Welcome to the Santa Clara Meditation blog!
Have you ever wondered what makes a meditation center truly effective? With so many options available today, it can be hard to know what to look for when you are ready to begin your journey of self-reflection.
While some places focus on trendy aesthetics or quick fixes, truly thriving meditation centers share three core elements that create lasting, profound change. First, they have a structured methodβspecifically, the subtraction meditation method. Second, they provide the right environment, like a personal meditation room. Third, they have dedicated people whose only goal is to help you succeed.
Letβs break down exactly why these three things make all the difference.
1. The Method: The Wonder of Discarding the Mind
Ma-eum Su-ryun meditation centers feature the subtraction meditation method. It is the only way to throw away your “expired” minds.
It consists of Levels 1 through 7, and because the method changes at each level, there is no time to get bored. There is even a sense of fun, almost like upgrading a video game character! In fact, children often enjoy this meditation as easily as playing a game. When a 4th-grade student comes out of meditation, their already pretty face emerges looking even clearer and brighter, saying, “Mom, I don’t know what I would have done without mind subtraction. After throwing away the upset feelings I had about Dad this morning, I feel so relieved!”
- Level 1: Knowing Yourself. You slowly look back on your past life as if watching a movie. You are taught how to view yourself from a third-person perspective. Just as sitting in a movie theater makes the protagonist’s true intentions obvious, you can objectively observe your own words and actions. It requires courage, but you realize the image you see is a “fake self.” About 2,500 years ago, Socrates said, “Know thyself,” but without a method, most people couldn’t. Now, just one day to a week is enough.
- Level 2: Building Self-Certainty. You accurately recognize the mindset with which you treated people. “I think my intentions were like this, but were they?” Even though it is your own mind, you don’t always know it well. Now, you break that cycle. You come to know yourself well without having to ask anyone, which naturally builds self-certainty and solidifies your self-esteem.
- Levels 3 to 7: Discarding the Shell. You experience the fake shell surrounding you disappearing. After discarding your mind up to Level 7, you will discover a self that is much more confident and mentally healthy.
- Beyond Level 7: Discarding Habits. After that, you discard the habits left behind by the mind. Habits are programs you created, so they can be discarded with a precise method. The reason you couldn’t sustain good habits isn’t a lack of willpower; it is due to passing thoughts (like, “let’s sleep just a little more”). Once you discard old habits, creating new ones becomes much easier!
2. Wood-Toned Meditation Rooms
Meditation centers provide your own personal meditation room.
Looking at treesβlike a gingko tree that has lived for 600 years, a metasequoia stretching straight up toward the sky, or a pine tree staying green even in winterβbrings a sense of comfort, naturalness, and wonder. The interiors of the meditation centers feature a lot of wood tones, blending a comfortable feeling with a natural, sophisticated atmosphere.
- Small Group Meditation Rooms: There are meditation rooms large enough to fit about 20 people. However, to prioritize health and prevent the spread of illness, we keep gatherings small, often using these large rooms for just one to three people so you have plenty of safe space.
- Private Meditation Rooms: Each center has about 3 to 8 of these. They are the perfect size for being alone. For the 1 to 2 hours you meditate, it becomes entirely your own space.
There are no children interrupting, and no one you need to take care of. It is a place where noisy surroundings and even food smells cannot disturb youβa place perfectly suited for entirely focusing on looking back at yourself.
Focusing on yourself doesn’t just mean eating food suited to your taste or going on a trip. It means reorganizing yourself by asking: How have I lived? How am I living now? Why am I alive? What do I want to live for in the future? We prepared these meditation rooms specifically for that precious time of yours.
3. The People
Meditation centers have people who help you, completely independent of their own personal gain!
When you go to a meditation center, you will meet Doum-nims (Helpers). They are commonly referred to as meditation experts. They teach you the 7 levels of the meditation method and the method to discard habits, guiding you to meditate correctly according to the process.
They act like a navigation system. Just as a GPS recalculates and shows you the right path if you make a wrong turn while driving, that is the role of the Doum-nim.
The reason Ma-eum Su-ryun uses the title Doum (Helper) rather than “instructor” is because they simply guide you to follow the method. They are passing on the method created by Founder Woo Myung with a heart of gratitude. Their mindset is: “My days changed through this subtraction meditation. I am simply passing this on because I am so grateful for it.”
A Doum-nim in her 40s at a Daegu center shared this:
“After escaping my mind and finding my true mind through meditation, I felt true freedom. Putting down the burdens I had carried all my life made breathing much easier. I wanted to help because I thought it would be wonderful if others could also live feeling that freedom, and I continue to spend my days with that heart~”
If you learn the meditation method and meditate consistently, your power to view yourself from a third-party perspective grows. A person who has grown this strength will not be shaken in any situation.
To cultivate the strength to look back on yourself, you need:
- A quiet and appropriate space
- Uninterrupted time
- An accurate method for self-reflection
The place that has all of these is the Ma-eum Su-ryun Meditation Center.
