Quotes by South Korean Authors - Page 6

The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had never done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm.
Han Kang
Hunger quashes man's will to help his fellow man.
Kang Chol-Hwan
I’m trying to think about what I can do. But instead all that comes to mind are the things I can’t do. How do we judge truth and goodness? Where are justice and righteousness hiding? A society that is violent or corrupt prohibits mutual communication. A society that fears communication is unable to solve any problem. It looks for someone to shift the responsibility to and turns even more violent.
Kyung-Sook Shin
Cosmopolitan discourse is in a way a response to the issue of solidarity. Although the precondition for solidarity can be a _community_, solidarity requires more intentional commitment and performance than does community.
Namsoon Kang
Teaching and learning _religious plurality often ends up privileging religious _texts_ over _practice_ and largely ignoring the social and historical contexts and the lived experience of people who shape, situate, and structure these religious texts. Furthermore, adopting the politics of recognition as a pedagogical principle in teaching can lead to an _uncritical silence_ about the various forms of oppression and domination of certain religious groups. Here people often use _religious difference_ as a _religious alibi_ for the oppression or violation of human rights of certain groups of people, such as women or LGBT people.
Namsoon Kang
Cosmopolitanism seeks a _we_ that does not rely on the exclusion of _others_ but, instead, recognizes and confirms each other as part of the planetary _we_. The cosmopolitan _we_ is not grounded in a monolithic sameness but in a constant alterity and _ethical singularity_ of each individual human person regardless of one's national origin and belonging, religious affiliation, gender, race and ethnicity, class ability, or sexuality.
Namsoon Kang
Walter Mignolo terms and articulates _critical cosmopolitanism, juxtaposing it with globalization, which is a process of "the homogeneity of the planet from above––economically, politically and culturally." Although _globalization from below_ is to counter _globalization from above_ from the experience and perspective of those who suffer from the consequences of _globalization from above_, cosmopolitanism differs, according to Mignolo, form these two types of globalization. Mignolo defines globalization as 'a set of designs to manage the world,' and cosmopolitanism as 'a set of projects toward planetary conviviality
Namsoon Kang
Although I believe identity politics '"produces limited but real empowerment for its participants," it is important to note that it contains significant problems: first, its essentialist tendency; second, its fixed _we-they_ binary position; third, its homogenization of diverse social oppression; fourth, its simplification of the complexity and paradox of being privileged and unprivileged; and fifth its ruling out of intersectional space of diverse forms of oppression in reality.
Namsoon Kang
Whenever one comes to the the table for interreligous dialogue, there is what I would call an _ecumenical taboo_ that one has to comply with. The ecumenical taboo_ does not exist in a written document, but people tend to practice it around the dialogue table. One should not raise, for instance, such questions as gender justice, sexual orientation issues, religious constructions of the other, multiple forms of violence in a religious community, or religious cooperation with neo/imperialism. each religion has its own _history of sin_ that has justified and perpetuated oppression and exclusion of certain groups of people through its own religious teaching, doctrine, and practice. In order to be _nice_ and _tolerant_ to one another, interreligious dialogue has not challenged the fundamental issues of injustice that a particular religion has practiced, justified, and perpetuated in various ways. I do not disregard that most ecumenists have based interreligious dialogue on a politics of tolerance, and this has played a significant role in easing the antagonism between religions, at least among the leaders of established religions. However, we should ground an authentic ecumenism and theology of religion in a _politics of affirmation and transformation, rather than a politics of tolerance_.
Namsoon Kang
Theologians are to look to the _beyond_-community–– _beyond_ nationality; skin-color, gender; sexual orientation, citizenship, religious affiliation––because God, the Divine, who is the primary frame of reference for theologians, is for, with, in, among those individual human beings. It is to reaffirm the sheer truth: No one is better or worse, superior or inferior than any other; and, 'Ich bin du, wenn Ich Ich bin' [I am you, when Iam I.]
Namsoon Kang
now the question we must ask is...what kind of _practices_ [theology] motivates, what kind of _gaze_ onto others, the guest, the new arrivant, it offers us to carry with us; _not_ who my neighbors are _but_ to whom I am being a neighbor.
Namsoon Kang
Who are theologians? What kind of self-identity could or should a theologian claim? Should a theologian be a defender or transmitter of Christian _tradition_? What if the _tradition_ itself carries a dark side, implicitly or explicitly, bounded by religious or cultural superiorism, ethnocentrism, homophobism, exclusive nationalism, sexism, racism, and so forth? What kind of _identity_ would then justify my rule as theologian? This question has been lingering in my mind throughout the time I have been working on cosmopolitan theology. it may sound simple, but for me the identity issue has been fundamental.
