International bestselling author and Zen Buddhist teacher Haemin Sunim joins Raghu Markus to explore awakening, emotional healing, and returning to joy in a unified reality.
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In this episode, Raghu and Haemin explore:
- Haemin’s early spiritual influences, including his fascination with J. Krishnamurti
- Understanding genuine freedom as freedom from the known
- Oneness and the truth of a unified, non-dual reality beyond inner and outer divisions
- The formless nature of awareness and unconditional love
- Awareness as an independent presence, not something we own
- Befriending emotions and seeing the roots of stress and trauma
- Facing our shadow and recognizing where resistance lives in us
- Turning inward to examine personal triggers rather than blaming others
- Questioning limiting beliefs and inherited thoughts from childhood
- Welcoming difficult emotions with compassion, as Ram Dass once taught
- The deep longing to return home to our true, unified self
- Experiencing the natural joy of being versus the tension of needing to be right
- Seeing our shared humanity, even in those we consider enemies
- Cultivating compassion and answering the call to serve others
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About Haemin Sunim
Born in South Korea and educated at Berkeley, Harvard, and Princeton, Haemin Sunim received formal monastic training from Haein monastery in South Korea. He taught Asian religions at Hampshire College in Massachusetts for seven years. He is one of the most influential Zen monks in the world. His first book, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, has been translated into more than 35 languages and sold over four million copies. His second book, Love for Imperfect Things, was the number one bestseller of 2016 in South Korea and became available in multiple languages in 2019. Haemin resides in Seoul when not traveling to share his teachings. Check out his website to learn more and grab yourself a copy of his most recent book, When Things Don’t Go Your Way.
“Though there is an objective world out there, it is not ‘out there’. It is how the mind creates this world seemingly outside of us. In fact, it’s not outside of us. There is no inner and outer division—it’s just our conceptual distinction. In reality, there is one, undivided reality.”- Haemin Sunim