Suspend the Urge to Understand: Lessons from a Heart Sutra Book Club at the Korean Buddhism Jo-Gei Temple of America
On a frigid February afternoon, six students sat cross-legged on jade-colored cushions atop creaky wooden floorboards inside a Manhattan brownstone. They had come for a Buddhist scripture study group, advertised plainly as “Book Club,” at the Korean Jo-Gei Temple of America.
“I consider myself quite shy,” said Bosung, the monk who leads the weekly gathering. “I find myself much more comfortable talking to trees and growing plants than teaching a class,” he added with a soft chuckle. He wore a bell-sleeve mauvish robe, a white muslin scarf, clear cubic glasses and chestnut prayer beads. Behind him, a gentle glow emanated from an oversized Himalayan salt lamp, creating a roseate halo around his shaved head.
Pipes crackled. A finicky heater whirred. Each student clutched a canary-yellow piece of paper displaying words in English and Hangul (the Korean alphabet), which they scrutinized in silence. Some scrawled notes in the margins, perhaps preparing themselves for the monk’s cold-calling practice. The printed work in question: The Heart Sutra, a text dedicated to Avalokiteshvara — the Bodhisattva of Compassion — and considered by many the foremost piece of Buddhist scripture.
“The Heart Sutra speaks to a quality of knowledge which you already have,” Bosung said. “It speaks to something we can do without understanding.” According to Bosung, the Sutra asks and answers one simple question: “How do we do compassion?” Compassion, he clarified, is not a feeling, but a function — an action to be demonstrated rather than simply discussed.
A student raised her hand to inquire about the meaning of emptiness, a recurring concept throughout the text. At this, Bosung clicked his tongue, released a heavy breath and cautioned against the urge to understand.
“If a child were to run in here crying, what would you do?” Bosung asked the group. Silence. “Would you ask them about emptiness?” he added. Blank stares. A few stifled laughs. “No!” Bosung exclaimed, shaking the room with his bellow. “You would ask what’s wrong and try to comfort them.” Nods and hums of agreement. “It’s our capacity to not know that allows us to comfort the child,” he said.
The lesson might seem counterintuitive: Ignorance enhances the capacity for compassion. One student voiced confusion: Isn’t knowledge required for deeper understanding and empathy?
“There can be real wisdom in ignorance,” Bosung said. Ignorance, he explained, gives way to curiosity, a necessary ingredient for compassion. The sacred act of asking true questions requires first gaining comfort in a state of unknowing.
Before the class adjourned, Bosung emphasized the importance of experiential learning in Buddhist practice. “Don’t take my word for it. Experience it for yourself. And let that experience ripen into your own courage.”
Finding Stillness in the City: A Glimpse into Zen Practice in New York
NEW YORK — Nestled in a nondescript charcoal building at 400 E. 14th St., the Chogye International Zen Center of New York welcomes its members as early as 5:30 a.m. for the Buddhist practices of bowing, meditation and chanting. Upon entrance, members slide off their shoes, place their belongings in white wooden cubbies and trade their winter coats for lavender and gray robes of varying lengths. A dozen people showed up on a recent Saturday.
The morning practice commences in the bowing room. Some members wear socks; others let their naked toes graze the floor. Then, with pristine synchronicity, the bows begin: right knee to the floor, left knee to the floor, right palm, left palm, forehead, palms together, feet to standing, repeat — 107 more times. A latecomer arrives; before stepping through the door’s threshold, he raises his hands to his heart and bends toward the altar before scurrying to an open cushion. There is a name for this gesture: gassho.
According to Manu, a Zen teacher from France, gassho has many meanings: hello, how are you, pardon me, thank you, goodbye. Manu has a beauty mark above her lip, hair cropped to her ears and a slight gap between her teeth. “It means everything!” she says with a congenial smile. When entering or exiting a prayer space, Zen Buddhists put their palms together into gassho to show courtesy, respect and gratitude.
The bowing ends. Members file into the meditation room across the hall. Save for three Korean scrolls that hang above the Buddha’s altar, the meditation room’s walls are unadorned. Strewn about the burgundy-brown wooden planked floor: square, circle and diamond-shaped pillows intended to make the seated meditation more comfortable. Members opt for various seating positions. Some kneel, supporting their posterior with a small pillow, creating a tripod with their bodies. Others assume cross-legged, lotus, or half-lotus positions. According to Manu, the best position is simply the one you feel most comfortable in.
“This,” she says, motioning to her full lotus stance, “is just to support the work you’re doing up here,” raising her hand to her head.
For 40 minutes, the gentle hum of deep breathing washes over the room, punctuated every so often by the wayward cough, sniffle or grunt. For at least half that time, one bald bespectacled man’s eyes flutter in the back of his head. Several assume the elusive halfway-open eye — a technique employed to keep the meditator grounded in reality while exploring the contours of their mind. Others keep their eyes fully open but cast their gaze downward. A few minutes before the seated meditation concludes, the bespectacled man takes a bathroom break; before he departs, he brings his palms together in gassho, briefly nodding at the altar before exiting the room.
The meditation flows immediately into the chanting practice. Teachers jaunt around the room to hand first-timers chant books that include full lyrical texts, both in Korean transliteration and standard English. What once was a dull hum — meditative breathing — has crescendoed into a resonant swell of voices from baritone to soprano. All chants are delivered in Korean; only The Heart Sutra — famous for its assertion that “form is emptiness; emptiness is form” — gets a double feature, chanted first in Korean, then in English.
Before the final chant, Alan, a Korean-American Zen Buddhist from Flushing, gently corrects a newcomer’s hand placement. She had been holding the book with arms outstretched, gripping each page like an analog map. With soft eyes and an avuncular smile, he guides her hands towards the center of the book’s spine, thumbs touching, palms facing. Gassho.