Complete Duty to God Kpop Demon Hunters Cub Scout Pack Meeting Plan on Scout Spirit
After my Scout (whom I will refer to as Budding Bodhisattva) watched Kpop Demon Hunters, they told me that they wanted to show me a movie with a very peculiar look on their face. A look like they knew a secret they wanted to share. So we watched it together, and as we did I realized Budding Bodhisattva knew I would like it because they recognized all the Dharma. We talked about it afterwards, of course, and it turned out that they remembered quite a bit of all of the books we read when Budding Bodhisattva was young. Books I thought they’d forgotten and were too cool for now, like I See You, Mara. Evidently we’d both thought of that book when we saw Gwi-Ma. In fact, you could substitute Gwi-Ma for Mara and the book would still make perfect sense!
This was just a few days after it was released, so I thought we had shared a private family moment connecting with Dharma. But then, it became a youth phenomenon! Kids recognized the truth in the movie and loved the music as well. So when the movie kept hitting streaming records, I (Cubmaster) knew that this year’s World Kindness Day pack meeting, during which we discuss the importance of and knock out the Duty to God requirement for Lion through Webelos of performing an act of kindness, should be themed around KDH.
Before I go into the meeting plan, I want to highlight a very commonly misunderstood aspect of Scouting America’s “Duty to God”, namely that it is not a requirement to be a Christian, monotheist, or even a theist at all. This is fundamentally a Shambhalian and Buddhist “Duty to God” meeting plan, which I have secularized by removing explicit references to the Shambhala teachings and Buddhism and avoided our terms in. (Most notably, basic goodness/buddhanature/tathagatagarbha has been replaced by Scout Spirit.) It has been reviewed and approved by Christians and Jews in my pack, but this is pulling out the aspects of the Shambhala Teachings, the Buddhadharma and Taoism that are integral to the plot of the movie.
I am offering this to whoever would like to use it under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. Use as is, or (as more likely needed) edit to fit your pack or troop. Files with the printable Cubmaster and station staff instructions to download are at the end. Just credit me for the original, never charge for your version either, and if you share it with others share it under the same terms.
Kpop Demon Hunters Kindness Meeting
🇺🇸 Flag Ceremony, Scout Oath, Law, and Outdoor Code (5 min)
Two Scouts stand at the back of the room, each holding a flag; the Scout with the American flag stands to the right (the observer’s left). The leader/announcer of the ceremony often stands behind them
➡️ “Color guard, attention!”
➡️ “Audience, please rise for a presentation of the colors.”
The two scouts raise their flags so the poles are near a 45-degree angle, with the American flag being held slightly higher.
➡️ “Color guard, forward march.”
The Scouts holding the flags march in unison toward the front of the room.
When they near the front, you say, “Color guard, halt. Color guard, post the colors.”
The Scout with the American Flag crosses in front (on the side closer to the audience) of the other Scout. They place the flags in their stands, then step back and salute.
After the flags have been posted and saluted by the color guards immediately afterward, the announcer should say,
➡️ “Scouts salute. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.” They’ll then lead the audience in reciting the pledge.
➡️ “Scout Oath: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
➡️ “Scout Law: A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.”
➡️ “Outdoor Code: As an American, I will do my best to—
Be clean in my outdoor manners.
Be careful with fire.
Be considerate in the outdoors.
Be conservation-minded.
➡️ “Two,” and everyone will drop their salute.
➡️ “Color guard, dismissed. ” and “Please be seated.” The program for the event will then continue as planned.
Points of order: Lion and Tiger parents please stay in same room, no being on or behind stage
A special thank you to Scouts in field uniform, and thank you to those in activity uniform as well!
Where this came from and tips
Standard Scouting America flag ceremony with Scout Oath and Law, plus Outdoor Code because my Cubs should know it by heart and they don’t. If you’re a Girl Scout leader, obviously swap in the Girl Scout Law and the Preservation Pledge.
