There are two types of people in the world; there are good people and bad people. In order to know what a good person is, it isn’t necessary to have met a bad person. You can feel intuitively: this is a good person, I can trust them. In the Korean language it is even easier decipher the difference between a “bad” person and a “good” person through the direct meaning of the words.
Nabbeun (nah-bboon): nabbeun is the Korean way to refer to a “bad” person. Within the word, there is a deeper meaning. Na means “me,” and bbeun means “only.” The translation of a “bad person” is a person who cares only about him- or herself.
I have devised a simple quiz for you to determine which category of person you are. To put it in relatable terms, I will use the analogy of chocolate ice cream. Let’s say that chocolate ice cream is your favorite. On this particular day, you really have a craving, but when you arrive at the store you find that there is only one pint of chocolate ice cream, and two other people reaching for it.
What are you going to do?
a.) Are you going to reach quickly so that you can have it for yourself?
b.) Will you surrender that chocolate ice cream, and yield to the other two people, so that they can be happy?
If you overcome your desire to be the possessor of that chocolate ice cream, you may experience disappointment, but by yielding you create peace.
Peace is created when you yield, not when you try to possess something for yourself. Of course, in the case of the chocolate ice cream, if you allow yourself to satisfy your desire for it you will feel momentary satisfaction. When you were a child it was natural to live from a “me only” mentality because at a young age you did not have the awareness of collective happiness or collective peace. However, as you grow older you come to understand the world, and you realize that you are not the only person living here. Eventually you realize that a collective world outside of yourself exists where we all live together. By yielding you may miss out on a little ice cream, but that doesn’t mean that you will suffer greatly for the rest of your life.
If you compromise by indulging in an alternate flavor, really, you are still far more fortunate than someone who doesn’t have any ice cream at all. If you yield and have the banana ice cream, you can feel satisfied, even though it wasn’t your first choice.
On the flip side, if there are three people and all three of those people are nabbeun people (“me only” people), then something as drastic as a killing can occur because of that ice cream. If one of the nabbeun people draws a gun and shoots the other two people so that he can eat it for himself, then you have lost peace.
That is what the world looks like now.
It isn’t likely that someone would pull out a gun because of chocolate ice cream, but wars do happen because of gold, coal, or oil.
That is the reality of the world right now. And that is why nabbeun people are just bad. So what is bad is bad and what is good is good. If you become enlightened to that simple principle, that is enlightenment. That is enlightenment about peace. It is enlightenment about happiness. It is simple. And that is all that I became enlightened to: I didn’t become enlightened to something special—I was just able to clearly see what is good and what is bad.
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Sometimes these bad people kill others for no reason at all – like in the movie theater killing, or the killing in schools. Although we can see what is good and what is bad, we can also find a way towards peace through gun control and to teach our children to respect one another.
Thank you.
Salmy
Thank you for putting that so simply. We do make a decision everyday concerning such matters and reading this post makes me confident of the stand I have to make confronted with a situation. It is not easy to take an unpopular choice as it can be misconstrued as weakness in this time and age. Perhaps it is strength unveiled that wants us to follow that voice of reason within us.