When You Do Not Agree with Society

<When You Do Not Agree
with Society>

(Questioner) Hello Sunim, thank you
very much for taking my question.

When applying the middle way
to our practice,

it is said that we must strike
a healthy balance

between changing society
and adapting to it.

My question is what do you do
when you do not agree with society,

and you do not want
to adapt to it?

For instance,
I do not agree with the politics

that are about to change
in my country, the USA.

I do not want to adapt to
the morals that I do not agree with

in the political party that is
the majority of the incoming president.

How do I apply the middle way to
my practice in this instance?

(Sunim) If the motivation to want to
change the world of society rises

as a sense of frustration
or rage or anger,

you can self-diagnose that
that balance has been broken.

When that balance is broken,
your sense of your values,

your perspective upon the world is
much stronger.

And you start dividing the world
into right and wrong.

You being ( right. )

If you're divided into
right and wrong,

the people in the wrong are viewed
as enemies..

You tend to demonize them.

If you follow that logic,
a demon is somebody who can

be damaged, hurt or killed.

That leads to a violence or
a conflict.

The foundational recognition you have
to have about others in the world is

that we all have different value systems,
perspectives.

In today's world,
we look at the past cast system,

monarchy or dictatorship,
and we feel anger at those,

and we feel pity at those.

But having said that,
if you look at human history,

we have lived far longer
under those systems

than we have lived
under liberal democracies.

In a way, these systems are
not unforgivable systems.

They were just another system
that human beings organized themselves in.

Even in those systems,
you have to understand

that they had their own internal logic,
and you have to acknowledge

that those internal logic existed.

If you have that understanding
or acknowledgement,

it would not elicit anger
in your heart.

Love is not that joyous emotion.

Love can be better defined
as the absence of hate.

But having said that,
based on that acknowledgement or

understanding of
the differences of others.

Then the choice becomes
what am I going to do in this world?

Understanding how others can be
doesn't mean

you agree with them or
that they're right.

That means you are free to
choose another value system.

Based on that you walk
your own path.

So that may lead to a dialogue or
they may lead to a competition.

As long as you don't consider
each other hostiles or enemies.

That means that it's more effective
to use peace as a driver for change.

Not only does your heart have
to be peaceful to drive change,

but the process of transformation
of change also has to be peaceful.

When we say peaceful, we don't mean to
let the current situation be.

If you don't agree with it,
be passive or accepting about it.

What we're saying is that
use non violent ways to persuade

to change to transform whether
that's voting, that's public dialogue,

any other strategies
that you can employ.

For example,
let's look at Korea today.

The president out of his frustration
at the effectiveness of his rule

wanted to solve this problem violently.

So the very person who sworn
to uphold the Constitution of South Korea

was the one who violated its spirit
and tried to suppress

the National Assembly through violence
means in effect,enacting a palace coup.

But the Korean citizens are not reacting
to this in a violent way.

They are peacefully reacting to it.

Of course, there are those of us who
are raging inside our hearts.

But they're singing loud songs that
feels like a festive occasion

as they voice their opposition.

There's more and more protesters,
and it's sustained, therefore

the pressure is increasing,

But they're trying to transform or effect
a transformation in a peaceful way.

A spiritual practitioner doesn't mean
you accept things the way it is passively.

Going back to your question
about the middle way.

If there's anger driving your actions
for change,

it's something for you to look into
yourself to be introspective about it.

However, if you see unfairness that
you want to change in this world,

you need to actively engage.

Just do not engage out of anger.

(Questioner) Thank you very much.
That was very helpful.