Our Lion (K) and Tiger (1st) parents aren’t always aware that they need to stay with their Cubs, so we remind them.
Waiting for stragglers and herding uniformed cats into a color guard usually takes us 15 minutes; that’s 15 minutes we definitely didn’t have for this pack meeting, and while my original plan was to start at meeting time start sharp we ended up skipping it entirely. We will ended 5 minutes over (mostly due to slow transitions from one station to the other) so that was probably just as well.
💖 Cubmaster Introduction (3 min)
🧺 Supply List:
Setup: Put the shinkal blades and the hearts in your pockets, or a shoulder bag that you wear.
➡️ Hey Scouts! Who knows what special day it is today?
That’s right — World Kindness Day! Kindness is a big part of Scout Spirit — it means being helpful, friendly, and brave enough to do what’s right. And guess what? Today we’re going to learn how lovingkindness can help protect the world — just like HUNTR/X from Kpop Demon Hunters does!
Pull out shinkal blades, and hold them like Zoey does.
➡️ A long time ago in Korea, trios of mudang (무당) or female shamans created and maintained something called the Honmun — a glowing, net-shaped spiritual shield made from people’s kindness and good hearts. They performed costumed song and dance ceremonies with sacred shamanic weapons like these shinkal (신칼) blades called gut (굿).
➡️ The Honmun stretched between the human realm and the demon realm, keeping everyone safe. But if people stop feeling kind and fully alive, the Honmun starts breaking — and the demons could sneak through to steal people’s life energy!
Now, in modern times, the shaman trio are a K-pop group called HUNTR/X — that’s Rumi, Mira, and Zoey — that continues to use music and dance to keep the Honmun strong. Their songs fill people’s hearts with light, and that kindness helps protect the world from darkness.
❤️ Throw foam hearts at Cubs.
➡️ But the demon king Gwi-Ma doesn’t like that! He wants to break the Honmun, so he creates his own demon boy band — the Saja Boys — to try and steal people’s hearts away.
➡️ So what can we do? Just like HUNTR/X, we can make the Honmun shine brighter — not with K-pop moves (well, maybe a few!) — but with kindness. Every time we help a friend, say something nice, or show Scout Spirit, we add a little more light to the world — and that light helps build the Honmun, a shield made of pure goodness that keeps everyone safe. So today, let’s celebrate World Kindness Day by using our actions and our hearts to make the world — and the Honmun — shine gold!
➡️ We are going to be Demon Hunters and strengthen the Honmun in dens. There are five stations, four inside and one outside, and we’ll rotate every ten minutes. Please go to your den leaders – and we’ll start!
➡️ Cub Scouts show dis! How it’s done, done, done!
General tips on running this meeting
As you may have guessed, we had this meeting on November 13, which is World Kindness Day. You probably won’t, edit accordingly.
The introduction refers almost entirely to the movie, to set the overall meeting context of protecting the honmun.
You need six people to run this meeting as written – five people to run stations and a timekeeper to announce that it’s time to rotate. We decided who was going to run what station at the prior committee meeting, and each station staffer went home with their printed station instructions to review. We also made the materials plans at the meeting. Our den chiefs ended up doing the timekeeping (via our karaoke machine PA system – we meet in a school cafeteria and it’s hard to be heard during station activity meetings.)
You can drop stations, of course. We have 62 registered Cubs on the books (62-scout DBJ multilevel troop in GS terms), and so we needed a somewhat larger number of stations to keep each group going around of reasonable size. If you have a smaller pack or troop, you could drop some stations to give yourself more time at each one. The general time plan here is 50 minutes of rotating between 5 stations and 10 minutes of welcome and Cubmaster’s Minute, for a 60-minute meeting. Full disclosure: We ran 10 minutes over with the taking turns to come up and choose a norigae.
The age spread also presents a challenge, as it always does. What’s below worked well for the Wolves and Bears (Brownies). Our Lion den leader, who is a former elementary school teacher, simplified the language for Lions and Tigers (Daisies).
