Chapter Thirteen: On the Order 8

Seeing the faces of Chŏng Yangsŏn and others becoming gaunt from the drudgery of the kitchen, the Founding Master said, “Because of your harsh labor, your faces have become gaunt. In order to pursue our studies and our work, you have been laboring either in a factory, the kitchen, or the farming department, enduring all kinds of hardships while trying to perform duties that are overtaxing your strength. Your hardship can be compared to putting all kinds of iron into a forge and continuously heating and pounding it. The impure iron eventually sinks down and is melted away, leaving only the good quality metal, which can then be used to produce tools indispensable to the world. In the midst of your harsh circumstances, you must search for truth and attain the three great powers; only then will the impure iron of ordinary beings fall away and you will forge the pure gold of buddhahood or bodhisattvahood. Thus, without that forge, one cannot possibly attain good iron; so, too, without training in harsh circumstances, one cannot possibly forge outstanding character. You should understand this principle so that you will always live in peace and joy.”