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    Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection
    Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection
    Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection
    Ebook259 pages2 hours

    Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection

    By Haemin Sunim, Deborah Smith and Lisk Feng

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    About this ebook

    Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet: "The world could surely use a little more love, a little more compassion, and a little more wisdom. In Love for Imperfect Things, Haemin Sunim shows us how to cultivate all three, and to find beauty in the most imperfect of things--including your very own self."

    A #1 internationally bestselling book of spiritual wisdom about learning to love ourselves, with all our imperfections, by the Buddhist author of The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down

    Hearing the words "be good to yourself first, then to others" was like being struck by lightning.

    Many of us respond to the pressures of life by turning inward and ignoring problems, sometimes resulting in anxiety or depression. Others react by working harder at the office, at school, or at home, hoping that this will make ourselves and the people we love happier. But what if being yourself is enough? Just as we are advised on airplanes to take our own oxygen first before helping others, we must first be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with the world around us.

    In this beautiful follow-up to his international bestseller The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, Zen Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim turns his trademark wisdom to the art of self-care, arguing that only by accepting yourself--and the flaws that make you who you are--can you have compassionate and fulfilling relationships with your partner, your family, and your friends. With more than thirty-five full-color illustrations, Love for Imperfect Things will appeal to both your eyes and your heart, and help you learn to love yourself, your life, and everyone in it.

    When you care for yourself first, the world begins to find you worthy of care.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateDec 24, 2018
    ISBN9780525504283

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    • 5/5
      This is a collection of inspirational texts by the Korean Buddhist monk Haemin Sumin. It is delightfully illustrated by Lisk Feng.

      The author reminds us to be good to ourselves first, to express our feelings and remember to ask for help when necessary. We’re allowed to say no when people ask for favours.

      “When we love someone, the greatest gift we can give is to be fully present for them.”

      Once I was participating in a self-development course when the instructor asked us to tell the group what we were good at. I said I was good at listening; but he sneered at this –listening wasn’t anything worthwhile.

      I felt bad at his rejection but knew I was right – to be a góod listener was and is worthwhile. Now in this book Haemin vindicates me in a chapter entitled “Listening is an act of love”. “Listening openly, patiently and attentively is one of the most significant expressions of love”

      Instead of pointing ut someone’s faults, praise their strengths, which will grow to overshadow their weaknesses,

      “Since the world is interconnected and interdependent, if one of us is in pain, we all feel it.”

      “True friends and good colleagues
      Are not those who say only pleasant things to you.
      When it’s clear you have mad a mistake, they will tell you that yu are at fault.”

      Sometimes one gives people the cold shoulder. But this only exacerbates the problem. “For your own sake, start talking. The silent treatment rarely works.”

      “A sense of superiority exists because of a sense of inferiority.”

      “Who is an unfortunate person? One who looks at other people and sees only their flaws.

      “When we tried to talk critically about someone whom everyone at the meeting knew, an elder monk stood up and said: “What is the point of talking about someone who is not here?”

      “Excessive thought won’t solve a problem. Rather than trying to fix it by thinking, set your mind at ease. A solution will rise to the surface. Remember that wisdom comes from stillness.”

      We are gifted with a quote from Swami Sivananda. “Put your heart, mind and soul into even your smallest acts.”

      “When difficult emotions like loneliness, sickness, and fear well up inside you, the most courageous thing you can do is to spend some time with them. …. They will either change their shape and disappear, or make you see that they’re not that terrifying.”

      The author tells of his stay in lum Village wih Thich Nhat Hanh, who teaches mindful breathing. We must be fully present in the her and now, including when we walk and eat.”

      There is a peaceful silence in the gap between one thought and the next. Pay attention to the quiet space between thoughts.

      A quote from Thomas Carlyle: “Silence is deep as eternity, speech is shallow as Time.”

      “It is the inner silence that knows that formless and immaculate silence is your true nature.”

      “Difficulties are blessings in disguise to foster mindfulness.”

      “There is no better teacher than the people you dislike.”

      “Enlightenment is not the end but the beginning.”

