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Sejin Pak

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Sejin Pak

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希修 내 삶, 내 운명, 내 가게

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希修

1tScp3emonslorheld  · 

< 내 삶, 내 운명, 내 가게 >

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부모님이 운영하시던 'X분식'이라는 가게를 내가 물려받는다면, 나는 소유권과 운영권뿐 아니라 부모님이 지은 부채까지 상속하게 된다. 종업원이 손님에게 실수를 할 경우엔, 나중에 그 종업원을 징계를 하든 어쩌든 그건 차후의 일이고 우선은 가게 주인인 내가 손님에게 사과해야 한다. 종업원들을 교육하는 것도 주인의 책임이기 때문. 하지만 내가 아무리 세심히 교육한들 종업원은 주인이 아니기에, 주인이 종업원의 행동과 마음가짐을 100% 컨트롤할 수는 없다. 종업원 고용에 있어 신중하고 가게 운영이 종업원들에게 오히려 휘둘리지 않도록 노력할 뿐.    

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각자의 삶이나 운명은 어쩌면 이런 가게와도 같지 않나 싶다. 

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* 이전 주인  =>  현재 주인.

* 부모  =>  나.

* 이전 생의 나 'A'  =>  이번 생의 나 'B'.

* 과거의 나  =>  현재의 나.

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내가 현재의 삶을 사는 것은 부모가 나를 낳아 주었기 때문이다. 내 맘에 들든 안 들든 이런 저런 부모의 유전자를 나는 그대로 상속했으며, 부모가 어떤 사람들이고 어떤 삶을 살았는지가 내게 지대한 영향을 끼친다. 부모가 나를 제대로 교육하지 못 했을 경우 사회에서 환영받지 못 할 사고/행동 패턴을 내가 갖고 있을 확률이 높지만, 내가 행복하고 싶다면 나는 나의 성장과정을 변명으로 삼기보다 이제부터라도 남들의 말을 경청하고 남들이 사는 방법을 열심히 관찰하면서 내 자신을 스스로 교육시켜 나가야 한다. 마찬가지 원리로, A와 B는 100% 동일한 사람이라고 말할 수 없지만 (편의상 둘 다를 '나'라고 칭할 뿐) B에게 삶이 주어진 것은 A의 업을 상속했기 때문이기에, A와 B를 분리해서 생각하는 것은 불가능하다. 그리고 과거의 잘못을 뉘우치고 개과천선하여 현재의 나는 과거의 나와는 다른 사람이 되었다 하더라도, 때로는 10년 전의 내가 저지른 실수의 댓가를 오늘의 내가 치러야 하는 경우도 생긴다. 몇 분이 걸리든 몇백 생이 걸리든, 인과는 저절로 소멸하지 않는다. (성폭행/성추행을 줄줄이 저질러 놓고서, 그 분야에서의 평판이 나빠져 생업에 지장을 받게 된 것에 대해 '억울'해 하며 세상만 탓하는 사람의 장래가 과연 밝을 수 있을까. 인간 누구나 '실수'할 수 있는 것이긴 하지만, 자신의 잘못에서 파생된 기회비용을 타인이 지불해 줄 수도 없는 일 아니겠는지.)     

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부모, 이전 생, 과거의 나로부터 상속받은 부분들 외에 '종업원'과 관련된 부분도 내가 감당해야 하는 몫이다. 이 '종업원'을 나는 주위의 다른 존재들로부터 내가 받는 영향이라고 생각한다. (그러니 나도 남의 인생에서는 종업원인 것.) 종업원이 실수를 해서 가게의 평판이 나빠진다면 그건 가게 주인이 감수해야 한다 - 종업원 관리를 제대로 못 한 책임. 마찬가지로, 누군가가 내게 안 좋은 영향을 줘서 내 삶에 문제가 발생할 경우, 살면서 만나게 되는 사람들 중 누구를 흘려보내고 누구와 어떤 종류의 관계를 맺으며 누구를 얼만큼 신뢰해야 하는지 등에 있어 중심을 잡지 못 한 '책임' (≠'잘못'/'탓')을 나는 감수해야 한다. (세상엔 '악의도 없지만 integrity 역시 못 갖춘' 사람들이 대부분인데, 그런 사람들에게 데이면서 특정 개개인에 대한 혹은 인간이라는 종 자체에 대한 혐오를 갖고 살아 봐야 내게 도움되는 것은 없다.) 반면, 내 가게에서 일하는 종업원들이 손님들에게 친절할 경우엔 내 가게가 점점 번창하는 것처럼, 내가 잘 되는 것은 알게 모르게 주위로부터 이런 저런 도움을 받은 부분이 내가 의식하고 있는 것보다 클 수도 있음 역시 기억해야 한다. 사실 종업원 문제는 '운'으로 볼 수도 있지만, 이런 부분을 단순히 운이라고만 생각하는 C보다는, 주위로부터 부정적인 영향을 받을 땐 인간관계 관리에 대한 책임을, 긍정적인 영향을 받을 땐 주위 사람들에게 고마워 하는 겸손을 기억하는 D가 궁극적으로 보다 성공하고 좀더 행복해지지 않겠는지. 그리고 이런 '종업원'의 영향이 차원을 넘나들 수도 있을 가능성을, 나는 완전히 배제하지는 않는다.

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이렇듯, 타인이 보는 나는 가게 전체여도 내가 실제로 컨트롤할 수 있는 것은 가게의 운영방식뿐이다. 그럼에도 불구하고, 내 컨트롤을 벗어나는 부분까지 책임져야 하는 주체 역시 나 자신. 자신의 컨트롤을 벗어나는 자기 가게 문제에 대해 늘상 불평을 늘어 놓거나 남이 대신 책임져 주기를 기대할 수 없다는 것이 삶의 냉정한 규칙이지만, 본인의 컨트롤을 벗어나는 부분에 대해서까지 책임져야 한다는 이 사실이, 우리가 서로에 대해 이해와 연민을 갖는 또 가져야 하는 이유이기도 하다. 동시에.. 내 가게를 장악하고 컨트롤하는 능력을 제고하기 위한 노력이 바로 '수행'이라고 나는 생각한다. 그 능력의 신장이 단기간에 이루어지지 않기에 또 이미 일어난 원인에 대한 결과를 100% 피할 수는 없기에 인내심이 필요할 뿐, 삶/운명이라는 '갑'의 '을'/노예가 되는 것이 수행의 목적인 것은 아니라고 [?] 나는 생각한다.. 