👹 Station 1: Destroying Demons with the Four Kind Actions (10 min)
Theme: To avoid becoming the bad guys ourselves, we have to fight with soft, tender hearts
🧺 Supplies Needed:
- Pre-printed cartoon pictures of men and women with skin colored purple with blue stripes and eyes colored yellow using washable markers (on cardstock)
- Spray bottles filled with water (“Lovingkindness Spray”)
- Extra bottled water for refills
- Clothesline and clothespins to hang the pictures between two pillars
- Envelope with paper slips with nearby Hometown Heroes to donate leftover popcorn to
- Four Actions Chant Cards
Location: Outside Setup: Tie paracord between two objects outside and hang a first demon picture on it with clothespins
⏱ 1. Explain the activity
Gather them around you while holding the envelope with potential popcorn recipients.
➡️ “Demon Hunters! When we face evil, it’s easy to want to fight right away—but remember why Takedown was the wrong song?
[get to the answer of ‘because you can’t defeat aggression with more aggression’]
So, if fighting right away isn’t helpful, what are you supposed to do instead?
There are Four Kind Actions we can take—four powerful ways to stop someone from making a hole in the Honmun:
- Pacifying – Calm things down with kindness and grace, and compassion in our hearts.
- Enriching – Bring something new to the situation, with compassion in our hearts.
- Magnetizing – Shine bright and collect others around you with your bold move, with compassion in our hearts.
- Destroying – Cut through what’s harmful, not people, but problems— to set goodness free, but still with compassion in our hearts.
Remember: we can’t properly defeat evil if we’re angry ourselves. With true spiritual strength, we can eliminate our enemies by making them our friends. When we do that, we become all-victorious—winning without having to fight at all.”
➡️ “Demon Hunters!
Point to the demon picture.
➡️ “Those purple marks show demon energy. Your mission: free the person trapped in anger by washing away the darkness with the light of kindness. But it can be pretty hard to think nice thoughts for bad people!
Choose a paper slip from the envelope and announce whom their den is donating the leftover popcorn to.
➡️ “Let’s warm up with deciding what hometown heroes to give leftover popcorn to. It’s much easier to think kind thoughts for kind people.”
👹 2. Destroy Demons with Lovingkindness
Ask them to line up in front of the hung picture.
➡️ “Say the Hunter’s Mantra: We are hunters, voices strong / Slaying demons with our song / Fix the world and make it right / When darkness finally meets the light!”
Give the first Cub the spray bottle.
➡️ “Spray the picture with your Lovingkindness Spray, saying “May you be happy.”
Let them spray a little, then give the bottle to the next Cub, who can spray a little, and so on until the color is washed away or the time is up.
🤝 3. Wrap-Up
➡️ “What did it feel like to say ‘May you be happy’ instead of just attacking?”
➡️ “How did we show compassion even while destroying the demon energy?”
➡️ “How can we make our enemies into friends in real life?”
➡️ “When we act with kindness and courage, we win without hurting anyone. That’s how real heroes—real Demon Hunters—become all-victorious.”
If you have time, show them the chant cards.
➡️ Let’s do a chant! My half of the chant is on my side of the cards, and yours is on your side. After I finish chanting, you start chanting what’s on your card! Ready? Go! [Chant]
👹 4. Hang another demon for the next group
Where this came form
The basic idea came from Sumi Loundon Kim’s Sitting Together. In the additional Activites and Crafts section of the Children’s Lesson Plans, there is an activity called Melting Monsters with Metta Spray that I adapted to fit KDH. (Metta is Pali for lovingkindness, called maitri in Sanskrit.) Be aware that washing the marker all the way off can take most of a spray bottle; they need to spray and spray and spray on a single image. It is not quick – don’t expect 1-3 sprays and done. If you want that, you’ll probably have to laminate the sheets and then color on the aggression markings.