      The author provides us with chapters telling of his own personal experiences on various subjects though the main content of the book sonsists of inspiring maxims and insights.”

      It is suitable for reading in short extracts. Another absorbing work by this wise master!

    Book preview

    Love for Imperfect Things - Haemin Sunim

    Cover for Love for Imperfect ThingsBook title, Love for Imperfect Things, Subtitle, How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection, author, Haemin Sunim, imprint, Penguin Books

    PENGUIN BOOKS

    An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

    penguinrandomhouse.com

    First published in South Korea by Suo Books, 2016

    First published in the United States of America by Penguin Books, 2018

    This edition published 2020

    Copyright © 2016 by Haemin Sunim

    English translation copyright © 2018 by Deborah Smith and Haemin Sunim

    Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

    Illustrations by Lisk Feng

    Originally published in Korean by Suo Books.

    Published with the support of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea).

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

    Names: Hyemin, author.

    Title: Love for imperfect things : how to accept yourself in a world striving for perfection / Haemin Sunim ; translated by Deborah Smith and Haemin Sunim ; artwork by Lisk Feng.

    Other titles: Wanbyōk haji anūn kōttūl e taehan sarang. English

    Description: New York, New York : Penguin Books, [2018] | Translated from Korean.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2018027279 (print) | LCCN 2018029271 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525504283 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143132288 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525504283 (ebook)

    Subjects: LCSH: Love—Religious aspects—Buddhism. | Conduct of life. | Spiritual life—Buddhism.

    Classification: LCC BQ4570.L6 (ebook) | LCC BQ4570.L6 H9413 2018 (print) | DDC 294.3/5677—dc23

    LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027279

    Cover design: Nayon Cho

    Cover illustration: Lisk Feng

    btb_ppg_c0_r4

    CONTENTS

    Title Page

    Copyright

    Epigraph

    Prologue

    Chapter 1: Self-Care

    Don’t Be Too Good

    Your Existence Is Already Enough

    Chapter 2: Family

    Please Look After Mom

    Understanding Our Fathers

    Chapter 3: Empathy

    The Power of Hugs

    Listening Is an Act of Love

    Chapter 4: Relationships

    On a Zen Retreat

    Dealing with Disappointment

    Chapter 5: Courage

    To My Beloved Young Friends

    The First Failure

    Chapter 6: Healing

    When Forgiveness Is Hard

    Haemin, I Am a Little Depressed

    Chapter 7: Enlightenment

    The Mind’s True Home

    My Spiritual Journey

    Chapter 8: Acceptance

    The Art of Letting Go

    Lessons from Life’s Low Point

    About the Authors

    True freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.

    —Sixth-century Zen master Sengchan

    PROLOGUE

    THERE ARE TIMES IN LIFE when we encounter a film that stays with us for a very long time. For me, A River Runs Through It is one such film. Set in the first half of the twentieth century, and with the beautiful scenery of Montana for a backdrop, it tells the story of the Maclean family, for whom fishing is just as important as religion. The father is a Presbyterian minister with two sons. The elder son, Norman, lives a respectable life and becomes a university professor. The younger son, Paul, comes to lead a life of debauchery while working as a journalist for a local paper; his gambling habit gets him into great debt, and in the end he is beaten to death in an alley. The father, consumed by his deep sense of loss, speaks to his congregation during Sunday service with restrained emotion, revealing his love for his second son. We can love completely, he says, even without complete understanding.

    It was difficult for the father to understand why his son Paul had to live a life of dissipation. However, this didn’t stop him from loving his son—because, to him, love transcends human understanding. Rather than loving someone only when you feel you understand what it is you love, the kind of deep, enduring love shown by the father does not cease even when the loved one behaves in a way you do not agree with. In the depths of the heart, love is always flowing, like a river.

    *

    WHEN WE EXAMINE OUR LIVES, we see many imperfect things, like motes of dust on an old mirror. There are all kinds of things that leave us feeling dissatisfied and unhappy: Our words are often different from our actions, our relationships are strained by our mistakes, our best-laid plans for the future go awry. On top of that, in the course of our lives we inflict various wounds on others, intentionally or unintentionally, causing us to feel guilt and regret.