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* 윗 글은 개인차원에서의 얘기일 뿐 정부/사회의 책임을 부정하는 것은 아닙니다. *

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99 Noble Strategy [9] The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness

 9] The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness

Many people tell us that the Buddha taught two different types of meditation—mindfulness meditation and concentration meditation. Mindfulness meditation, they say, is the direct path, while concentration practice is the scenic route that you take at your own risk because it’s very easy to get lost there and you may never get out. But when you actually look at what the Buddha taught, he never separates these two practices. They’re parts of a single whole. Every time he explains mindfulness and its place in the path, he states clearly that the purpose of mindfulness practice is to lead the mind into a state of right concentration: to get the mind to settle down and to find a place where it can really feel stable, at home, where it can look at things steadily and see them for what they are.

Part of the “two practices” issue centers on how we understand the word jhāna, which is a synonym for right concentration. Many of us have heard that jhāna is a very intense trance-like state that requires intense staring and shutting out the rest of the world. It sounds nothing like mindfulness at all. But if you look at the Buddha’s descriptions of jhāna, that’s not the kind of state he’s talking about. To be in jhāna is to be absorbed, very pleasurably, in the sense of the whole body. A very broad sense of awareness fills the entire body. One of the images the Buddha used to describe this state is that of a person kneading water into dough so that the water permeates throughout the flour. Another is a lake in which a cool spring comes welling up and suffuses the entire lake.

Now, when you’re with the body as a whole, you’re very much in the present moment. As the Buddha says, the fourth jhāna—in which the body is filled with bright awareness—is the point where mindfulness and equanimity become pure. So there should be no problem in combining mindfulness practice with a whole-body awareness that’s very settled and still. In fact, the Buddha himself combines them in his description of the first four steps of breath meditation: (1) being aware of long breathing, (2) being aware of short breathing, (3) being aware of the whole body as you breathe in and breathe out, and then (4) calming the sensation of the breath within the body. This, as the texts tell us, is basic mindfulness practice. It’s also a basic concentration practice. You’re getting into the first jhāna—right concentration—right there, at the same time you’re practicing right mindfulness.

To see how right mindfulness and right concentration help each other in the practice, we can look at the three stages of mindfulness practice given in the Discourse on the Establishings of Mindfulness (MN 10). Take the body as an example. The first stage is to stay focused on the body in and of itself, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. What this means is looking at the body simply as a body, without thinking about it in terms of what it means or what it can do in the world. Whether it’s good- or bad-looking, strong or weak, agile or clumsy—all the issues we tend to worry about when we think about ourselves in the context of the world: The Buddha says to put those issues aside.

Just be with the body in and of itself, sitting right here. When you close your eyes, what do you have? There’s the sensation of “bodiness” you’re sitting with. That’s your frame of reference. Try to stay with it. Keep bringing the mind back to this sense of the body until it gets the message and begins to settle down. In the beginning of the practice, you find the mind going out to grasp this or that, so you note what’s happening enough to tell it to let go, return to the body, and hold on there. Then the mind goes out to grasp something else, so you tell it to let go, come back, and latch onto the body again. Eventually, though, you reach a point where your awareness actually grasps hold of the breath and you don’t let go. You keep holding onto it. From that point on, whatever else may come into your awareness is like something coming up and brushing the back of your hand. You don’t have to note it. You stay with the body as your basic frame of reference. Other things come and go, you’re aware of them, but you don’t drop the breath and go grasping after them. This is when you really have established the body as a solid frame of reference.

 As you do this, you develop three qualities of mind:

One is mindfulness (sati). The word “mindfulness” means being able to remember, to keep something in mind. In the case of establishing the body as a frame of reference, it means remembering to see things in terms of the body. You don’t let yourself forget. It also means remembering the lessons you’ve learned—both from others and from your own practice—in how best to stay with the body and to drop any distractions.

The second quality, alertness (sampajañña), means being aware of what you’re actually doing in the present. Are you with the body? Are you with the breath? What are the results? Is the breath comfortable? Is it not? We tend to confuse mindfulness with alertness, but actually they’re two separate things: Mindfulness means being able to remember where you want to keep your awareness; alertness means being aware of what you’re actually doing along with the results you’re getting.

The third quality, ardency (ātappa), means two things. One, if you realize that the mind has wandered off, you bring it right back. Immediately. You don’t let it go grazing around the pasture. Two, when the mind is with its proper frame of reference, ardency means trying to be as sensitive as possible to what’s going on—not just drifting in the present moment, but really trying to penetrate more and more into the subtle details of what’s actually happening with the breath or the mind.

When you have these three qualities focused on the body in and of itself, you can’t help but settle down and get really comfortable with the body in the present moment. That’s when you’re ready for the second stage in the practice, which is described as being aware of the phenomenon of origination and the phenomenon of passing away. This is a stage where you’re trying to understand cause and effect as they occur in the present.

In terms of concentration practice, once you’ve got the mind to settle down, you want to understand the interaction of cause and effect in the process of concentration so that you can become more skillful in the practice, so that you can get the mind to settle down more solidly for longer periods of time in all sorts of situations, on the cushion and off. To do this, you have to learn about how things arise and pass away in the mind, not by simply watching them, but by actually getting involved in their arising and passing away.

You can see this in the Buddha’s instructions for dealing with the hindrances. In the first stage, he says to be aware of the hindrances as they come and go. Some people think that this is an exercise in “choiceless awareness,” where you don’t try to will the mind in any direction, where you simply sit and watch willy-nilly whatever comes into range. In actual practice, though, the mind isn’t yet ready for that. What you need at this stage is a fixed point of reference for evaluating the events in the mind, just as when you’re trying to gauge the motion of clouds through the sky: You need to choose at a fixed point—like a roof gable or a light pole— at which to stare so that you can get a sense of which direction and how fast the clouds are moving. The same holds true with the comings and goings of sensual desire, ill will, etc., in the mind. You have to maintain a fixed reference point for the mind—like the breath—if you want to be really sensitive to when there are hindrances in the mind—getting in the way of your reference point—and when there aren’t.

Suppose that anger is interfering with your concentration. Instead of getting involved in the anger, you try simply to be aware of when it’s there and when it’s not. You look at the anger as an event in and of itself—as it comes, as it goes. But you don’t stop there. The next step—as you’re still working at focusing on the breath—is recognizing how anger can be made to go away. Sometimes simply watching it is enough to make it go away; sometimes it’s not, and you have to deal with it in other ways, such as arguing with the reasoning behind the anger or reminding yourself of the drawbacks of anger.