Namsoon Kang
The saying goes that for a wound caused by dog bite to heal you have to eat that same dog, and I did scoop up a mouthful for myself
Han Kang
Even as a child, In-hye had possessed the innate strength of a character necessary to make one's own way in life. As a daughter, as an older sister, as a wife and as a mother, as the owner of a shop, even as an underground passenger on the briefest of journeys, she had always done her best. Through the sheer inertia pf a life lived in this way, she would have been able to conquer everything, even time. If only Yeong-hye hadn't suddenly disappeared last March. If only she hadn't been discovered in the forest that rainy night. If only all of her symptoms hadn't suddenly got worse.
Han Kang
The joy you feel when you become a small life particle sun and share its brightness and warmth with those around you is indescribably great.
Ilchi Lee
Violet is the most soothing, tranquilizing and cooling color vibration. It encourages the healing of unbalanced mental conditions in people who are overly nervous or high-strung. Foods of the violet vibration are: purple broccoli, beetroot and purple grapes.
Tae Yun Kim
Instead of others, ask yourself, “Are you really okay?” Check on yourself like this and do a warm “Goodnight” to yourself.
Jang Jae Yeol
People believe in everything, except the reality.
Min Kim
People believe in everything except the reality.
Min Kim
Is this the reality you wanted?
Jonghyun
Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.
Young-Ha Kim
With her courage and determination, Malala has shown what terrorists fear most: a girl with a book.
Ban Ki-Moon
When you become healthy, courageous, and hopeful, following your conscience becomes much easier. When people are healthy, courageous, and hopeful, it's difficult to bend their mind and will. They will speak out what they believe, and stand up and do what is right even when it means a loss to them.
Ilchi Lee
Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?
Chang-rae Lee
Man's mind is made up of illusionary pictures. Consequently, when he throws away these pictures Truth will enter into his mind, and he will know Truth to the extent of what he has discarded. This is enlightenment.
Woo Myung
The true Mind is one that exists before and beyond one's delusional, self-centered, attachment-filled mind.
Woo Myung
The Bible tells us, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven", which means heaven that is the true world will become one's own when he discards his false mind completely.
Woo Myung
In the past people only added to their minds. Now people can become complete and live in heaven if they subtract what is in their minds.
Woo Myung
Truth is the world and falseness is man who lives within his mind world which has copied the world of Truth. Therefore, man must cleanse and discard his mind. He must become “poor in spirit” in order to go to the real world that is heaven.
Woo Myung
When peace has thoroughly permeated our brain, mind, and body, we can create it as our reality. I firmly believe that every person is a peacemaker, once thy have developed their self-awareness and creativity. Peace must not be left to government leaders or gurus. It must spring from the brains, hands, and minds of the people.
Ilchi Lee
A curious mind is never bored.
Min Kim
This is when I understood that we can do without almost anything – our home, even our country. But we will never do without other people, and we will never do without family.
Hyeonseo Lee
However much he denied it, he always hoped that they'd be kinder to each other one day, like people who were grateful to survive something instead of people still fighting to survive. Wherever that small seed of hope resided, it no longer exists, and what they were to each other is what they will always be. Tethered somehow. Dawn together by a force that should've kept them close but repelled them instead.
Jung Yun
You can just enjoy music without understanding it, muusic is a universal language.
Cl 2ne1
Physical training is mental warfare!
Tae Yun Kim
For the first time, she became vividly aware of how much of her life she had spent with her husband. It had been a period of time utterly devoid of happiness and spontaneity. A time that she'd so far managed to get through only by using up every last reserve of perseverance and consideration. All of it self-inflicted.
Han Kang
The world is over-armed and peace is underfunded.
Ban Ki-Moon
As the gift of the Creator, natural healing power is ours. That’s why no special method is needed for recovering it. There are no perfect methods, no matter how effective or powerful they may be. What is perfect is our sense of life itself.
Ilchi Lee
You will be able to live as your authentic self when you find that infinite source of energy and that mind, bright and shining like the sun. Then you won’t need to become anyone other than yourself. You won’t need to depend on externals for your health and happiness, and you won’t need to look outside yourself to find passion and hope for life.
Ilchi Lee
Many of the activities we pursue, the resources we consume, and the waste products we create are the products of our desire to make our bodies a little more comfortable and carefree. Whether it’s food, exercise, music, alcohol, sex, drugs—whatever the stimulus—ultimately what we seek is a feeling of satisfaction. In the end, though, true satisfaction arises from a balance of healthy, harmonious energy. And that harmonious, balanced energy is the core of the natural healing power.
Ilchi Lee
As long as I can find hope in myself, there is hope for the future of the earth and the human race. If I fail to discover hope in myself, there is no hope for the earth or the human race. If I discover the goodness of human nature in myself, I can find it in the entire human race. If I fail to discover it in myself, I can’t expect it from anyone else, either.
