Recently our Academic Dean, Dr. Bokin Kim, had the opportunity to sit down with Pat Ciarrocchia of CBS 3 news to discuss Tiger Woods and Buddhism.  After Tiger Woods’ press conference where he indicated a need to return to the Buddhist roots that his mother taught, many people were interested in finding out what that “return to Buddhist roots” might mean.

The whole process was very interesting! They had a long conversation, and only a small part was shown on TV.  Dr. Kim was grateful for their desire to understand Buddhism and the time they took for the interview.

Throughout the interview, many questions were discussed.  These included:

What is Buddhist tradition?
Buddhists strive to understand human suffering and the cause of suffering and to attain a state of balance where there is no greed or fault that can lead to suffering. Buddhists work hard to cultivate purity and calmness that will lead to that state of balance. Buddhists strive for behavior that will get to the state of balance in themselves and try to behave that way in all their relationships as well.

What about sin and forgiveness?
There is no external agency against whom human beings commit sin, nor from whom humans ask for forgiveness. One’s own greed or excessive craving creates wrong doing or transgression.
Just like the zero point of a scale one needs to keep an empty and calm status of mind, which is free from the deviated mind, which leads to transgressions. This is the state of balance.
For forgiveness one needs to say they are sorry to the person to whom one hurt or offered harm; one needs to be sorry to oneself because the person himself or herself is responsible for the wrong conduct and behavior resulting from that conduct.

What can Tiger Woods do?
Woods must have applied a great deal of mental discipline and concentration, which led him to reach the top in his professional field of golf. If he applies that same type of mental disciple to foster the state of calmness and clarity, the state of balance, to further his moral cultivation he would improve his moral character and relationships.

You can find a video of the interview here.