In the course of dealing with it, you have to get your hands dirty. You’ve got to try and figure out why the anger is coming, why it’s going, how you can get rid of it, because you realize that it’s an unskillful state. And this requires that you improvise. Experiment. You’ve got to chase your pride and impatience out of the way so that you can have the space to make mistakes and learn from them, so that you can develop a skill in dealing with the anger. It’s not just a question of hating the anger and trying to push it away, or of loving the anger and welcoming it. These approaches may give results in the short run, but in the long run they’re not especially skillful. What’s called for here is the ability to see what the anger is composed of; how can you take it apart. One technique that gives results—when anger is present and you’re in a situation where you don’t immediately have to react to people—is simply to ask yourself in a good-natured way, “Okay, why are you angry?” Listen to what the mind has to say. Then pursue the matter: “But why are you angry at that?” “Of course, I’m angry. After all.…” “Well, why are you angry at that?” If you keep this up, the mind will eventually admit to something stupid, such as the assumption that people shouldn’t be such-and-such a way—even though they blatantly are that way—or that people should act in line with your standards, or whatever other assumption the mind finds so embarrassing that it has to keep it hidden from you. But finally, if you keep probing, it’ll fess up. You gain a lot of understanding into the anger this way, and can really weaken its power over you.

In dealing with positive qualities—like mindfulness, calm, and concentration—you make use of a similar process. First, you’re aware of when they’re there and when they’re not. Then you realize that when they’re there it’s much nicer than when they’re not. So you try to figure out how they come, how they go. You do this by consciously trying to maintain that state of mindfulness and concentration. If you’re really observant—and this is what it’s all about, being observant—you begin to see that there are skillful ways of maintaining the state without getting knocked off kilter by any failure or success in doing so, without letting the desire for a settled state of mind actually get in the way of the mind’s settling down. You do want to succeed, but you need a balanced attitude toward failure and success so that you can learn from them. Nobody’s keeping score or taking grades. You’re here to understand for your own sake.

So this process of developing your establishing of mindfulness or developing your frame of reference is not “just watching.” It’s more a participation in the process of arising and passing away— actually playing with the process—so that you can learn from experience how cause and effect work in the mind.

This is like the knowledge that cooks have of eggs. You can learn certain things about an egg just by watching it, but you don’t learn very much. To learn about eggs, you have to put them in a pan and try to make something out of them. As you do this, you begin to understand the variations in eggs, the ways that they react to heat, oil, butter, or whatever. And so by actually working with the egg and trying to make something out of it, you really come to understand eggs. It’s similar with clay: You really don’t know clay until you become a potter and actually try to make something out of the clay.

And it’s the same with the mind: Unless you actually try to make something out of the mind, try to get a mental state going and keep it going, you don’t really know your own mind. You don’t know the processes of cause and effect within the mind.

There has to be an element of actual participation in the process. That way you can understand it.

This all comes down to being observant and developing a skill. The essence of developing a skill means three things. One, you’re aware of a situation as it is given. Two, you’re aware of what you put into it. Three, you look at the results.

When the Buddha talks about causation, he says that every situation is shaped from two directions: causes coming in from the past and causes you’re putting into the present. You need to be sensitive to both. If you aren’t sensitive to what you’re putting into a situation, you’ll never develop any kind of skill. As you’re aware of what you’re doing, you also look at the results. If something isn’t right, you go back and change what you’ve done, keeping at it until you get the results you want. And in the process, you learn a great deal from the clay, the eggs, or whatever you’re trying to deal with skillfully.

The same holds true with the mind. Of course, you could learn something about the mind by trying to get it into any sort of a state, but for the purpose of developing really penetrating insight, a state of stable, balanced, mindful concentration is the best kind of soufflé or pot you want to make with the mind. The factors of pleasure, ease, and rapture that arise when the mind really settles down help you to stay comfortably in the present moment, with a low center of gravity. Once the mind is firmly settled, you have something to look at for a long period of time so that you can see what it’s made up of. In the typical unbalanced state of the mind, things are appearing and disappearing too fast for you to notice them clearly. But as the Buddha notes, when you get really skilled at jhāna, you can step back a bit and actually see what you’ve got. You can see, say, where there’s an element of attachment, where there’s an element of stress, or even where there’s inconstancy within your balanced state. This is where you begin to gain insight, as you see the natural dividing lines among the different factors of the mind—and in particular, the line between awareness and the objects of awareness.

Another advantage to this mindful concentrated state is that as you feel more and more at home in it, you begin to realize that happiness and pleasure are possible without any need to depend on things outside: people, relationships, approval from others, or any of the issues that come from being part of the world. This realization helps pry loose your attachments to external things.

Some people are afraid of getting attached to a state of calm, but actually, it’s very important that you get attached here, so that you begin to settle down and undo your other attachments. Only when this attachment to calm is the only one left do you begin work on loosening it up as well.

Still another reason for why solid concentration is necessary for insight is that when discernment comes to the mind, the basic lesson it will teach you is that you’ve been stupid. You’ve held onto things even though deep down inside you should have known better. Now, try telling that to people when they’re hungry and tired. They’ll come right back with, “You’re stupid, too,” and that’s the end of the discussion. Nothing gets accomplished. But if you talk to someone who has eaten a full meal and feels rested, you can broach all kinds of topics without risking a fight. It’s the same with the mind. When it has been well fed with the rapture and ease coming from concentration, it’s ready to learn. It can accept your criticisms without feeling threatened or abused.

So. This is the role that concentration practice plays in this second stage of mindfulness practice: It gives you something to play with, a skill to develop so you can begin to understand the factors of cause and effect within the mind. You begin to see the mind as simply a flux of causes with their effects coming back at you. Your ideas are part of this flux of cause and effect, as are your emotions and your sense of who you are. This insight begins to loosen your attachments to the whole process.

What finally happens is that the mind reaches a third level of mindfulness practice where it comes to a state of perfect equilibrium where you’ve developed this state of concentration to the point where you don’t have to put anything more into it. In the Discourse on the Establishings of Mindfulness, this is described as simply being aware—if you’re using the body as your frame of reference—that “There is a body,” just enough for knowledge and mindfulness, without being attached to anything in the world. Other texts call this the state of “non-fashioning.” The mind reaches the point where you begin to realize that all causal processes in the mind—including the processes of concentration and insight—are like tar babies. If you pull them toward you, you get stuck; if you fight them off, you get stuck. So what are you going to do? You have to get to the point where you’re not really contributing anything more to the present moment. You unravel your participation in it. That’s when things open up in the mind.

Many people want to jump right in and begin at this level of not adding anything to the present moment, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t be sensitive to the subtle things the mind is habitually adding to the present until you’ve consciously tried to alter what you’re adding. As you get more and more skilled, you become more sensitive to the subtle things you didn’t realize you were doing. You reach a point of disenchantment, where you realize that the most skillful way of dealing with the present is to drop all levels of participation that cause even the slightest bit of stress in the mind. You start dismantling the levels of participation that you learned in the second stage of the practice, to the point where things reach equilibrium on their own, where there’s letting go and release.