    But it’s the same when we look at our family and friends. The child who doesn’t listen to what his parents tell him; your own parents who do not understand you; your spouse who doesn’t behave reasonably. Close friends with bad health habits make you worry about their well-being. Every morning when we watch the news unfold, we see that the world is filled with yet more fighting, more accidents, more discord. It seems as though it will never end.

    And yet, even though we find many such imperfect things in the world we live in, we cannot help but love them. Because our lives are far too precious to be spent in ridicule and hatred of what doesn’t appeal to us, of what we do not understand. As we become spiritually mature, we naturally develop more empathy and try to see things from others’ perspectives. This, in turn, teaches us to accept the imperfections of others, and of ourselves, in a more graceful and compassionate way, like a mother loves her child no matter what.

    I have collected here my reflections on learning to look at the world and myself more compassionately. I have been inspired by people who have shared with me their life stories and questions during my public talks or on social media; they have opened my heart and deepened my wisdom. I pray that this book can be a friendly hand for you in a moment of despair, and bring you peace in a time of difficulty.

    —HAEMIN SUNIM

    The School of Broken Hearts, Seoul

    Chapter One

    SELF-CARE

    When we become kinder to ourselves,

    we can become kinder to the world.

    DON’T BE TOO GOOD

    WERE YOU ONE OF THOSE CHILDREN who were praised for being good? Did you then try hard to be good by always agreeing with parents, teachers, or older relatives? Even if sometimes it was hard, you learned not to complain and bore it quietly? And now that you’re an adult, do you still feel a responsibility to please other people? Do you constantly make an effort not to disturb or be a burden on others? But when there’s someone who makes things difficult for you, you try just to ignore it or put up with it, because it is not in your nature to do or say something that can potentially hurt someone or make someone feel uncomfortable?

    *

    I HAVE MET MANY GOOD people who suffer from depression, panic attacks, and other emotional disorders due to difficult human relationships. Such people tend to be gentle, well mannered, and solicitous of others. They are the kind of self-sacrificing person who will habitually put other people’s wishes before their own. Why, I wondered, do such good people often fall victim to mental and emotional suffering?

    I, too, was introverted and meek as a child, and so was often praised for being good. A good son who wouldn’t give his parents any trouble, a good student who listened to his teachers—all this taught me was that it was good to be good. But when I went to graduate school, I began to feel that there might be a problem with only being good. In group work with students who were smarter than I was, with stronger personalities, I found that the tasks everyone wanted to avoid somehow always fell to me. I kept on telling myself that it was good to do good, but as time went by it started causing me quite a bit of stress. When I opened my heart and spoke honestly to an older friend who was in the same program, he gave me the following advice:

    Be good to yourself first, then to others.

    It was like being struck by lightning. Up until then, I had only ever worried about what other people thought of me. I had never once thought properly about caring for myself, or loving myself.

    *

    WHEN WE SAY THAT SOMEONE is good, we often mean that the person complies with the will of others and isn’t self-assertive. In other words, people who are good at suppressing their own desires in deference to another’s are the ones who frequently get called good. If someone always listens to me and follows my advice, naturally I like that person and think of him or her as a good person. It seems that good sometimes refers to a person who thinks too much of others to be able to express his or her own will.

    While it is not always the case, there is a particular pattern that can be seen in our relationship with whoever raised us as a child. Many who are self-effacing in this way grew up with a dominant father or strong-willed mother. Or as a middle sibling, who received relatively little attention from the parents, giving rise to a strong desire to win the parents’ recognition by obeying them in all things. In certain cases, when the parents’ own relationship is not good, or the family dynamic is awkward in some way, there are also those who take it upon themselves to make their parents happy by being good.

    But the problem is that, by living in accordance with the demands of others, we unwittingly neglect our own desires and needs. If as a child you were indifferent to your own feelings, minimizing them or not considering them important, as an adult you will not be able to tell what it is you yourself want to do, or who you are as a person. And then when you encounter someone who treats you unfairly or makes things difficult for you, since you do not know how to properly express your own feelings, the

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