true way is always right in front of you.

So if you want to understand your true self, you must practice meditation. Only keep this question very deeply. “What am I?” Don’t knowww…. But there are many kinds of teachings you can follow along the way. There is Tibetan Buddhist teaching, Chinese Buddhist teaching, Korean Zen, Japanese Zen and Namu myoho renge-kyo; there is Vipassana, Transcendental Medetation, and Clear Light Meditation. There is Pure Land practice, Tantric Buddhism, and esoteric Buddhism. There are many, many kinds of teachings, especially nowadays in the West. What is a clear teaching, and how does it function? How does it point directly to mind? How does it help us find our correct way, truth, and a life that functions spontaneously and compassionately for all beings? That is the point of making this compass: to help you find the true bone of the Buddha’s teaching in the three major Buddhist divisions.

Introduction(9)

Nearly every single human being living in the world today does not understand what they are. The Buddha was simply a man of great determination and try-mind who taught us the importance of resolving just that point. Before you die, you must attain your direction. You must attain what you are. If you read many sutras, or chant to Amitaba, that will help you somewhat. That is not good, not bad. But why do you read many sutras? Why do you try this Amitaba Buddha chanting? So it is very important to make your direction clear. The Buddha taught us the importance of finding our true direction in this life. “What am I? I must attain my true self – this is the most important thing I can do.” If you attain your true self, then you attain your correct way. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Just now, what is your correct job? Everybody understands this body’s job. Some people have lawyer jobs, or doctor jobs, or truckdriver jobs, or nurse jobs, or student jobs, or husband jobs, or wife jobs, or child jobs. These are our bodies’ jobs, our outside jobs. But what is your true self’s job? The Buddha taught us that for life after life after life, we must walk the Great Bodhisattva Way and save all beings from suffering. In order to save all beings, it is very important that you first save yourself. If you cannot save yourself, how can you possibly save other people? So this is why we must attain our true self, our true nature. This true nature cannot be found in books or conceptual thought. A Ph.D., no matter how wonderful, cannot match the power of even one moment of clear insight into our own true original nature. And the most direct path to that experience is meditation. That is a very important point.

Correct meditation means understanding my true self. The path of this begins and ends by asking, “What am I?” It is very simple teaching, and not special. When you ask this question very deeply, what appears is only “don’t know.” All thinking is completely cut off, and you return to your before-thinking mind. If you attain this don’t-know, you have already attained your true self. You have returned to your original nature, which is mind before thinking arises. In this way you can attain your correct way, and you attain truth, and your life functions correctly to save all beings from suffering. The name for that is “wake up.” That is the experience of true meditation.

Introduction(8)

The current situation in the world is like this fruit. Many, many centuries of human development made this fruit. For a long time, this single blossom was only belief in some God or outside power. Then the fruit appeared and developed. But only one side ripened at first; only one side had a good color and good taste, while the other did not. This was the emergence of capitalism and communism in this world. Then recently the changes in this fruit have started to happen very quickly. Communism disappeared, and now the whole fruit is the same color. The fruit has become ripe, and has just one color and taste now: money. Nowadays, there is no longer any ideology for separate belief. The whole world only wants money, and everyone’s energy is going very strongly in that direction. This world has no true way – there is only the taste of money. Already many rotten spots have appeared: places like the Middle East, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, North Korea, even now in America, Russia, China, and Japan. Since the communist world broke apart, we see the emergence of many smaller groups and nations, all fighting each other. There is also the spread of many private armies and the routine buying and selling of weapons of mass destruction.

So human beings must soon wake up and find their original seeds, their original nature. But how do we return to our original nature? Around twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha had a very good situation. He was a prince named Siddhartha, and had everything he wanted. But he didn’t understand himself. “What am I? I don’t know.” In those times in India, the Brahman religion of Hinduism was the main religion. But Brahmanism could not give him the correct answer to his questions about the true nature of life and death. So Siddhartha abandoned the palace, went to the mountains, and practiced various spiritual austerities for six years. He found the Middle Way between self-indulgence and extreme asceticism. Early one morning, while meditating under the Bodhi tree, he saw a star in the eastern sky. At that moment – boom! – the young prince Siddhartha got enlightenment. He woke up, and became a Buddha. He attained I. This means that the Buddha attained the true nature of a human being without depending on some outs8de force or religion or god. That is the Buddha’s teaching.

Intro(7)

That is why some people say that human beings are the number one bad animal in this world. Some religious traditions call this kind of situation the “end of this world.”
That is only the end of the current human consciousness. Original human nature does not have this problem. In Buddhist teaching, rather than call this the “end of the world,” we say that everything is now completely ripe. It is like a fruit growing on a tree. At first a blossom appears on the branch. As time passes this blossom produces a small bud, and the blossom drops away. The bud gradually matures into a fruit which swells and swells as time passed. The fruit is green at first, but over time the side facing the sun starts to turn a beautiful color. At this point, only one side is colored, while the other is still greenish. More time passes, and the whole fruit is now a very wonderful color. The fruit may have a beautiful form and beautiful color, but there is still no smell, because the fruit is not yet ripe inside. As a little more time passes, however, the fruit becomes completely ripe.

Up until this point, it has taken a long time for this to develop from blossom to bud and fruit. For many months all of the tree’s energy has gone up from the roots and down from the leaves gathering energy from the sun, and has gone into producing the fruit. This process has taken place over a long period, up to a year of change and growth in the tree and blossom and bud and fruit.

But now the energy flowing from the tree into the fruit is cut off. From this point on, once fruit has become completely ripe, the changes in the fruit start to happen very, very quickly, just in a matter of a few days. Its form is not so good anymore, and its color is also not so good. But inside there is a very, very sweet taste, and the fruit begins to smell very strong. It is beginning to be overripe. Soon a few spots appear on the fruit, tiny black dots indicating that the fruit is “turning.” After a few more days, there are many, many spots on the fruit. Once these spots appear on the fruit, the process of rotting cannot be slowed or stopped. The fruit becomes rotten just a few days after becoming ripe. When it becomes rotten, it cannot be eaten. But inside, this fruit has seeds. When the fruit has become completely rotten the seeds reach maturity.