So it’s important to realize that there are these three stages to mindfulness practice, and to understand the role that deliberate concentration practice plays in taking you through the first two so that you can arrive at the third. Without aiming at right concentration, you can’t develop the skills needed for understanding the mind—for it’s in the process of mastering the skill of mindful concentration that true insight arises. Just as you don’t really understand a herd of cattle until you’ve successfully herded them—learning from all your failures along the way—you can’t get a sense of all the cause-and-effect currents running through the mind until you’ve learned from your failures and successes in getting them to gather in a state of concentrated mindfulness and mindful concentration. And only when you’ve really understood and mastered these currents—the currents of craving that cause suffering and stress, and the currents of mindfulness and concentration that form the Path—can you let them go and find true freedom. 

99 Noble Strategy [10] One Tool Among Many - The Place of Vipassanā

 10] One Tool Among Many - The Place of Vipassanā in Buddhist Practice

What exactly is vipassanā?

Almost any book on early Buddhist meditation will tell you that the Buddha taught two types of meditation: samatha and vipassanā. 

Samatha, which means tranquility, is said to be a method fostering strong states of mental absorption, called jhāna. 

Vipassanā—literally “clear-seeing,” but more often translated as insight meditation—is said to be a method using a modicum of tranquility to foster moment-to-moment mindfulness of the inconstancy of events as they are directly experienced in the present. 

This mindfulness creates a sense of dispassion toward all events, thus leading the mind to release from suffering. These two methods are quite separate, we’re told, and of the two, vipassanā is the distinctive Buddhist contribution to meditative science. Other systems of practice pre-dating the Buddha also taught samatha, but the Buddha was the first to discover and teach vipassanā. Although some Buddhist meditators may practice samatha meditation before turning to vipassanā, samatha practice is not really necessary for the pursuit of Awakening. As a meditative tool, the vipassanā method is enough for attaining the goal.

Or so we’re told.

But if you look directly at the Pali discourses—the earliest extant sources for our knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings— you’ll find that although they do use the word samatha to mean tranquility, and vipassanā to mean clear-seeing, they otherwise confirm none of the received wisdom about these terms. 

• Only rarely do they make use of the word vipassanā—a sharp contrast to their frequent use of the word jhāna. When they depict the Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, they never quote him as saying “go do vipassanā,” but always “go do jhāna.” 
• And they never equate the word vipassanā with any mindfulness techniques. 
• In the few instances where they do mention vipassanā, they almost always pair it with samatha—not as two alternative methods, 
• but as two qualities of mind that a person may “gain” or “be endowed with,” and that should be developed together.

One simile, for instance (SN 35:204), compares samatha and vipassanā to a swift pair of messengers who enter the citadel of the body via the noble eightfold path and present their accurate report—Unbinding, or nirvana—to the consciousness acting as the citadel’s commander.

Another passage (AN 10:71) recommends that anyone who wishes to put an end to mental defilement should—in addition to perfecting the principles of moral behavior and cultivating seclusion—be committed to samatha and endowed with vipassanā. 

This last statement is unremarkable in itself, but the same discourse also gives the same advice to anyone who wants to master the jhānas: Be committed to samatha and endowed with vipassanā. This suggests that, in the eyes of those who assembled the Pali discourses, samatha, jhāna, and vipassanā were all part of a single path. 

Samatha and vipassanā were used together to master jhāna and then—based on jhāna—were developed even further to give rise to the end of mental defilement and to bring release from suffering. This is a reading that finds support in other discourses as well.

There’s a passage, for instance, describing three ways in which samatha and vipassanā can work together to lead to the knowledge of Awakening: Either samatha precedes vipassanā, vipassanā precedes samatha, or they develop in tandem (AN 4:170). 

The wording suggests an image of two oxen pulling a cart: One is placed before the other or they are yoked side-by-side. 

Another passage (AN 4:94) indicates that if samatha precedes vipassanā—or vipassanā, samatha—your practice is in a state of imbalance and needs to be rectified. 

A meditator who has attained a measure of samatha, but no “vipassanā into events based on heightened discernment (adhipaññā-dhamma-vipassanā),” should question a fellow meditator who has attained vipassanā: “How should fabrications (sankhāra) be regarded? How should they be investigated? How should they be viewed with insight?” and then develop vipassanā in line with that person’s instructions. 

The verbs in these questions—“regarding,” “investigating,” “seeing”— indicate that there’s more to the process of developing vipassanā than a simple mindfulness technique. In fact, as we will see below, these verbs apply instead to a process of skillful questioning called

“appropriate attention.”

The opposite case—a meditator endowed with a measure of vipassanā into events based on heightened discernment, but no samatha—should question someone who has attained samatha: 

“How should the mind be steadied? How should it be made to settle down? How should it be unified? How should it be concentrated?” and then 

follow that person’s instructions so as to develop samatha. 

The verbs used here give the impression that “samatha” in this context means jhāna, for they correspond to the verbal formula—“the mind becomes steady, settles down, grows unified and concentrated”—that the Pali discourses use repeatedly to describe the attainment of jhāna. This impression is reinforced when we note that in every case where the discourses are explicit about the levels of concentration needed for insight to be liberating, those levels are the jhānas.

Once the meditator is endowed with both samatha and vipassanā, he/she should “make an effort to establish those very same skillful qualities to a higher degree for the ending of the mental fermentations (āsava—sensual passion, states of becoming, and ignorance).” 

This corresponds to the path of samatha and vipassanā developing in tandem. 

A passage in MN 149 describes how this can happen. You know and see, as they actually are, the six sense media (the five senses plus the intellect), their objects, consciousness at each medium, contact at each medium, and whatever is experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain based on that contact. You maintain this awareness in such a way as to stay uninfatuated by any of these things, unattached, unconfused, focused on their drawbacks, abandoning any craving for them: This would count as vipassanā. At the same time—abandoning physical and mental disturbances, torments, and distresses—you experience ease in body and mind: This would count as samatha. This practice not only develops samatha and vipassanā in tandem, but also brings the 37 Wings to Awakening—which include the attainment of jhāna—to the culmination of their development.

So the proper path is one in which vipassanā and samatha are brought into balance, each supporting and acting as a check on the other. 

• Vipassanā helps keep tranquility from becoming stagnant and dull. 
• Samatha helps prevent the manifestations of aversion—such as nausea, dizziness, disorientation, 
• and even total blanking out—that can occur when the mind is trapped against its will in the present moment.