The concept both in the exercise and in the movie behind a demon being able to become human (or a regular doekkabi) again is the Wheel of Life, which describes how we “wanderers” wander from realm to realm in samsara. Being in a hell realm is in your own control, and it is always so. You can exit at any time – but you probably need help – like Jinu did – to recognize how to do it. The real trick is exiting samsara altogether, not the wandering around inside it bit, that’s the default.
Gwi-Ma’s hell realm squishes the hungry ghost realm and hell realms together. Lovingkindness helps you get out of both.
The Four Actions are the Four (Enlightened) Karmas. (Karma means action.) They are the four kinds of actions one can take that generate “good” karma, also known as merit, gewa, or bliss. The symbols on the cards and the phrases for each action are traditional.
I used ChatGPT to generate the images to color.
Humans to color into KDH demons to destroy
Light-skinned man – light-skinned woman – medium-skinned man – medium-skinned woman – dark-skinned man – dark-skinned woman
🌶 Station 2: Spicy Challenge – “Cool Down the Takedown” (10 minutes)
Theme: Notice that passion, aggression, and ignorance need an antidote, not more of the same
🧺 Supply List
- Veggie tray (carrots, celery, peppers, etc.)
- Four small bowls
- Several kinds of hot sauce (label 1–3, from mild to medium)
- Vegan ranch for cooling down
- Napkins
Location: Inside Setup: Pour the four sauces into bowls. Set out the hot sauce, veggie tray, ranch, and napkins on a table. Line up hot sauces from mildest to spiciest with the ranch a little to the side.
⏱ 1. Welcome
Gather them in front of the tray and sauces.
➡️ “Welcome, Demon Hunters! We are going to test your courage with a Spicy Challenge! Can you handle the heat? Come Play Games With Us!” Pick a veggie, dip it into a sauce, and eat it! If it’s too hot, ‘cool down’ with some ranch on a veggie. Let’s go!”
🌶 2. The Heat Test
Encourage cheering, smiles, and bravery!
Keep the mood fun and positive. Let Cubs choose their level and celebrate their courage.
❄️ 3. Cool-Down Talk
Gather them back around with backs to the food.
➡️ “Whew! That was hot! Sometimes when life feels too spicy, we get angry or frustrated—just like HUNTR/X in the song Takedown. They sing
When the patterns start to show
It makes the hatred want to grow out of my veins
I don’t think you’re ready for the takedown
Break you into pieces in the world of pain
‘Cause you’re all the same
Yeah, it’s a takedown
A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live, it’s so obvious
But Takedown was the wrong song! Why was it the wrong song?” [Because you can’t quench hate with hate, and/or because Rumi has patterns too (no clear boundaries between good and evil)
If they don’t get there on their own, they might need this reminder:
➡️ “Rumi said, “I hate them! [about her patterns] Just like I hate all demons and I hate Gwi-Ma!”
But Jinu told her, “If hate could defeat Gwi-Ma, I would have done it a long time ago. Trust me.”
And just then, a little girl gives Jinu a picture of him as an angel that says “You have a beautiful soul” and it makes him think hard. Maybe his soul – his Scout Spirit – is still there?”
🤝 4. Wrap-Up
➡️ “When you’re mad, what helps you cool down?”
➡️ “What’s something kind you could say instead of fighting words?”
➡️ “What helps your heart feel calm—like ranch helps your mouth cool down?”
➡️ “Just like ranch cools down the spice, kindness and compassion cools down anger. That’s how Demon Hunters—and Cub Scouts—win!”
Group cheer:
“Spice up the courage—cool down the hate!”
Where did this come from?
When I was thinking of what happens in the movie that easily translates into an activity, the Spicy Challenge was the first thing that came to mind. The common analogy of anger as heat made the link to the Three Poisons pretty obvious. This is another pointer to the Wheel of Life – at its center are the three animals representing the roots of suffering: passion, aggression, and ignorance (of how the world works). Aggression is the least subtle out of the three, so that was the obvious one to choose to make the point that to escape samsara, the root of suffering must be cut, and that cultivating lovingkindness is a big part of that.
