13th Sunday of the year Year A

Today is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the West, "speaking" is essential. Everything in life is expressed through words. If you don't resist, if you don't argue, you're considered non-existent. In other words, resistance is strong, silence is weak. Resisting is smart.

This Western lifestyle, with its diverse backgrounds, has spread rapidly through television, the internet, radio, social media, and so on. Democracy, human rights—all of these were brought to the East, so many people in the East were confused by the Eastern spirit in Western clothing in various situations.

Look closely at village life as a barometer. Every morning, the birds sing. Without arguing about who will become president, where the future is headed, or which party will win the election, the birds sing with simple, unadulterated clarity.

Now compare this to human life, which is said to be based on reason, truth, and taste. In the past, it was common to see people singing in the bathroom. Now, you probably don't hear singing coming from bathrooms anymore. Also, the fact that singing time is being replaced by complaining time is a phenomenon of modern society. In a village with many birds, humans prefer to watch television. The theme of their daily life is "Birds sing, humans curse."

According to legend, animals once felt jealous of humans. This jealousy stemmed from the fact that animals had no schools. Not wanting to be outdone by humans, the animals built schools. Fish were the swimming teachers. Birds were the flying teachers. Wolves were the running teachers. After several years, the animals realized that each possessed their own natural abilities. The animal schools were closed.

As nature teaches, nothing prevents someone from becoming president or a wealthy businessman. Everything has its inherent characteristics. For example, a bird's characteristic is flying. A wolf's is running. A fish's is swimming. A human's characteristic is having a heart that can understand the sorrow of others.

When humans face "problems" or "suffering," they react to them and try to eliminate them. They eat to eliminate boredom. They seek entertainment to eliminate saturation. We take medicine to get rid of illness. This is a concrete form of resistance to life, as many psychologists acknowledge. What you resist persists. That's why we can't live better. We can't easily get out of the dark tunnel because we keep resisting everything. Unlike the lives of most people, who are full of resistance, those who walk the path of meditation are taught not to resist. To know without judgment. To see without compartmentalization. To listen without judgment. To accept everything as it is: pain, health, joy, sadness, boredom, etc. As the wise say, "When you remove all waves, you will lose the ocean." The English word "understanding" means "to know." The reverse is "standing under," meaning "to stand beneath." Like the legs of a table, they stand firm to support the table, even though they are heavy. Meditators are the same. When they face problems in life, they don't try to get rid of them immediately. They don't think of suffering as divine punishment at all. When they encounter "life's problems" or "suffering," they accept them humbly and carefully continue to search for the reasons why those problems arose. In doing so, they ultimately realize that "self-centeredness" is the root of all life's problems. The more self-centered you are, the more you suffer. The less self-centered you are, the lighter the problems become.

When you joyfully accept all of life's problems, they disappear at that moment. Imagine a string in a dark place. Everyone would think it's a snake because it's dark. Turn on the light and the snake disappears. Consciousness is like the light that dispels fear, doubt, and hatred.

When you see, just see. When you hear, just listen. Don't worry, everything has been, is, and will continue to be. Birds don't go to school and don't know the word "intelligence," yet they live perfectly well. Humans, of course, live perfectly well. This is a meditation without resistance. It's not about understanding (through practice, not intellect) that the ego is the root of unhappiness. The darkness of the ego disappears as soon as it's illuminated by consciousness. There is nothing to resist. Those who understand these things are convinced that the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion.
"Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me," it says in today's Gospel reading.
What kind of cross do we carry? Martyrs sacrificed their lives in one go, just like Jesus Christ, but we can carry our own cross not through special sacrifices, but through our daily lives, by fulfilling our duties as family members and members of society.
Daily life is the cross. To carry the cross means to carry the burden of daily life. When we consider our daily lives, we are reminded of the lines of a poem by Norvid, a 19th-century Polish poet. He said, "There are only two ways: either you take up the cross of the Savior and go your own way, or you take up your own cross and follow the Savior."
"Accepting yourself as you are"
Isn't that like taking up the cross of the Savior and going your own way, and also taking up your own cross and following the way of the Savior?