From this description it’s obvious that samatha and vipassanā are not separate paths of practice, but instead are complementary ways of relating to the present moment: 

• Samatha provides a sense of ease in the present; 
• vipassanā, a clear-eyed view of events as they actually occur, in and of themselves. 

It’s also obvious why the two qualities need to function together in mastering jhāna. 

As the standard instructions on breath meditation indicate (MN 118), such a mastery involves three things: 

• gladdening, 
• concentrating, and 
• liberating the mind. 

• Gladdening means finding a sense of refreshment and satisfaction in the present. 
• Concentrating means keeping the mind focused on its object, while 
• liberating means freeing the mind from the grosser factors making up a lower stage of concentration so as to attain a higher stage. 

The first two activities are functions of samatha, while the last is a function of vipassanā. All three must function together. 

If, for example, there is concentration and gladdening, with no letting go, the mind wouldn’t be able to refine its concentration at all. 

The factors that have to be abandoned in raising the mind from stage x to stage y belong to the set of factors that got the mind to x in the first place(AN 9:34). 

Without the ability clearly to see mental events in the present, there would be no way skillfully to release the mind from precisely the right factors that tie it to a lower state of concentration and act as disturbances to a higher one. 

If, on the other hand, there is simply a letting go of those factors, without an appreciation of or steadiness in the stillness that remains, the mind would drop out of jhāna altogether. So samatha and vipassanā have to work together to bring the mind to right concentration in a masterful way.

The question arises: If vipassanā functions in the mastery of jhāna, and jhāna is not exclusive to Buddhists, then what is Buddhist about vipassanā? 

The answer is that vipassanā per se is not exclusively Buddhist. 

What’s distinctly Buddhist is 

• (1) the extent to which both samatha and vipassanā are developed; 
• (2) the way they are developed—i.e., the line of questioning used to foster them; and 
• (3) the way they are combined with an arsenal of meditative tools to bring the mind to total release.

In MN 73, the Buddha advises a monk who has mastered jhāna to further develop samatha and vipassanā so as to master six cognitive skills, the most important of them being that 

• “through the ending of the mental fermentations, one remains in the fermentation-free release of awareness and release of discernment, having known and made them manifest for oneself right in the here and now.” 

This is a description of the Buddhist goal. Some commentators have asserted that this release is totally a function of vipassanā, but there are discourses that indicate otherwise.

Note that release is twofold: release of awareness and release of discernment. 

• Release of awareness occurs when a meditator becomes totally dispassionate toward passion: This is the ultimate function of samatha. 
• Release of discernment occurs when there’s dispassion for ignorance [?]: This is the ultimate function of vipassanā (AN 2:29–30). In this way, both samatha and vipassanā are involved in the twofold nature of this release.

The Sabbāsava Sutta (MN 2) states that release can be

“fermentation-free” only if you know and see in terms of “appropriate attention” (yoniso manasikāra). 

As the discourse shows, appropriate attention means asking the proper questions about phenomena, regarding them not in terms of self/other or being/non-being, but in terms of the four noble truths.

 In other words, instead of asking “Do I exist? Don’t I exist? What am I?” you ask about an experience, “Is this stress? The origination of stress? The cessation of stress? The path leading to the cessation of stress?”

Because each of these categories entails a duty, the answer to these questions determines a course of action: 

• Stress should be comprehended, 
• its origination abandoned, 
• its cessation realized, and 
• the path to its cessation developed.

Samatha and vipassanā belong to the category of the path and so should be developed.

 To develop them, you must apply appropriate attention to the task of comprehending stress, which is comprised of the five aggregates of clinging—

• clinging to physical form, 
• feeling, 
• perception, 
• thought fabrications, or 
• consciousness.

 Applying appropriate attention to these aggregates means viewing them in terms of their drawbacks, as “inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self” (SN 22:122). 

A list of questions, distinctive to the Buddha, aids in this approach: 

• “Is this aggregate constant or inconstant?” 
• “And is anything inconstant easeful or stressful?” 
• “And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am’?” (SN 22:59). 

These questions are applied to every instance of the five aggregates, whether “past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle, common or sublime, far or near.” 

In other words, the meditator asks these questions of all experiences in the cosmos of the six sense media.

This line of questioning is part of a strategy leading to a level of knowledge called 

• “knowing and seeing things as they have come to be (yathā-bhūta-ñāṇa-dassana),” 
• where things are understood in terms of a fivefold perspective: their arising, their passing away, their drawbacks, their allure, and the escape from them—the escape, here, lying in dispassion.

Some commentators have suggested that, in practice, this fivefold perspective can be gained simply by focusing on the arising and passing away of these aggregates in the present moment; 

if your focus is relentless enough, it’ll lead naturally to a knowledge of drawbacks, allure, and escape, sufficient for total release. 

The texts, however, don’t support this reading, and practical experience would seem to back them up. 

As MN 101 points out, individual meditators will discover that, 

• in some cases, they can develop dispassion for a particular cause of stress simply by watching it with equanimity; but 
• in other cases, they will need to make a conscious exertion to develop the dispassion that will provide an escape. 

The discourse is vague—perhaps deliberately so —as to which approach will work where. This is something each meditator must test for him or herself in practice.

The Sabbāsava Sutta expands on this point by listing seven approaches to take in developing dispassion. Vipassanā, as a quality of mind, is related to all seven, but most directly with the first: “seeing,” i.e., seeing events in terms of the four noble truths and the duties appropriate to them. 

The remaining six approaches cover ways of carrying out those duties: 

1. restraining the mind from focusing on sense data that would provoke unskillful states of mind; 
2. reflecting on the appropriate reasons for using the requisites of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine; 
3. tolerating painful sensations; 
4. avoiding obvious dangers and inappropriate companions; 
5. destroying thoughts of sensual desire, ill will, harmfulness, and other unskillful states; and 
6. developing the seven factors for awakening: 
1. mindfulness, 
2. analysis of qualities, 
3. persistence, 
4. rapture, 
5. calm, 
6. concentration, and 
7. equanimity.

Each of these approaches covers a wide subset of approaches. 

Under “destroying,” for instance, you can eliminate an unskillful mental state by replacing it with a skillful one, focusing on its drawbacks, turning one’s attention away from it, relaxing the process of thought-fabrication that formed it, or suppressing it with the brute power of your will (MN 20). 

Many similar examples could be drawn from other discourses as well. The overall point is that the ways of the mind are varied and complex. Different fermentations can come bubbling up in different guises and respond to different approaches. Your skill as a meditator lies in mastering a variety of approaches and developing the sensitivity to know which approach will work best in which situation.

