Fulfilling the ‘vocation to be human’

“Welcome to our happy house!” A warm message written in a child’s handwriting on a door greets guests entering the apartment in central Seoul. Opening the door is Alexandre Jollien, a best-selling Swiss author and philosopher. His easygoing smile further comforts the visitor.

Jollien speaks and walks slowly due to his cerebral palsy, but it does not deter him from pursuing intellectual work. Instead, it motivates him to create his renowned literature pieces.

Since 1999, he has written six French books about philosophy. In recognition of his talent, Jollien won the Mottart Prize and Montyon Prize in the literature and philosophy section from the French Academy for his first book “Eloge de la Faiblesse (In Praise of Weakness)” in 2000.

Despite his prominent work, he made the sudden decision to move to Seoul two years ago with his wife and three children. He said he had only to achieve one goal: finding inner peace.

“I wanted to find real inner peace. Although I studied philosophy in college and kept questioning myself about the meaning of life, nothing came up until I discovered Zen here. I wanted to be free from desire and anxiety,” he said in an interview with The Korea Herald.

Jollien currently studies Zen from priest and religion professor Seo Myeong-weon at Sogang University in Seoul. Zen or Zen Buddhism is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that emphasizes enlightenment through meditation-practice and self-contemplation.

He came to know the priest through a radio show in Switzerland five years ago. Seo, a former Canadian who was naturalized as Korean, is well known for combining the studies of Catholicism and Buddhism.

“I was searching for an expert who could teach me the wisdom of daily life. As soon as I heard his radio talk, I immediately knew that he was the person I was looking for,” he said.

Although he is Catholic, his infatuation with Zen is not religiously contradictory, but complimentary with his religion, the author said.

“We don’t have to struggle with religion. The most important thing is to learn from each religion. Zen is about being here and now. It teaches the way to stay simple and peaceful. The daily meditation helps me deepen my original religious faith,” he said.

His efforts to finding inner peace were not motivated by his scholarly curiosity at first. It was rather an essential means to accept reality and understand the meaning of life.

The writer had cerebral palsy after the umbilical cord coiled around his neck when he was born in 1975. At age 3, he was sent to a special care center for the disabled and separated from his family for 17 years except for weekends. Every day was a challenge for him as he struggled with his physical difficulties, his mentality and his spirit.

“Staying without parents was a huge suffering to me. It was difficult to accept that my friends and I were different from others. It would have been impossible to stay there without the solidarity and friendship that the center members and I formed together,” he recalled.

Thanks to the center’s support and his ardent efforts, he was able to walk at age 9 and ride a bike at 18. He also managed to attend college in Dublin, Ireland, and study Western philosophy. He was one of only few disabled in the center’s decades-long history who succeeded in gaining college admission.

No matter how much philosophy he studied in college, he still struggled to find inner peace until he met Seo and started daily meditation, he added.

“While philosophy is logical and intelligent, meditation embraces the wisdom of life. It helps me empty all unnecessary preoccupation and obsession. Happiness is not something you can achieve. It comes from accepting the reality,” he said.

He stressed that humans are not born to be humans, but to become humans.

“To become a complete human, we need to practice and conduct philosophical exercise every day. Humans can easily become slaves of emotional passion and prejudice. We need to put efforts to free ourselves from the ego. This is our vocation,” the philosopher said.

He recently published the Korean translation of his second book “Vocation to be Humans,” which was first published in 2002. So far, the book has been published in nine countries including Korea.

He illustrated in the book that life is a “joyful challenge” as humans have to keep facing and overcoming pain and challenges while grasping meaning from them.

Although he has been in a peaceful state of mind since studying Zen, he still sometimes faces unavoidable challenges not from himself but from others.

“I can cope with the pain that I face, and accept my physical challenges such as slow moves. But the only thing that is still challenging to me is the public perception toward disability,” the writer said.

“I think people should recognize that the physical disability is not something that can be instantly improved, while people’s perception and prejudice are something that can be easily changed.”

For now, he does not plan to go back to his home country thanks to the warm hospitality of Koreans, he said. Even the public bathhouse he goes to every day is where he can learn what he calls “equality.”

“I love Koreans and the culture here. It feels so good when people view each other without any prejudice. Even at the public bathhouse, I can feel a sense of solidarity as people view each other without thinking of social status or pretense.”

His three children are also well adjusted to life in Korea. Other than 5-year-old daughter Celeste, his 11-year-old daughter Victorine and 9-year-old Augustine go to a Korean public school. Asked if she wanted to go to Switzerland, Victorine shook her head, saying she loves the school life here.

While Jollien said he would continue meditation toward inner peace in Korea, he suggested a simple tip of reaching inner happiness.

“Welcome your weakness and love others with compassion and mercy. Happiness is always within you.”

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)