ETHICS

A radical New Age teacher says Ukraine is now facing the results of its karma from the past and there is no absolute right or wrong in the military actions of Russia. But there is hope – in reality there is no self which suffers and no self inflicting pain. In pure witnessing mind there are no drones, no missiles, no rapes, no wounds and no politics. 

Your Sangha friend supports these views. He claims they are similar to when American zen poet, Paul Reps wrote: “Drinking a cup of tea, I stop the war”? Do you agree?

One aspect of Buddhism’s visionary genius, echoed in Zen Master Seung Sahn’s teachings, lies in its ability to predict very complex modern social and scientific concepts. The theory of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), found in the Pali Canon and later developed by Nāgārjuna in the Madhyamaka school and in the vision of the interconnected net of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, foreshadowed ideas that in the West appeared only in the Twentieth Century – such as systems theory, non-linear causality and cybernetics. Likewise, Yogācāra’s insight that “Everything is made by mind alone” appeared over a thousand years before Kant and long before postmodern views that define truth as shaped by beliefs. Similarly, Zen Master Seung Sahn’s teachings on attachment to emptiness, with the medieval Chinese idea of zen sickness, anticipate what psychology now calls spiritual bypassing. All of these point to how people try to simplify the complexities of life, relationships and emotions by retreating into stillness.

Welcoming Agata Hae In JDPSN

This March, we are honored to welcome Agata Hae In JDPSN to Providence Zen Center, where she will lead a week of Kyol Che from March 7–14. We invite our local sangha to join us in extending a warm, wholehearted welcome to Agata as she visits from Poland to practice and teach with us.

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Look for the next issue of Primary Point, The Teaching Journal of the Kwan Um School of Zen in your mailbox or online in the Spring of 2026 to read the full article.