Ilchi Lee
I believe the key to solving everything from individual problems to the global environmental crisis or political and religious conflicts is to be found in restoring this link with the great life force. By recovering our natural healing ability and the goodness of human nature, we can create a truly peaceful, sustainable world. And I don’t believe that these are things that social institutions or prestigious experts can do for us: they must happen within each and every one of us.
Ilchi Lee
What we should understand here is that it’s not food or breathing that life ultimately needs, but energy. And the most direct expression of energy is heat. In this sense, temperature expresses the essence of life. When you feel the heat in your body, you’re observing the most central operations of your life. You’re connected to the essence of life.
Ilchi Lee
But maybe it’s the laboring that gives you shape. Might the most fulfilling times be those spent solo at your tasks, literally immersed or not, when you are able to uncover the smallest surprises and unlikely details of some process or operation that in turn exposes your proclivities and prejudices both?
Chang-rae Lee
I still remember the moment when my gaze fell upon the mutilated face of a young woman, her features slashed through with a bayonet. Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn't realised was there.
Han Kang
I never let myself forget that every single person I meet is a member of this human race. And that includes you, professor, listening to this testimony. As it includes myself.
Han Kang
When someone recommends a book to you, you know two things; that it is a good book and you have a good friend.
Min Kim
Art is about going a little nuts and justifying the next sentence.
Young-Ha Kim
The master potter was trying to create the perfect piece each time, and he would discard even the ones with the slightest flaw. So I chose to create new forms from them, because perhaps, I don’t believe completely in that kind of perfection."To me, a piece of broken ceramic finds another piece, and they come to rely on one another. The cracks between them symbolise the wound... The work is a metaphor of the struggle of life that makes people more mature and beautiful as they overcome their sufferings.
Yeesookyung (Korean artist)
You're paved in my heart like an old road. Like the pebbles in a pebble field, dirt in dirt, dust in dust, cobwebs in cobwebs.
Kyung-Sook Shin
When you make choices, please remember: what is good for you but not good for others won’t be good for you either, eventually; what’s good for you and others but not good for the Earth won’t be good for you or others either, eventually; what’s good for you, others, and the Earth will be good for all.
Ilchi Lee
Our world desperately needs change. We all know this. The scope of the change ranges from our lifestyles to the direction of our civilization. When we acknowledge our greatness and start living it, when we open our hearts to the natural kindness and the caring for all beings that resides within us, all these necessary transformations can begin.
Ilchi Lee
When you want something and you don’t have it, it may be a cause of stress to you. However, if we reflect on how we came to have things that were not there originally, we can be excited, delighted, and grateful that we want something even before we have it. Seen from this perspective, wanting something—or more specifically, being able to want something while it is not there yet—is already a gift in itself. !is is why we offer gratitude.
Ilchi Lee
Even though consciousness doesn’t seem to be confined to the human brain within the skull, we do experience consciousness through our brain. The transformation of consciousness to attention is facilitated by your brain. Driving thoughts into action is also processed by your brain. Your brain is the seat of the creative observer inside you.
Ilchi Lee
Awareness in its pure state is nonlocal; there’s no focal point in it. It is unbounded. Awareness, when managed and directed, becomes attention. By turning into attention, awareness becomes localized, and attains a focal point. Because of this feature, attention has the power to direct energy.
Ilchi Lee
Where do we begin this process of reevaluation of values? It makes sense to begin with our mind, which is the tool we use to evaluate. Once we make sure it is functioning as it should, we can feel confident in using it to think about our beliefs and priorities.
Ilchi Lee
Conscience is the true power. It resides within us. The intention to be absolutely truthful and the willingness to put the benefit of all before personal benefit hold the power to change the world. !is intention and willingness is of course ethical choice, but it is also the most natural, reasonable, and intelligent choice when we realize what we really are. If people begin to use the full power of conscience in all the choices they make in their everyday life, from presidential elections to purchasing things in the grocery store, the world will change.
Ilchi Lee
Basically it is your choice. No matter what spiritual path you have taken, no matter what experiences you have had, choice is still choice. Spiritual development doesn’t happen automatically. It is choosing the eye of Tao that sees both the whole view of things from a distance and the core of reality from deep inside.
Ilchi Lee
In order to recognize the Truth, you have to separate yourself from the Truth; and to explain the Truth, you have to separate yourself from the recognition. This is why a wordsmithed Truth is nothing but a shadow of the shadow of the Truth. If Buddha had yawned instead of holding up a fower, would that gesture have been any less representative of the Truth?
Ilchi Lee
If we don’t see real changes in the world, it simply means we are not serious enough about creating those changes. We cannot a!ord to entertain superficial changes any more. The changes we need should be deep, real, and thorough.
Ilchi Lee