Interview Of Ven. Pomnyun Sunim

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim had Buddhist Newspaper interview

You can listen to this interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybIX3u4uH4E

Q: Forgive me. I am sort of woefully unprepared. I am usually very prepared. This interview is going to be on the website. It is going to be edited and posted on the Parliament website. I was listening to you this morning and was struck by the work you are doing in terms of human rights. For the listeners, could you tell them a little bit about who you are for starters?

Sunim: I’m a Zen Buddhist monk from South Korea. It has been 49 years since I became a monk. My primary activity consists of conducting Dharma Q&As. When people tell me about their problems during these talks, I hold conversations with them to help them free themselves from their suffering right then and there.

Q: Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese organization, does a lot of humanitarian relief activities. Do you have an organization that also does that?

Sunim: Yes, the Tzu Chi Foundation is a very big organization. We have Joined Together Society (JTS), an international relief organization working to end poverty in third-world countries. JTS activities began with helping the “Untouchables” in India. In order to eliminate poverty, we not only needed to provide food aid but also needed to provide educational and medical support. Therefore, we run kindergartens, elementary schools, and a hospital there.

Q: In India? Are you involved in making the Untouchables into Buddhists?

Sunim: Not at all. The same applies to our international relief program in Mindanao, the Philippines, where we build schools and provide educational support for the native and Muslim regions. The native region is dangerous because the New People’s Army (NPA) is active there, so there is a lack of government support. The same is true for the Muslim region, as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is active there. For the past 15 years, JTS has built about 50 schools in these areas including an elementary school at the MILF headquarters. Our safety is ensured there because JTS does not try to spread Buddhism as part of its relief work. JTS has provided food and other material aid to North Korea, primarily to orphanages, nursing homes, and facilities for the disabled. When there was a food shortage in North Korea, JTS provided food aid to daycare centers. Since a lot of North Korean refugees crossed the border into China, we’ve provided aid to them as well. Some of the JTS activists who helped the North Korean refugees were arrested, imprisoned, and deported from China.

During the presidencies of former presidents Kim Dae-Joong and Noh Moo-Hyun, we were allowed to send aid to North Korea. However, for ten years under former presidents Lee Myung-Bak and Park Geun-Hye, many restrictions were imposed on JTS. Unfortunately, humanitarian aid to North Korea hasn’t resumed yet, but we plan to do so soon. Last week, we received a request from North Korea for food aid. In addition to providing aid, we researched and reported on the extent of the North Korean food crisis, the number of people who died from starvation, and the number of North Korean refugees in China.

Q: That’s very interesting.

Sunim: Also, JTS provided relief aid to refugees in Afghanistan for 3 years until we were forced to leave when the South Korean government ordered everyone to evacuate. Currently, we are providing aid to the Rohingya refugees and the areas hit by an earthquake in Paaloo, Indonesia. We’ve been continuously supporting the areas in Southeast Asia hit by typhoons and earthquakes.

Q: Regarding Rohingya, which side of the border are you working on?

Sunim: We’re working on the Bangladesh side. We had originally wanted to work on the Myanmar side but were denied permission.

Q: Venerable is your title? How should I address you? This is a side note, but I went on a pilgrimage and I was in Sravasti, and I stayed in a Korean monastery there, and they were very kind. So thank you.

Sumin: In Sravasti? Yes, I know the Buddhist monk you’re referring to very well.

Q: That is so great. I loved him. It was wonderful. I will show you a picture. Just for fun. Hang on. We will just take a break here.

Sunim: He’s the abbot there.

Q: I don’t remember his name, don’t know the language. Just for fun. This one? He was so good.

Sunim: I visit there every January.

Q: Oh, do you? That’s so wonderful.

Sunim: It’s near Bodhi Gaya, close to Sujata Academy and Jivaka Hospital, both of which are operated by JTS. A large group of the Untouchables live in the village, and it’s the place where the Buddha practiced asceticism for 6 years.

Q: Oh, that’s across the valley, the cave.

Sunim: The school is at the foot of the mountain. I became acquainted with the village when I visited the cave 25 years ago. As I was hiking up the mountain, I saw children begging. When I asked them why they weren’t in school, they replied that there was no school. When I again asked how there could be no school, they said that it was really true. That’s why after discussing with the villagers, JTS decided to build schools in that area. The population is about 10,000. We built a kindergarten in each of the 15 villages. Also, we built two elementary schools, one on each side of the mountain. In addition, we built one middle school. The older children attend public high schools and universities.

Q: Thank you. You are much kinder than I am. I had one child begging me, and I was feeling fear because everyone had told me that it was dangerous to be alone, so I kind of stayed away, and I have always felt guilty. I should have given him something.

Sunim: I was like you at first. This all started from feeling guilty. While I was on a pilgrimage in India, a woman carrying a child kept following me asking me to give her something. When she motioned her hand to the baby’s mouth and to the stomach, I understood that it meant that the baby was hungry. I followed her to a small store she led me. She pointed to a container of dry baby formula. I asked how much it was, and the shop owner answered that it was 60 rupees. Having been instructed not to give away more than 1 rupee on my first visit to India, I ran away. I felt so guilty about it. I started my relief work because of that incident.

