Many people think of Thich Nhat Hanh of Vietnam, Seungsahn of Korea, and the Dalai Lama of Tibet.
Yet none of them became respected because awakened people gathered together and officially voted to declare them enlightened.
Their reputation arose naturally through the respect of countless people and the circumstances of their time.
Today, only the 14th Dalai Lama remains alive.
Things that seem likely to happen in this world do, in fact, happen.
The first time I came to know the Dalai Lama was not as a Buddhist leader, but as a Tibetan monk in exile who sought to make the world aware of the political oppression surrounding Tibet and to ask for international support.
Over time, with the attention and support of many nations, the Tibetan issue became an international concern.
But as the years have passed, what began as a political conflict between China and Tibet now appears to have become a struggle over the very identity and legitimacy of Buddhism itself.
Watching China and Tibet each claim the authority to determine the next Dalai Lama, I cannot help but worry that future generations may come to mistake the Dharma for a matter of politics and power.
Awakening belongs to no nation.
It belongs to no religion.
It is not granted by any institution or any individual.
It is the birthright of every human being.
Why search for the Buddha that others have chosen, while ignoring the Buddha within your own mind?
What is the essence of Buddhism?
Is it to follow someone who appears to be awakened?
Or is it, as the Buddha taught, to awaken clearly for yourself?
Seon leaves no room for ambiguity.
"If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.
If you meet the Patriarch, kill the Patriarch."
This does not advocate violence.
It points to something uncompromising.
Do not cling to any authority, any image, or any concept in place of direct realization.
Anyone who has not directly realized this truth, yet speaks carelessly as though they possess it, risks committing a grave wrong, not only against themselves, but against countless others.
Belief in reincarnation is likewise a cultural tradition that developed within particular societies.
If it were truly the one indispensable truth that every human being must accept, then the Buddha himself could simply have been reborn the next leader of China and ended every dispute once and for all.
Yet for over 2,500 years, he has done neither.
Not because he could not.
But because there was never any need.
The heart of his teaching was never to prove reincarnation.
It was to point each of us toward the truth that must be realized directly.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Neither coming nor going. (불래불거, 不來不去)
The original nature that neither comes nor goes, here and now.
In the end, that was the one thing the Buddha pointed to.
https://time-magazine.visitlink.me/K9u9hH