Sunim's 49 days mourning period concluded yesterday
A ceremony celebrating Sunim's legacy took place yesterday. It was beautiful. People shared stories, there were no shortage of them.
Sunim flew from Japan to NYC in the late 60s. He left Korea to avoid serving in the military. An unknown US army official in Japan paid for the one-flight ticket, saying: “Americans need to learn about Zen, do you want to teach there?”. Sunim was 27 years old when he arrived to the US.
Already in the US—with no money, no friends, and no place to stay—he chanted with his moktak on the streets to earn some money to buy food.
A group of Posalnims found Sunim living in a small basement in Toronto, Canada, where he was concluding his training by doing intense solo retreats for almost three years. They started to cook for him and visit him regularly. The first Korean community slowly grew.
His life goal was to teach Seon (japanese, Zen) Buddhism in the West. He built 5 temples, three in the US, one in Canada and one in Mexico. Over the years, hundreds trained under his guidance.
He encouraged interreligious dialogue by organizing several events across the US.
Sunim was a prolific writer, however, he never wrote a book—he always said he had no time for that. Although he was not a scholar, he was quite knowledgeable about the Buddhist scriptures. I think the biggest collection of Korean Buddhism books in North America is Sunim's personal library.
When I said earlier that Sunim built temples, I meant, literally. He was a doer, not a talker. When people complained about the difficulty of a task, he yielded: 'just do it!'
Some people say that he had a unique ability to slap you with one hand, and encourage you with the other, to push you beyond your own limits.
That's indeed true.
He was a tiger, but a compassionate one.
Sunim touched countless lives in many ways.
And he certainly impacted mine in ways I still don't fully comprehend now.
To my dear teacher, with deep gratitude.