☀️ Station 3: Golden (Sun Meditation) (10 minutes)
Theme: Noticing our “Scout Spirit” — our inner goodness and light.
🧺 Supply list:
- Gong or bell
- Mala with 7-bead marker
- Crown for you
- Sit With Me by Carolyn Kanjuro
- As many chairs in a circle as your largest den (15 for us) plus one for you
- Table for you
Location: Inside Setup: Set enough chairs in a circle, with a special seat for you with a little table with the gong, mala. Choosing as quiet a space as you can makes this much more effective. Put the crown on.
⏱ 1. Explain the activity
Motion for them to sit down.
➡️ “Alright, brave Demon Hunters! Find a throne (chair) and take your seat. This is the ‘Golden’ station, where we are going to ignite our own hearts by connecting with our Scout Spirit. This is an activity that requires you to sit still and be quiet. If you can’t do that, you disrupt the activity for everyone else, and so if you need to make noise and move around, I’ll have to ask you to leave and go do that somewhere else. Does everyone want to participate, or would someone like to leave? [Wait for any leavers to leave.]
As many of you know, HUNTR/X has a song called ‘Golden’. Part of it goes
Given the throne, I didn’t know how to believe / I was the queen that I’m meant to be
Show page 12 of Sit With Me.
➡️ That is the description of the traditional meditation pose. Today, we are going to take our own seats as kings and queens on a throne and practice igniting our own souls by finding our own golden light – our Scout Spirit.” Without that, we can’t fight any demons anymore, just like Mira and Zoey when they walk into the stadium at the end. So we need to always feel our Scout Spirit!
- “Who knows what Scout Spirit means?”
- “What makes you feel connected to it?”
Scout Spirit is the good inside everyone — like the warm sunlight on your face. It’s our goodness, kindness, and strength shining from within. When we feel our Scout Spirit, we feel worthy, brave, kind, and ready to help others.
🧘 2. Lead the visualization
Take your own good meditation seat.
We are going to sit on the edge of our chairs with our backs off the seat back, feet firmly flat on the ground, our back straight, and our heads held high. You can have your eyes open or closed, whichever helps you imagine better. Our hands are placed crossed over our hearts. I am going to ring the gong, and start describing a sun in your heart to imagine, some words to repeat, and ring the gong again when the meditation is over.
🔔[Ring the gong once to start.]
Beneath your crossed hands is a ball of sunshine light, which is scout spirit.
Every time you breathe in, your ball of sunshine gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Now we are going to breathe in and make our ball of sunshine grow bigger.
Imagine the sunlight filling your whole body.
Imagine your sunlight touching the world, melting all ice of anger and sadness, so that flowers of love and compassion sprout.
Now we are going to say “I am worthy” together seven times.
📿[Lead mantra with mala to count.]
Imagine your sunlight touching everyone you know – and everyone you don’t know, making them happy.
Now we are going to say “All beings are worthy” seven times.
📿 [Lead mantra with mala to count.]
Imagine your sunlight touching and warming your school, making everyone kinder toward each other.
Now we are going to say “Society is basically good” seven times.
📿 [Lead mantra with mala to count.]
Now, let the rays of sunshine dissolve into openness and notice how you feel.
🔔[Ring the gong once to end.]
🤝 3. Wrap-Up
Move a little to signal that it’s ok.
How do you feel now?”
Did you feel your sunlight reaching someone or something?”
Was it easy or hard to feel your Scout Spirit today?”
Thank everyone for sharing.
Where did this come from?
A core teaching in both Shambhala and Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhism is basic goodness/buddhanature/tathatagarbha, and gold and/or sunlight are frequently used metaphors related to it. Great Eastern Sun, Golden Sun of the Great East, basic goodness/buddhanature as the sun in the sky always shining behind the clouds, Great Sun Buddha Vairocana, Sunlight Bodhisattva, etc.
I had previously adapted Sumi Loundon Kim’s Sunshine Meditation in the additional Meditation Exercises section to Shambhala and basic goodness, so I took my old adaptation and re-adapted just a little it to Golden. Sit With Me happens to have a wonderful illustration of a child in royal ease, so I showed it.
🌀 Station 4: Honmun Bracelets
Theme: Kindness needs to be voiced to have power
🧺 Supply List:
- Blue yarn ball
- Scissors
- Golden fleur-de-lys
Location: Inside Setup: Create a clear space where each den can sit in a circle on the floor, with the yarn, scissors, and fleur-de-lys in reach for you
⏱ 1. Explain the activity
Hold up the fleur-de-lys.
➡️ “Alright, brave Demon Hunters! It’s time to use our voices to strengthen the honmoon together! We’re not going to sing, but rather be kind on purpose with our words to ignite others’ spirits.”
Hold up the yarn ball.
➡️ “This blue yarn is our Honmoon Thread — ‘Honmoon’ means spirit seal. It reminds us that our compassion and Scouting spirit is our protection, and we’re going to create a spirit seal together to protect our den by igniting each other’s spirits.”
Tie yarn to the fleur-de-lys and raise it up.
➡️ “This golden fleur-de-lys stands for our golden Scouting spirit. Together, we’ll create a den honmoon with this blue honmoon thread that’s coming from it!”
🌀 2. Create the honmun
Sit in a circle.
➡️ “I’ll start by saying something I appreciate about one of you, then I’ll roll the yarn to that person.
When you get it, say something kind about another Cub, then roll it to them.”
As yarn moves around the circle:
➡️ “Look! The yarn is making Honmun from our kindness and good hearts!”
When yarn returns to you:
➡️ “Our Honmun is complete! Now we’ll each cut a piece and tie it around someone’s wrist using a square knot — the Scouting knot of friendship.”
🤝 3. Wrap-Up
As bracelets are tied:
➡️ “Whenever you see your Honmun Bracelet, remember —
you’re never alone.
You’re strong.
You’re kind.
And you are loved. 💙”
Where did this come from?
Sumi Loundon Kim to the rescue again – in the extra activities section, there is a “Refuge in Friendships Bracelets” exercise, which I adapted to use a fleur-de-lis instead of a Buddha rupa and selected blue-white unevenly dyed yarn to remind Cubs of the honmun.
The needing to say certain things out loud to make them more real in the world came from the Rushen of Speech.
🏥 Station 5: Dr. Han’s Clinic / Cocoon Patterns (10 min)
Theme: To live fully, one must recognize and let go of the behavior patterns that trap us where we don’t want to be
🧺 Supply list:
- As many blankets, big scarves, or sleeping bags as you have members in the largest den (enough for each Cub to have one)
- As many “Dr. Han’s Tonics” (CapriSuns with new sticker labels) as you have Cubs in the pack
- Large bowl(s) or basket(s) for the tonics
Location: Inside Setup: Create a clear area for the Cubs to “cocoon”. Lay the covers out to make it clear where to go hide during the activity. Set the bowl with the “tonics” off to the side where you can get it easily.
⏱ 1. Explain the activity
Gather the Cubs in a circle. Speak with energy and mystery.
➡️ “After Rumi’s voice fails before the Golden promo concert, the group HUNTR/X goes to Dr. Han’s Clinic for help. Dr. Han gives them special tonics — I’ve got some here too! — but he says Rumi’s problem isn’t her throat. It’s her walls. She’s been hiding her patterns all her life, afraid people will see she’s got patterns.
But guess what? We all have patterns — habits and thoughts we use to protect and soothe ourselves when we’re scared or sad. It can become like a cocoon — a place we wrap ourselves in to feel safe. But sometimes that cocoon keeps our light from shining.
Let’s see what that feels like for ourselves.”
🧎♀️➡️ 2. Retreat into cocoons
Have each Cub curl up on the floor wrapped in their blanket or scarf.
