When meditation practice or Seon exercise isn't enough, what can be the breakthrough? The answer is your mind. You should break through by changing your mind. Energy circulation is greatly disrupted by any congested parts in your mind. Loneliness or longing is easily congested in your mind. So is sorrow or resentment. Energy doesn't flow smoothly until you release such congested parts.

Loneliness is... I said a lot before that I felt lonely. While practicing I used to feel loneliness. My master welcomed it, however; instead of telling me that's too bad or sorry to hear that. He kept telling me "If you feel lonely, look up at heaven." I was waiting for an answer like "Look for a person somewhere around you.", or "Walk 100m and you will meet someone." Whenever I said I felt lonely, he just told me to look up at heaven.

Therefore as I kept looking up at heaven, I reached there. Loneliness is like a cloud-bridge. A cloud-bridge to heaven. Think this way and make loneliness your constant companion. Because of loneliness you can climb to heaven.

Longing, loneliness and sorrow, these are the language of Original Nature. The reason I said so was because those emotions trace back to the time of creation. Human beings are originally lonely. Therefore eradicating loneliness, longing, and sorrow at once, or within one lifetime is impossible. They are very, very old. Loneliness, longing and sorrow are inborn. How can you eradicate something inborn at once? It's possible to forget them for a little while, but they carry on arising as soon as the brief moment is over. There is no solution for it. There is no solution but practice.

There is no other way to solve the problem. Although you indulge in your work, it cannot be solved completely. You cannot deal with those emotions by other ways or people. Some indulge in their children or spouse. Others indulge in their work, alcohol, or cigarette, and so on. All kinds of indulgence is an unconscious attempt to forget loneliness for a moment. But loneliness is something which can not be released once and for all. Think of loneliness as bliss and look up to heaven. Keep looking up at heaven, and you will get there at last.

Can loneliness ever be released completely? No. Release itself is far-fetched. Human beings are originally lonely, and you should acknowledge it. Loneliness is original nature. Is the Creator not lonely? Seonins are said to have transcended loneliness, for they have no mind and no image, but is that true? I would say that's a lie. They also feel lonely. In fact, they feel more lonely.

The difference from human beings is Seonins admit that they are lonely. They accept that they are originally lonely. If you can accept loneliness, suffering, longing, sorrow as an original human nature, you will be in peace. You may stay lonely for the rest of your life, but you will live in peace. As you stop striving to escape those emotions, the problem is solved. All beings are lonely. How lonely would the Creator be? He just acknowledges that he is lonely no matter what he may do.

A professor told me this. There was a campus couple. They were always together wherever they went. One day the couple came to her class. They sat together and never stopped talking to each other throughout the class time. The professor could no longer stand it and warned them once saying "How come you guys never stop talking?" Then the boy said, "Because I'm lonely." His girlfriend could not but ask, "Are you still lonely?" The whole class burst into laughter after that. The professor added, Yes, he must be still lonely.

There is saying that for writers everything is a good material for writing. Nothing is useless. Any kind of experience is a valuable property. Even sufferings, sadness, and a disappointed love are useful. Likewise nothing is useless for Suseonjae trainees. Every experience becomes your property and foundation, for you grow and move on based on such foundation.

What's important is you shouldn't indulge in anything. You should be able to watch it. In other words, you should stay awake. Once you indulge in something, you get entangled in it and thus live in chaos. Rather, accept every experience and make it your property. Bad things will be a better fertilizer for your growth. Remember this, you can find a solution only if you can observe your experiences without indulging in any of them. Acknowledge that you are lonely no matter what you may do.

When you have children, from the standpoint of those who have no children, there can be no better bliss. As people are inclined to develop attachment to what's lacking in them, trials keep coming. That's called "Ma (obstacle of evil)" and it's temptation. It's because you think too highly of what's lacking. Although you already have so many things, you keep seeking after the one thing you don't have.

What's unsolved is all dangling in your head. Because it remains there, your neck gets tense. When your neck is tense, your back spine gets crooked. When your back spine is crooked, your waist worsens. It's a vicious circle. The unsolved part should be given up or solved in one way or another. You should not hold it so long without any move. I have always told you this.

For instance, let's say you have been longing for something. One method is, you long for it as hard as possible so that you can get to the end of your longing. You are exhausted and finally reach a state where longing itself becomes a pain. This method can also be applied to sexual desire. You seek after your sexual desire all the way to the end. Then seeking itself becomes a boring work. You are exhausted and get repulsed even by thinking about it.

Another method is to forget. You forget your unfulfilled desire. It's the best to forget it through practice. When you feel lonely or when longing arises, start practicing. If even practice doesn't release those emotions, do something else. Be active and never stay passive. Play sports or do some other activities. Try to get over the problem. Or as I said pursue the state thoroughly until you get to the end. Then the desire will no longer be there.

In my case I've kept dealing with such matters by practicing. Whenever I felt lonely, I just practiced. Whenever I ran into an emotional conflict, I practiced. Take this method if you can.

 
What we seek after is not to own anything. It's called "No possession". To cast off is not to have. Casting off is necessary because you always try to have something. You want to have people, the one you love, and friends. Stop doing so. Even ordinary people who don't want to be Seonins(enlightened ones) understand the importance of casting off. For instance, those who are involved in the liberalism movement now talk about no possession, don't they? For those who want to be Seonins, no possession is a must.

When you have to cast off what you already have, you now try to have something new. But what you have should be settled in this life. There is no time to make a new karmic relation. Once you make a wrong karmic relation, it takes as long as tens of thousands of years to solve it. In some cases, it takes even a couple of hundred thousand years. Though you should make an effort to solve your entangled skein of karmic relations, you make a new relation. You should avoid that.

As you solve karmic relations by admitting you have no possessions, everything naturally becomes yours. What I'm telling you is, if you cast off something, it becomes yours. If you cast off, if you let go of your attachment to all, all people come through into your mind. Your mind is broader and thus has more room for more people. If you hold on to one person strongly, you will eventually lose others as well as the one you're attached to. You will lose all in the end. Your friends will no longer be there because of your strong attachment to one person.

Settle your mind as I said and think that you have nothing. And when greed arises, remember surrendering gives you comfort. In other words, losing is winning. For example, you were in relationship with someone. One day he or she left you and went to someone else. Who is in pain? You are at ease. The person who left you is not at ease. He or she may feel happy temporarily. But soon he or she will feel uneasy for some reason. It's because of conscience. Your mind has conscience and this gives you a sense of guilt. Therefore a loser has no guilt and lives in peace. It's a winner that suffers from a guilty conscience. Casting off is a true winning.