Q: Thank you. You are very kind. You made me feel much better. Let me ask you in terms of being a Zen master. How do you balance practice and Dharma with your giving activities? You may be too busy to practice.

Sunim: When I help people with their spiritual practice, they make donations. I’m now 66 years old. I practiced intensely when I was young, so I am able to maintain peace of mind while engaged in various activities.

Q: So these days, it’s mostly giving?

Sunim: I still meditate for a month once a year. While fasting, I meditate and teach meditation.

Q: Where do you go? In the mountains in Korea?

Sunim: We have a meditation retreat center in the mountains.

Q: It’s really interesting. That really helps you focus on helping without grasping for recognition or anything like that.

Sunim: Yes, when we talk of humanitarian aid, we mean feeding the hungry and helping the needy. We should not expect anything in return. That’s why I never talked about Buddhism during 20 years of JTS activities in India. But the children we helped there who have now become young adults and teachers at the school we built have started asking me about Buddhism. Since they lived at the place the Buddha practiced, I took them on a tour and explained to them the significance of the place. In Buddhism, you are not supposed to talk about the teachings of the Buddha unless someone asks. You only talk about them upon being asked. Besides JTS, I’m also involved in an organization that focuses on the peace movement. I have been participating in the peace movement because of the ongoing danger of war on the Korean peninsula.

Q: At the very beginning, you mentioned climate change and environmental issues. It sounds like this is something relatively new. You have been doing schools for 20 years but the climate aspect is new. Could you talk about that and the urgency that you feel?

Sunim: I think the most important issue in the world is the environmental problem. That’s why we established an organization called EcoBudda to promote the environmental movement. We’re focused on implementing practical solutions such as zero garbage, no food waste, no packaging, and no use of plastic bags.

Q: I know a little about Japanese culture where packaging is really important. Is it kind of like that in Korea also?

Sunim: South Korea is similar. The environmental movement was the first social movement I started. Thirty years ago, when I was imprisoned for pro-democracy activism, I read a book called Entropy. Through the book, I learned about the importance of protecting the environment. Immediately after being released from prison, I established an environmental educational center and began the environmental movement.

Q: EcoBuddha is that what you call it? Is it relatively new?

Sunim: It began as the Environmental Education Center but was later renamed EcoBuddha. Initially, the focus was on education, but as the focus shifted to carrying out environmental practices, it was renamed EcoBuddha. We’ve since added environmental protection to the precepts we keep in our spiritual practice.

Q: Could you say a little bit specifically what you do in society? Are there classes? What does EcoBuddha do? By movement, do you mean training, pamphlets, and schools?

Sunim: First, we are conducting a campaign urging people not to waste food by consuming all the food on their plates. We pursue an environmental movement that emphasizes taking action. We educate children to empty their plates during meals at school and produce less garbage. We aim to eliminate food waste in every individual household by growing earthworms that decompose food waste and convert it into compost, which is used to grow house plants. The purpose is to eliminate food garbage entirely. Trash is separated into recyclable and non-recyclable items, and we measure the daily amount of household trash and examine ways to reduce it. We don’t use disposable items, and we carry our own cups and grocery bags. These are some of the environmentally friendly practices we carry out in our daily lives.

Q: How many people are you reaching with this movement? How many schools are participating?

Sunim: It has not been quantified. The participants carry out environmentally friendly practices in their schools, in their military units, or at work.

Q: How many members are there?

Sunim: There are approximately 10,000 members.

Q: Is this in the context of climate change in particular or just preventing environmental degradation? What kind of focus did you start with and how has it evolved?

Sunim: When I first started the environmental movement, the issue of climate change wasn’t that serious. The big issue was diseases stemming from environmental pollution. During that time, South Korea was undergoing rapid development, but there was opposition to development. I too participated in that environmental movement. However, the problem was that even the environmental activists themselves were not able to change their way of consumption. This made me question how would we be able to solve the environmental problems when our consumption habits don’t change.

That’s when I began to focus on the environmental movement that consists of changing people’s attitudes. I began a new movement to provide environmental education in order to change people’s mindset toward consumption. Instead of protesting against big environmental issues, we now focus on carrying out practical solutions to decrease consumption and eliminate waste. This aligns with the traditional Buddhist way of frugal living.

Q: I have only been to the airport in Seoul. I have never actually been to Korea, but Korea seems to be a very consumptive country. In terms of climate change itself, is it a strategy that you think might help or make a difference? Is that what you are pursuing?

Sunim: Is there a way to respond to climate change without reducing consumption? No, so we must fundamentally reduce consumption. This is because despite technological advancements, if consumption increases, climate change will become worse. Also, by reducing consumption, we would be able to secure more financial resources for humanitarian aid. The members of my organization are reducing consumption and sharing the savings with the poor. The reason consumption does not decrease is that people feel empty inside. Therefore, they should fill their minds through meditation or spiritual practice. Human desire cannot be satisfied with the pleasures of material consumption. Therefore, in my organization, spiritual practice, environmental movement, and relief activities all go together as one.

Q: Thank you. Is there anything that I didn’t ask that I should have asked?

Sunim: No.

Q: Thank you so much. It was very nice to meet you.