Keep a Wide View
Buddhism teaches that we must understand this whole world, just as it is. We must not be attached to our world, to our way of looking at things, which is limited by our ideas and opinions, condition and situation. The earth and moon revolve around the sun. That is a small world. In Sino-Korean we call that sok chon, or "small heaven." But Buddhism teaches a very wide perspective. The name for that is dae un gae. One solar system is very large. But three thousand solar systems together are only considered a middle-sized galaxy. Then take three million galaxies, and what do you have? The universe seems so infinitely vast. So our human world is a very small world. There are millions and millions of galaxies in the universe. Buddhism teaches us to keep this kind of wide view. Then we will not be so tempted to hold on to the narrow view of this world that we create with our thinking. In that way, we will consider the ant worlds and bacteria worlds and animals worlds and plant worlds. Many people only live in a very very small world, create by their petty opinions, their likes and dislikes. But the Buddha taught that we should keep our mind large and open and clear like space. Then we can always function compassionately for others. That is a very important point.