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Hey, it's Guy Ross here and on my podcast how I built this, I talked to the founders behind some of the world's biggest companies.

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From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

Hello, my guest today does a fantastic job of speaking in a not at all annoying way about the inarugably important yet potentially very cheesy concept of self love.

Hey, man. So name is a Korean mega monk who has developed a massive online following and has written huge best sellers, including one called the things you can only see when you slow down.

He's also earned degrees from Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton and is the founder of South Korea's school for broken hearts.

In this conversation, we talk about how perfection resides only in your mind, how a celibate monk learned to give great relationship advice, and how he manages his own relationship to ambition.

We also have a fascinating exchange about enlightenment. Okay, so here we go now with Hamin Sunim. Well, nice to meet you. Thanks for doing this.

Thanks for inviting me. I should say good morning because it's eight in the morning where you are in seven at night, where I am. So thanks for getting up early with us.

Yeah, you mentioned no problem. When did you become a monk?

I became a monk when I was in my mid 20s. When I was very young, I was asking myself, you know, why was I born as a human being?

Some philosopher, you know, described this feeling that you are thrown into movie theater without any kind of guidance and then you are waking up 10 minutes after movie has started.

And so you have to figure things out. Oh, okay, now we are 1970s. Oh, I'm male and oh, I'm from South Korea. You know what I mean? All these things that you have to figure it out.

So I was asking, what's the purpose of who am I and that led to my interest in religion in general?

So for a long time, you know, I was looking for my own teacher pursuing enlightenment, some kind of spiritual awakening. So that, you know, made me major in religious studies and then eventually led me to become a monk.

That's a big move to become a monk because you're basically saying, I'll never get married. I'll never have children. I'm going to dedicate my life to this practice.

Well, to me, it was life or death kind of questions. It wasn't as though I had options. I really, really have to find out the answers. Otherwise, I felt like I was going to die or something.

So this question, so why I even exist? Who am I? So I didn't have any other option.

Did you find the answer?

Yeah, I think so, yeah. To a certain degree, yes.

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