🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

2024. 8. 6

🔹Question: Thank you, Sunim, for allowing me this opportunity to ask my question. I’ve been on this journey to discover my purpose and the meaning of my life for a while now. I’ve been getting into multiple discussions, reading a lot, and hearing a lot on this subject. Lately, I’ve been asking, “Does everyone have a purpose? Do I have a purpose? Was I born with a purpose?” And I saw a number of your videoswhich helped me make sense of it and understand that whether we have a purpose or not, It’s up to every individual and not an objective reality. It’s a subjective belief. I don’t know if that’s what you said, but that’s what I understood from those videos. So, my question today is to ask you about your personal purpose. Do you believe that you have a purpose? If so, do you believe that it was something that was given to you that came to you pre-defined, conceived bynature, by God? Or is that something that you have found along the way? How did you find your personal purpose if you do believe in having one. And given that we are in a Dharma talk, one of the meanings of the Dharma is one’s purpose aswell. So, I’m just curious to know your subjective belief and perspective given all the experiences that you have had so far.

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim(Apr 17, 2022)

🔹Question: Hello, Sunim. I'm currently living in South Korea. Thank you for this opportunity to ask a question. I had this question from my own virtual reality. In the last week's Dharma talk, Sunim talked about negative mental conditions for people in modern society, what we can do, and why it's so prevalent in current times. I've noticed some people with mental afflictions tend to have very creative minds.Writers, artists, painters throughout history and even in modern times, many creative people suffer from mental conditions. For example, the author of the novel "Pachinko", she said she's having anxiety and depression for the last 20 years. So how do we interpret this connection between mental disease and creativity and compassion? Had Buddha ever explored this topic during his lifetime?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at Jogyesa Temple,Seoul (June 14, 2019)

🔹Question: I have experienced arguing with my husband over historical problems between Korea and Japan. And a few times we almost divorced because of that. Through the many arguments I realized both have strong [patriotism] towards own countries and different opinions based on the education we have been taught. And I feel so pathetic to fight over something we can’t change. What I really want to know is can we resolve complicated and somehow emotional matters due to the terrible history between Korean and Japan? And what can I do as an individual living in Korea, as a Japanese?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at George WashingtonUniversity (Oct. 8, 2014)

🔹Question: To what extend to you think the human body and the human mind can operate separately? Do you think that human body can become a separate entity to human mind? If it is possible how can we individuals be enlightened to do that?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at St. ThomasEpiscopal Church in Sunnyvale, California (Nov. 8, 2014)

🔹Question: You are traveling around the world and meeting a lot of people. I looked up and searched Google and saw your schedule. It seems to be overwhelming for a person to be engaged in the very busy schedule. How do you manage and balance the number of talks that put into your schedule?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at St. ThomasEpiscopal Church in Sunnyvale, California (Nov. 8, 2014)

🔹Question: We are going through a series of classes here at St. Thomas Church on the topic of dreams. Symbolism, how to interpret them, and neuro-biological reasons for dreams. Sosome personal questions for you. Do you dream? Could you share any of your dreams? What do you do with your dreams?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session at St. ThomasEpiscopal Church in Sunnyvale, California (Nov. 8, 2014)

🔹Question: I study psychology and I actually study goals and motivations, so I am very interested in this topic. You talked about desires. You said there are three categories of desire which was survival needs, relative needs or desire and excessive needs. Because human has more intellect, I was thinking that humans also have desire that’s beyond survival desire.  A desire to maintain identity or to accomplish something, or lead a purposeful life, so to say, to self-actualize. My question was whether this kind of desire falls inone of these three categories. How should we deal with this desire? Should we cultivate it, or should we suppress it, or regulate it? I thought this is out of these three kinds of desires.

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’s social platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

session at Bethesda Chevy Chase Regional Service Center inWashington D.C. (September 18, 2019)

🔹Question:  Hi. I have a question about what you, from your perspective, what would you quantify as success in life, if not materialistic things, maybe career success and these kinds of ways to measure success? What do you personally, how do you quantify that?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from a Dharma Q&A session in UCLA (Nov. 16,2014)

🔹Question:  I recently listened to your lecture about careers. And I thought about my job in jewelry industry which in a way allures people to spend money to show off and put emphasis on outer beauty. But I really love my job and my goal is to become a jewelry designer. Whether my designs are for fashion jewelry or high jewelry, it still can mislead people. SoI was wondering about how I should view my career.

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint 

🔹Ven Pomnyun’s Dharma Q&A

Selection from Casual Conversation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim (November 14, 2020)

🔹Question:  Hello Sunim, I’m very happy to be here and talk to you. I was actually in South Korea for seven years. I worked at Samsung Electronics, then I finally moved to America in Seattle, Washington. So the first time I watched your dharma talk was in 2014 when you gave a talk at Google. From then, because of you, I got interested in Buddhism and understanding Buddhist Principles. So my question today is about how to make good choices using Buddhist principles. Even today, in the introduction you've talked about taking responsibility for the choices so this might be repetitive. I recently had two choices and one choice was to work for company A and the other choice was to work for company B. Before committing to a choice, I want to understand how do we apply some of the Buddhist principles and evaluate which choice to make. This kind of making choices happened to me many times, like choosing Seattle versus California, or choosing America versus South Korea. So before we make a choice, what things we have to go through in our minds?. That’s my question, how do we make choices and evaluate choices?

🔻Jungto Dharma School(Introduction to Buddhism):https://www.jungtosociety.org/jungto-dharma-school-online-course/ 

🔻 All Jungto Society’ssocial platforms: http://linktr.ee/jungtoint