On a more basic level, however, you need strong motivation to master these skills in the first place. Because appropriate attention requires abandoning dichotomies that are so basic to the thought patterns of all people—“being/not being” and “me/not me”— meditators need strong reasons for adopting it. 

This is why the Sabbāsava Sutta insists that anyone developing appropriate attention must first hold the noble ones (here meaning the Buddha and his awakened disciples) in high regard. 

In other words, you have to see that those who have followed the path are truly exemplary. You must also be well-versed in their teaching and discipline. According to MN 117, “being well-versed in their teaching” begins with having conviction in their teachings about karma and rebirth [!!], which provide intellectual and emotional context for adopting the four noble truths as the basic categories of experience. Being well-versed in the discipline of the noble ones would include, in addition to observing the precepts, having some skill in the seven approaches mentioned above for abandoning the fermentations.

Without this sort of background, meditators might bring the wrong attitudes and questions to the practice of watching arising and passing away in the present moment. For instance, they might be looking for a “true self” and end up identifying—consciously or unconsciously—with the vast, open sense of awareness that embraces all change, from which it all seems to come and to which it all seems to return. Or they might long for a sense of connectedness with the vast interplay of the universe, convinced that—as all things are changing—any desire for changelessness is neurotic and life-denying.

For people with agendas like these, the simple experience of events arising and passing away in the present won’t lead to fivefold knowledge of things as they are. They’ll resist recognizing that the ideas they hold to are a fermentation of views, or that the experiences of calm that seem to verify those ideas are simply a fermentation in the form of a state of becoming. As a result, they won’t be willing to apply the four noble truths to those ideas and experiences. Only a person willing to see those fermentations as such, and convinced of the need to transcend them, will be in a position to apply the principles of appropriate attention to them and thus get beyond them.

So, to answer the question with which we began: 

• Vipassanā is not a meditation technique. 
• It’s a quality of mind—the ability to see events clearly in the present moment. 

Although mindfulness is helpful in fostering vipassanā, it’s not enough for developing vipassanā to the point of total release. 

Other techniques and approaches are needed as well. In particular, vipassanā needs to be teamed with samatha—the ability to settle the mind comfortably in the present—so as to master the attainment of strong states of absorption, or jhāna. 

Based on this mastery, you then apply samatha and vipassanā to a skillful program of questioning, called appropriate attention, directed at all experience: exploring events not in terms of me/not me, or being/not being, but in terms of the four noble truths. 

You pursue this program until it leads to a fivefold understanding of all events: in terms of 

1. their arising, 
2. their passing away, 
3. their drawbacks,
4. their allure, and 
5. the escape from them. 

Only then can the mind taste release.

This program for developing vipassanā and samatha, in turn, needs the support of many other attitudes, mental qualities, and techniques of practice. This was why the Buddha taught it as part of a still larger program, including respect for the noble ones, mastery of all seven approaches for abandoning the mental fermentations, and all eight factors of the noble path. To take a reductionist approach to the practice can produce only reduced results, for meditation is a skill like carpentry, requiring a mastery of many tools in response to many different needs. To limit ourselves to only one approach in meditation would be like trying to build a house when our motivation is uncertain and our tool box contains nothing but hammers. 

불교언론-스님들에게 기본소득을 - 법보신문

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승인 2019.11.04

매월 50만원씩 통장에 돈이 들어온다면

만일 당신에게 매월 50만원의 돈이 통장이 정기적으로 꼬박꼬박 들어온다고 생각해보자. 과연 어떤 일이 발생할까? 2019년 1인 최저생계비는 102만4205원인데 50만원이라면 약 반에 해당되며 적은 액수가 아니다. 만일 가족 한사람들에게 각각 지불되기 때문에 5인 가족이면 250만원이다. 그렇게 되면 비루하게 아등바등하게 살지 않게 되고 하고 당당히 싶은 일을 하며 가족 중 누군가 직업을 잃는다 해도 크게 두렵지 않고 소비도 늘어나 최소한의 품위를 유지하며 살 수 있게 될 것이다.

일을 한 대가로 돈을 벌수 있다는 ‘임금노동’ 중심의 생각을 하는 사람에겐 아무 일도 안한 사람에게 돈을 지불하는 것은 있을 수 없고, 그렇게 되면 누구도 일을 하려하지 않을 것이라고 걱정할 것이다. 그러나 이미 시행하는 나라에서 그런 일은 일어나지 않았다. 엄밀하게 당신은 아무 일도 안한 것이 아니다. 모두가 연관되고 서로 의존적인 연기적 이치로 보면 결국 각자가 존재 그 자체로 보이지 않게 도우며 사회적 역할을 하고 있기 때문에 그 ‘덕분에’ 누군가에게로 돈이 모인 것이기 때문이다. 단지 그것을 재분배하는 것이다. 

실제 우리사회는 가사노동이나 자원봉사, 친절과 배려 등 90%의 비지불노동이라는 바다위에 10%의 임금노동이 가능한 것이기 때문이다. 그래서 개개인들에게 무조건적으로 지급되는 ‘기본소득’이 점차 세계적인 추세로 부각되고 있다. 현재 65세 이상 노인의 70%가 25만원 정도를 받고 있는 기초연금이 그 대표적인 사례이다. 그리고 최근 성남시의 청년기본소득(청년배당)이 24세 이상의 청년들에게 연 100만원을 경기지역화폐로 지급하는 것도 바로 그것이다. 올해부터 해남은 1년에 60만원씩 전체 농가 1만4579가구가 대상으로 실시되었다. 아마도 매년 재원을 확보하여 액수도 늘어날 것이고 또한 전국적으로 확대되고 있는 상황이다. 

미국의 알래스카는 석유에서 나오는 수입으로 1982년부터 매년 1인당 약 1500달러씩 4인가족에 6000달러를 지급해왔고, 핀란드는 기본소득 매월 71만원 정도를 지급하고 있으며, 네덜란드, 스위스, 스웨덴 등도 유사한 정책을 펴고 있다. 돈은 벌고 있지만 기술개발로 줄어드는 일자리를 늘릴 수 없는 상황에서 부의 재분배를 위해 농민, 청년, 장애인, 노인들을 대상으로 우선적으로 기본소득을 실시하자는 것이다. 

