The Zen of Perception: Mastering Suffering and Pain | Ven. Hyon Gak Sunim | TEDxBerlin

NOTE FROM TED: Please do not look to this talk for health advice. Some viewers may find elements to be objectionable. This talk only represents the speaker's personal views and understanding of mindset, breathwork, and healing which lacks scientific support. We've flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/t...

Leading neuroscientists and the world’s most ancient meditative traditions converge in the understanding that “everything is created by mind alone.” Our minds construct — and all of our perceptions only inhabit — a hallucinated reality which exists merely as a vague approximation of the truth of our real, “lived” experience. This “controlled hallucination” (Anil Seth, et al.) of existence presents itself just in order for our brains to navigate the dangers and opportunities of a challenging world. In this talk, the renowned Zen monk Hyon Gak Sunim uses simple examples from science and his own three decades of deep meditative exploration to present the ways in which we might master the tools of perceptions for living more meaningfully and purposefully in this vast web of life — and perhaps bring world peace, along the way.

Hyon Gak Sunim was born Paul J. Muenzen in 1964 to a family of devout Catholics in New Jersey, U.S.A. A graduate of Yale College ('87) and comparative religions at Harvard Divinity School (MTS, '92), Sunim was ordained as a Buddhist monk in China by the legendary Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, in 1992. He has completed some 45 of the 3-month intensive traditional silent meditation retreats in various remote mountain places in Korea, including 3 intensive 100-day solo meditation retreats. He received inka(formal approval of enlightenment, and certification of teaching authorization) from Zen Master Seung Sahn in 2001. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx