Fulfilling My Late Grandfather’s Wish

Fulfilling My Late Grandfather's Wish

(Questioner)Hi Bumrum Sunnim
Thank you so much for coming again.

I have a question about something,
I have wanted to do for a very long time.

My grandfather and my father are
from North Korea.

My grandfather has long passed.

He had dying wish to go to North Korea,
pay his respects to his mother's grave.

My father tried to help my grandfather
do that by suggesting.

My grandfather come to the United States,
and then they have to go through China.

My grandfather said,
"Absolutely not. I want to go straight,

from where I lived at the time in Seoul,
go up to Sinuiju."

A journey he was never able to make.

I grew up in this country,
but my parents didn’t tell me much about Korea.

I grew up wanting to learn more about it
and about my family.

Only my father's father, from that side
of the family made it to South Korea.

I don’t have any relatives
from my father’s side.

My mother was an only child,
so I have no relatives on her side either.

I work in the film industry.

While in college, I received a grant
to record my grandfather’s oral history

of escaping North Korea during the Korean War.

I have long held this hope.
Some day I would be able to go to North Korea.

Somehow find
my great grandmother's grave.

Pay my respects even though
my grandfather could not.

Of course, I know that it's very difficult
for Americans to go to North Korea.

I also know in the context of just
everything that's happening in the world.

My responsibilities as a mother and my desire
to work on sustainability

I wonder if my attachment to want to go and fulfill this dream is foolish.

And also within the context of all the politics, every time I say something to my parents about how I want to go to North Korea or even South Korea,

They're just like,
"Oh, it's so dangerous don't go."

I'm just curious Sunnim,
how you would advise me? Thank you.

(Sunim) We live sometimes
we fulfill our goals.

Of course, not all our desires come true.

Perhaps, we actually don't get our way
more often than we get our way.

At the same time, we also cannot satisfy
others' desires of us.

This is the realities of our lives.

If you accept the reality of our lives
that go on this way.

There is no cause for suffering.

We often kind of mistake ourselves.

We often attached to that idea,
that all our dreams or desires should come true.

We predecide
that all our goals should be achieved.

That's why we get disappointed
which leads to suffering

when some of them don't come true.

You're not suffering
just because your desire didn't come true.

You're suffering,
because you have this expectation.

All your goals should be achieved
and your desire should come true.

If we make an effort to achieve our goals
if it does come true then that's great.

If it doesn't, that's also okay
because it happens so often.

If you want to achieve it,
try again, then try again

Take lessons learned from your previous failure
and adjust your strategy.

You can always stop quit

If you try again with a different strategy,
it might happen

But, then again, it might not.

You can quit.

If you still want to achieve that goal,
then you try again, adjust again,

strategies again and try again

That's our lives.

Why does that lead to suffering?

The suffering happens because we expect
to achieve something once or twice

when it should really take
10 attempts to actually get there.

We want to achieve that results faster
based on the little effort that we put in.

It's not the failure to achieve
your goals that causes suffering.

It's the expectation
that you should achieve your goals.

The same thing with the desires
that others have for us.

There are often times we suffer
because we were not able to satisfy

what our parents wish of us or
satisfy what our children expect of us.

We often suffer because we think,
we disappointed our parents, our family members

by not being able to
fulfill their desires of us.

But then again, we can't fulfill
everybody's expectations of us.

We suffer because we mistake into thinking

that we can actually fulfill
all of our other desires of us.

We overestimate ourselves.

We're not this all powerful being
that can actually grant everybody's wishes.

If we can, let's do.

If we can't, we just apologize and, go on

You're not apologizing
because you did something wrong.

We're apologizing because that in their shoes,
we're not able to fulfill what they want of us.

To summarize basically,
sometimes our dreams, our goals come true.

Sometimes they don't, sometimes we can
actually satisfy others' desire of us.

Sometimes we can't.

That’s life and the fact of
it shouldn’t be a cause for suffering.

Going back to your question.

Grandfather wanted to go back to
where he was born in North Korea

and pay his respects
to his mother's grave.

He wasn't able to go back to North Korea
due to the geopolitics of the region.

He asked his son in my stead,

"Can you go back and
pay your respects to your grandmother?"

Due to the prevailing geopolitics of
the day that continues.

He wasn't able to
fulfill that wish either

That it's not great suffering

It's just the fact that,
it wasn't possible to achieve.

You take that wish that
you have inherited and say,

what it's going to be tough to do
so I can't do it and that's okay.

If you really want to fulfill
your grandfather's wish, then you can try.

Maybe I'll come to you maybe you won't.

All you can do is
try your best if you want to do it

Saying that should not
lead to any suffering.

This is not a matter of issue of you
being foolish or wise.

If you feel burdened by this
then that is foolish.

But to have this as your aspiration,
I think it's a good thing.

Because there's nothing that tells
you have to have this aspiration or not.

That's really your choice.

Basically, my recommendation is
do what you want.