Speak gently, slowly, and rhythmically:
➡️ “You’re safe inside your cocoon. No one can see you. The world can’t touch you. You don’t have to show your mistakes or fears. It’s cozy… but also small. You can’t move much. You can’t stretch your wings.”
“Notice how it feels — warm, maybe even nice… but also a little lonely or tight. You can’t grow if you never come out. And the air gets pretty stuffy.”
Encourage a few quiet moments of stillness — let them feel both the safety and the limits. Try to let the air get stale.
🦋 3. Liberation
Say dramatically:
➡️“Dr. Han says it’s time for your tonic of truth! You’re ready to liberate yourself — to show your Scouting Spirit — your courage, kindness, and joy!”
Let’s count down together and get ready to jump out and strike a K-pop pose!
3… 2… 1… BE FREE!
“That’s your Scout Spirit shining! When you break out of your cocoon, you set yourself free!”
Hand out one Dr. Han’s tonic to each Cub as a reminder.
🤝 4. Wrap-Up
Gather them back in a circle as they sip or hold their tonics.
➡️ “How did it feel inside your cocoon?”
➡️ “How did it feel to break out?”
➡️ “What could help you remember to be kind to yourself when you feel small again?”
➡️ “Not all our thoughts are true. Gwi-Ma tries to trick people into thinking they don’t deserve anything good because they’re so rotten, but it’s a trick! He whispers in Mira’s ear that she doesn’t deserve a family, and she believes it and becomes so angry that she tells Zoey to go away. Zoey gets hurt, and Gwi-Ma whispers in her ear that she is both too much and not enough, and she believes it too. But that isn’t true, is it? Does Mira deserve a family? Is Zoey both too much and not enough?
Your Scout Spirit can’t be broken or stained — it’s always there.
When you always remember that, that’s the real magic tonic — the one that can fix almost anything and can set you free. Like in Golden:
I’m done hiding
Now I’m shining like I was born to be
We’re dreaming big, we’ve come so far, now I believe”
If you have time, end with everyone chanting the Hunter’s Mantra together:
“We are hunters, voices strong,
We hunt demons with our song.
Fix the world and make it right,
When the darkness finally meets the light!”
Where did this come from?
A core part of the Shambhala terma teachings is cocoon. Exploring how habitual patterns limit us and bring us suffering is the theme for weekend two in the Way of Shambhala series of retreats, and it is in many ways the hardest one. Demon skin patterns being a visible symbol of habitual patterns being the causal mechanism for ending up in a hell realm (cocoon in the Shambhala teachings) stood out to me when I watched Kpop Demon Hunters, and I asked ChatGPT to generate a cocoon exercise for children. It did better than I expected, so I adjusted it some and used it.
“When we hide from the world in this way, we feel secure. We may think that we have quieted our fear, but we are actually making ourselves numb with fear. We surround ourselves with our familiar thoughts, so nothing sharp or painful can hurt us. We are so afraid of our own pain that we deaden our hearts.
The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in this cocoon, in which we perpetuation our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground. Instead, we wrap ourselves in our own dark environment, where our only companion is the smell of our own sweat. We regard this dank cocoon as a family heirloom or inheritance, and we don’t want to give that bad-good, good-bad memory away. In the cocoon there is no dance: no walking, or breathing, not even a wink of the eyes. It is comfortable and sleepy: an intense and familiar home. In the world of the cocoon, such things as spring cleaning have never been known. We feel that it is too much work, too much trouble, to clean it up. We would prefer to go back to sleep.”
– Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior ch 7
The indestructibility of basic goodness/buddhanature is also a core teaching in both, and recognizing it in yourself and others (and things!) is another milestone on the path. Nat Needle wrote a really fun song in the Zen tradition about this called Happy Birthday, Buddha!