출가자가 증가와 종단민주주의에 기여할 승려기본소득

불교환경연대는 지난 2017년 3월 불교의 기본소득 실시를 위한 토론회를 개최하였고 여기서 중앙승가대 유승무 교수는 ‘기초수행지원 보시금’이라는 이름으로 모든 스님들에게 무조건 각각 50만원씩 연간 600만원을 지불하는 기본소득이 가능할 수 있다고 추진을 제안했다. 1만여 스님을 대상으로 할 경우 연간 600억 정도의 예산이 소요되는데, 일종의 토지세나 지대처럼 걷는 400억원 규모의 사찰점유비와 직영사찰수입의 4분1로 180억원, 그리고 각 사찰마다 승보공양 복전함 같은 기초수행지원 보시함을 마련하고, 관광사찰입장료의 일부, 기타 출자가의 재보시 등을 합치면 가능할 수 있다고 했다. 물론 대략적인 추산으로 더욱 상세한 계산이 필요할 것이다. 

이렇게 지급되면 과연 어떤 효과가 있을까? 우선 삼보정재의 교리적 사회적 정당성을 확보할 수 있고, 권력지향적인 위계적 조직관행, 관료주의가 개혁되는 계기가 되며, 원융살림의 종단의 민주적 의사결정에 큰 기여하게 될 것이다. 또한 스님들의 생활이 안정되어 승단내의 불평등, 사유화, 세속화, 사사화 등의 온갖 부정적인 추세가 일소하여 승가의 공동체성과 화합에 기여를 할 것이다. 그리고 주지나 소임자로 하여금 돈보다 수행지원 등에 집중하게 되어 승단의 과잉정치화를 막을 수 있다. 또한 초발심의 자세로 수행에 전념하는 출가자가 늘어나게 되어 승단이 청정해지며, 승단의 경제적 안정화로 인해 출가자의 감소문제를 해결하는데도 기여하고, 행자시절 중도포기나 환계자를 줄이는 효과를 발휘할 수 있는데다, 불교가 사회적 변화를 선도하는 효과를 발휘하게 된다는 것이다. 물론 점차 지급되는 액수는 늘어나게 되고 여기에 향후 국가가 지불하는 기본소득이 추가된다면 훨씬 더 안정적인 수행생활을 할 수 있게 된다. 

기본소득의 특징은 무조건성이다. 누구에게 동일하게 지급되기 때문에 부자와 가난한자를 구분하는 행정비용이 전혀 지출되지 않는다. 사람들은 대체로 앞날의 불안감으로 인해 돈을 모아 쌓아 놓으려 하며 이를 위해 권력다툼을 하게 된다. 승려기본소득으로 승단이 더욱 청정하고 스님들이 수행에 전념할 수 있는 토대가 만들어진다면 불교가 부흥하는데 이루 말할 수 없는 도움이 될 것이다. ‘스님은 잘살기만 하면 먹을 것은 저절로 생긴다’는 전통적인 생각을 더욱 충실할 수 있는 조건을 만들게 되니 복지도 이런 복지가 없는 것이다.

유정길 불교환경연대 운영위원장 ecogil21@naver.com

 

[1511호 / 2019년 11월 6일자 / 법보신문 ‘세상을 바꾸는 불교의 힘’]

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111 2019-11-06 20:18:15더보기

땡중들한테 세금을 왜 줘 룸살롱 가려고?

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종던합의 2019-11-05 04:17:08더보기

저도 2년 전 유승무 교수의 기본소득 논의 기사를 공유한 적이 있었는데 불교환경연대 주최 였군요. 법보신문 의 이런 기사 좋습니다. 종단 합의까지 갈 길이 멀지만 시작이 빠르면 빠를수록 종단에 유리하다고 생각합니다.

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미국도 2019-11-04 15:16:11더보기

미국 민주당 대선 후보 앤드류 양도 18세 이상 전 국민 1000불 기본소득 공약 제시했더군요

4차산업혁명시대, 생존권 보장은 기본소득이 주류인샘이네요

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기본소득 2019-11-04 13:25:59더보기

스님들에게 매월 50만원이 종단에서 지급된다면 아마도 대단히 바뀔 것같습니다.

분쟁도 훨씬 덜해져 더욱 청정해질 것으로 예상됩니다. 물론 종단에서 합의하는데는

많은 시간이 걸릴 것같지만...

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불교언론-법보신문 | 유정길

불교언론-법보신문

본각 스님의 녹색불교

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스님들에게 기본소득을
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매월 50만원씩 통장에 돈이 들어온다면만일 당신에게 매월 50만원의 돈이 통장이 정기적으로 꼬박꼬박 들어온다고 생각해보자. 과연 어떤 일이 발생할까? 2019년 1인 최저생계비는 102만4205원인데 50만원이라면 약 반에 해당되며 적은 액수가 아니다. 만일 가족 한사람들에게 각각 지불되기 때문에 5인 가족이면 250만원이다. 그렇게 되면 비루하게 아등바등하게 살지 않게 되고 하고 당당히 싶은 일을 하며 가족 중 누군가 직업을 잃는다 해도 크게 두렵지 않고 소비도 늘어나 최소한의 품위를 유지하며 살 수 있게 될 것이다.일을 한 대가
법보시론 | 유정길 | 2019-11-04 11:42

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미래세대에게 미래는 있는가

지난 5월1일 영국은 ‘기후변화비상사태’를 선언했다. 이어서 아일랜드, 캐나다, 프랑스, 오스트리아 등도 기후비상사태를 선포했다. 기후위기는 현재 기대한 것보다도 너무도 심각해 지금의 정상적인 정책으로 해결될 수 없기 때문에 실질적이고 위급한 조치가 필요하기 때문이다. 안타깝게도 기후위기에 관한한 우리는 한참 뒤쳐져 있다. 한국은 이산화탄소 배출량 세계 7위의 국가이며, 사우디아라비아, 호주, 뉴질랜드에 이어 4번째 ‘기후악당’ 국가로 선정될 정도이니 말이다. 현재 지구평균기온은 산업화 이전에 비해 1도가 상승했다. 여기서 0.5도
법보시론 | 유정길 | 2019-10-07 11:40

