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, in the USA
and 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.

You start dividing the world
into right and wrong.

You being on the right.

If you're divided into
right and wrong,

the people in the wrong are viewed
as enemies, and

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

or 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 that 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 or
be passive or accepting about it,

what we're saying is uses
non violent ways to persuade

to change to transform.

whether that's voting,
that's public dialogue,

any other strategies that
you can employ.

Let's look at Korea, for example,
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 violent means
in effect enacting a palace coup.

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.

They're singing loud songs that almost
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,

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.