✨ Cubmaster’s Minute
Theme: To Build a Better World, we need to trust our Scout Spirit
🧺 Supply List
- A printed picture of a white kintsugi bowl
- Kind and Brave norigae in different colors, one for each Scout, strung up on a cord tied between two objects and covered by a sheet
✨ The Beauty of the Broken Glass
➡️ Sometimes, when something breaks, it can become even more beautiful than before.
I broke into a million pieces, and I can’t go back
But now I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass
Hold up the picture of the kintsugi bowl.
➡️ In Japan, there’s a word for that idea — wabi-sabi (侘寂). It means finding beauty in things that aren’t perfect — things that change, or break, or have rough edges. There’s even an art called kintsugi, where people fix broken bowls using gold! Instead of hiding the cracks, they fill them with shining gold paint — and the bowl becomes even more special than before.
➡️ It’s like that for people, too. When we make mistakes, get hurt, or feel sad, those “cracks” can actually help us shine brighter — if we have the bravery to let the jagged edges meet the light instead of hiding our faults and fears.
➡️ In K-Pop Demon Hunters, Rumi didn’t win because she was perfect. She won because she was finally completely honest and worked together with her friends. She wasn’t out there on her own.
➡️ That’s our real superpower, too — honest cooperation. When people in a community feel their Scout Spirit and work together with kindness and trust, they keep the honmun strong.
Pull the sheet off the cord with norigae.
➡️ To help you remember to always stay in touch with your Scouting Spirit, I have a special gift for each of you — norigae in all the colors waiting to shine out of your heads, lucky knots like the ones HUNTR/X wears. Each one has a beautiful bead of broken glass, a big heart, and a fleur-de-lys to remind you to be fearless, undefined and let your Scouting Spirit shine! Happy community – happy honmun!
Where did this come from?
Pointing out of the nature of mind – felt, experienced recognition that there is no coherent “you” to defend or hold on to – is a spiritually defining moment in a person’s life. We separate what my root guru calls “the personality” from everyone’s true core “self”, which the Zen folks also call your face before your parents were born.
The personality is always full of flaws of various kinds, but the perfect true self was always there, unrecognized until that moment of “coming home”. The Vajrayana even has a number of different practices to transmute the Three Poisons into wisdom – trying to do this is a characteristic of the Vajrayana (as opposed to the rest of the Mahayana).
It’s pretty obvious that Rumi, through emotional wearing out, recognized the futility of fixing the personality (represented by her skin patterns) and/or was able to transmute her confusion into wisdom, because it is the true self that holds the spiritual power in the first place. She walked into that stadium knowing the full nature of her mind for the first time, and that’s why she could now write the song the couldn’t write extemporaneously to boot, while setting everyone’s basic goodness into resonance. A modern-day Milarepa, perhaps. Wabi-sabi and kintsugi reflect Buddhist philosophy, so naturally match the symbolism perfectly.
How I made the Scout Law norigae
For 62 Cub Scouts:
I ordered 100 unfinished norigae in two multicolor packets, together with clips, large plastic red heart beads, fleur-de-lys beads, crackled glass beads, 1 mm gold cord, and two boxes of white and gold letter beads.
I assembled the norigae with the beads strung above the tassel, then attached the red hearts, ‘KIND’, and ‘BRAVE’ with the gold cord. I used liquid superglue to secure the knot inside the tassel head and to “fuse” the ends of the knot cords, then cut them off.
Note that the gold cord I bought unravels immediately, and I had to “fuse” the ends with glue before every bead. It took me a good while to make them all because of this. I don’t know if another kind of gold cord that doesn’t do this is available, but it might be worth looking.
Mad About Fun Patches also has a KDH patch.
Download Files to Modify for Your Unit
Humans to color into KDH demons to destroy
Light-skinned man – light-skinned woman – medium-skinned man – medium-skinned woman – dark-skinned man – dark-skinned woman
I printed them in sets to avoid reinforcing or creating any confusion about who this can happen to (it’s everybody). Download, print on cardstock, optionally laminate, and get coloring!
More About the License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.