세계의 희망 부탄
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부탄은 국민의 97%가 행복하다고 느끼는 나라이며, 물질적 성장을 위해 자원을 파괴해온 서구의 GNP지표 대신 GNH라는 국민총행복을 지표로 하는 나라다. 서구식 근대화를 서두르지 않고 전통의상과 전통건물 등 문화를 소중히 하는 나라이자, 외국의 원조에 의존하지 않고, 누구나 국왕을 쉽게 만날 수 있으며, 지하자원을 개발하지 않고 보존하며 삼림비율을 75%를 유지하는 나라다. 또한 관광객이 많이 오는 걸 원하지 않고 엄격히 제안하고 있다. 교육비가 전액 무료이고 병원비도 완전 무료인데다 세계 최초로 전 국토가 금연구역이며, 노숙자가
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대만불교는 60년대 중반까지 별 존재감이 없던 종교였다. 본토에서 넘어온 사람들이 주도하는 대만에서 불교는 보존하고 지켜야 할 유물이나 유적이 별로 없었기 때문에 과거에 얽매이지 않고 오로지 미래를 위해 원력을 펼치기만 하면 됐다. 또한 조상 덕을 볼만한 유산도 없어 1967년 대학생들의 불교학습운동을 시작으로 거의 맨땅에서 스스로 만들고 세우며 일으켜 오늘의 대만불교가 됐다.성운 스님의 불광산사, 증엄 스님의 자재공덕회, 성엄 스님의 법고산사, 유각 스님의 중대선사 등이 중심이 되어 척박했던 대만불교를 불과 50년만에 현재 대만인
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영국의 사회운동가이자 기업가인 아니타 로딕은 “변화를 위해 한 사람의 힘이 너무 작고 별 소용이 없다고 생각되면, 작은 미물인 모기 한 마리를 방에 두고 같이 잠을 자보라”고 했다. 모기 한 마리로 비해 비교가 안 될만큼 큰 당신이 밤새 얼마나 괴롭힘을 당할까 상상해보라. 한 사람이 끼칠 수 있는 영향은 가히 상상할 수 없다. 거대한 변화는 모두 결국 한 사람에게서 시작된 것이다. 얼마 전 서울 불교환경연대 사무실 앞에 위치한 불교단체인 사단법인 룸비니에 들른 적이 있다. ‘전태일 평전’을 쓰신 고 조영래 변호사님, 박세일 서울대

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전북지역 불교환경연대 창립준비위원회 구성
전북지역 불교환경연대 창립준비위원회 구성

불교환경연대(상임대표 법만 스님 참당선원 선원장)는 6월22일 전북혁신도시 포교당 수현사에서 ‘녹색불교, 생태사찰을 위한 전북지역 대화마당’을 가졌다.오후 2시부터 7시간 동안 진행된 이날 대화마당에는 불교환경연대 상임대표 법만, 공동대표 효진, 녹색연합 전 공동대표 종고, 선운사 기획국장 진용, 고창 미소사 주지 종범, 군산 동국사 주지 종걸, 군산 염불암 주지 행담, 장흥 환경운동연합 무영 스님 등과 유정길 불교환경연대 운영위원장, 이해모 광주불교환경연대 운영위원장, 서재영 성균관대초빙교수, 유정희 전북불교네트워크 공동대표, 남
교계 | 신용훈 전북주재기자 | 2019-06-28 11:37

사부대중은 평등할 수 없다?
사부대중은 평등할 수 없다?

52%의 신도가 십일조, 개인당 월 33만원의 헌금한 사람을 알려면 현재 그가 어떤 친구들을 만나는지를 보면 알 수 있다. 더 깊이 알려면 그가 어디에 시간을 많이 쓰는지 알면 된다. 나아가 그 사람이 현재 버는 돈 중 어떤 부분에 가장 많이 쓰는지를 보면 더욱 깊이 알 수 있다. 2008년 발표된 바른교회아카데미 여론조사에는 개신교인의 52.1%가 수입의 10분의1 이상을 정기적으로 십일조 헌금을 하고, 그 이상을 내는 사람도 20.4%나 됐다. 가구당 헌금액은 연평균 345만원이고 감사헌금이나 건축헌금을 포함하면 연평균 400만
법보시론 | 유정길 | 2019-06-11 10:30

[SW칼럼]유현(幽玄)의 미감 - 세계일보

[SW칼럼]유현(幽玄)의 미감 - 세계일보


[SW칼럼]유현(幽玄)의 미감



입력 : 2008-06-18

김춘옥 화가, 한국화여성작가회장

자연은 어떠한 조건을 전제로 있는 것이 아니다.



그저 거기에 그렇게 있으므로 그곳에 있는 것이 자연이다. 마음의 감흥에 따라 느낌에 따라 자연스럽게 그린 그림이 나의 작업 주제 ‘자연에서’이다.



주제도 표현방법도 그래서 자연인 것이다.



그것이 꽃의 형상이어도 좋고 숲의 모습이어도 좋다. 마음에 비추어지는 것을 그냥 그대로 솔직하게 쏟아낼 수 있는 것. 잘 그리려고, 잘 만들려고 애를 쓰면 쓰는 만큼 조잡해지고 불순해지는 것. 원래 그 자리에 그렇게 있었던 것처럼 표현하려는, 표현해야 하는 것이 곧 자연임을 살면서 더욱 깊이 깨닫게 된다.



그래서 나는 지나가는 바람에 스친 것처럼 그려지지 않은 것처럼 그리려 했다. 다듬고 꾸밀수록 더 속되고 천박해진다고 생각했기 때문이다.



이러한 나의 자연이 유현(幽玄)의 길목에서 어렵사리 마주쳤다.



이치가 깊고 그윽하여 알기가 어렵다는 유현은 정적의 예술사상으로 노경(老境)의 미감을 세분한 말이다. 시간적으로 오랜 수련의 결과와 대상과의 관계성에서 이루어지는 것이 유심 감(幽深感)이라면 공간적으로 다각도의 관찰결과와 대상과의 전후, 좌우, 상하와의 관계성에서 이루어지는 것이 유현감(幽玄感)이라 한다.



그러한 유현은 대개 간접적이거나 복합적으로 얻는 미감을 말한다. 대상을 눈앞에 보이는 존재, 직접적인 관계만으로 보지 않고 다른 사물과의 연간 관계에서 간접적으로 누리는 미감이 유현이다.



대상만을 관찰하고 또 대상에 접근하는 표현 방법과는 대조적이며, 항상 정적인 고요의 상태에서 대상의 그윽한 모습을 바라보는 것이다. 어떠한 대상이든 사물이든 그것을 독립적이고 고정적인 존재로만 보지 않고 반드시 상호 관련성에서 느끼고 보는 것이다. 서양과 차별되는 동양의 미감, 한국의 미감이 바로 이것이라고 생각한다.



화면위에서 한 마리의 새가 드넓은 창공을 날아가는 한 마리의 새로, 또 화선지위에 함초롬히 핀 한 송이의 국화꽃에 비바람을 포용한 대지, 그리고 간밤에 머금은 이슬까지 표현되었음을 안다. 어떠한 사물이나 대상을 독립된 개체로 보지 않고 주위와의 관계 형으로 본다는 것이다.



그 유현의 미감을 오늘 자연에서 만나고 있다. 반갑고 감격스럽다. 얼마나 찾았는데…



김춘옥 화가, 한국화여성작가회장