Ben Hawes - Chong Kwan, Poep Sa
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When I committed to being a Zen student, it was via a process of writing an honors thesis in college on the transmission of teaching authority. I was concerned about getting brainwashed by a religion, and worried about what basis Zen lineages determined who got to teach and represent Zen Buddhism to students and the world. One of the things I read in the course of my research was a student who followed a disgraced Zen master to his new Sangha. When asked why she still practiced with her teacher, she said that when she sat with him, her mind was still. That was the most important thing -- not personality, not history, not personal affection or favoritism, not knowledge, not charisma. What mattered was this: did the teacher help you make your mind clear? 

When I went off to Korea after college in 1996 to do my first 90-day Kyol Che retreat, I had not yet met my teacher,  Dae Gak Soen Sa. I was intending to rely on my own work on the retreat, I had no great concern who the teacher was going to be. But over the course of 90 days, I realized one thing about him: when he sat in the Dharma room with us, my mind became clear. By the end, I knew he was my teacher. 

​Years of being frustrated by my emotions, by doubt, by koans, by life: I kept coming back, after breaks long and short, to that clear mind. It is our birthright, no one can give it to you, but some can help you find it -- there right in front of you the whole time. 

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Ben Hawes is a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine. He works with clients through transformative work in multiple modalities including acupuncture, herbal medicine, craniosacral therapy, shamanism, and psychedelic facilitation.