Dahn Yoga Boston

Ilchi Lee writes in his book that we cannot change the past. We cannot change the past because it no longer exists, but traces and consequences of our actions in the past exist in the present. When we realize that the past is only information, we will have taken our first step towards freeing ourselves from it.

Information that makes up our past can be subdivided into facts and interpretations. For example, imagine that someone slapped you in the face. How long does it take to recover physically from the impact? A few minutes? A few hours? However, the insult or emotional hurt from the slap can last far longer. Therefore, what really affects us is not the physical slap, but our interpretation and analysis of the slap.

There is a story of an ancient Korean Buddhist monk that cleverly illustrates this concept. He was on his way to a distant land when he stumbled into a dark cave. Exhausted by his efforts on the journey, he chose to spend the night inside the shelter of the cave. He was fatigued and thirst}’.

As he groped around, he found a small bowl filled with the coldest and most refreshing water he had ever tasted. He drank it and had a really good night’s sleep. The next morning he awoke and found, to his horror, that the bowl was actually an inverted human skull inside which dew and rainwater had gathered. What had been notably refreshing the night before suddenly became nauseating. In that moment, the monk’s realization of his shifted perspective triggered his enlightenment to the relative nature of fact and perception.