INTRODUCTION
In this contemplative writing, Master Woo Myung uses the image of an empty boat to express the loneliness and hollowness people feel when their minds are filled with turmoil.
Humans project meaning onto the world because they believe everything exists for the sake of their own lives. But when one becomes emptiness, the illusion of separation dissolves, and the mind becomes one with all creation.
Master Woo Myung reflects on how people misunderstand Heaven as distant, when in truth, it exists only as an image in the human mind.
A tumultuous mind feels hollow and sorrowful, constantly burdened by life’s affairs. Yet the enlightened one—though empty and without self—understands the human mind in order to guide humanity toward Truth. ✨
ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
An Empty Boat
An empty boat saddens a person;
it makes him feel a hollowness in his heart,
for everything in the world exists
due to the existence of one’s life.
I have become emptiness
and thus I do not exist in a cloud;
I am the master and the progenitor of all creation.
That Heaven is far away is because
man makes it out to be so.
However it is all an image that exists in my Mind.
A mind that is tumultuous is one that is hollow,
and it always sings a sad song of life’s affairs.
But what are those affairs?
I am concerned that
people are paying no attention to my words.
My Mind is non-existent,
but I must understand the mind of man
in order to teach him.
– Woo Myung
REFLECT AT SANTA CLARA MEDITATION
At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners learn to empty the false mind, release inner turmoil, and awaken to the calm clarity of the true mind—the state beyond sadness or hollowness. 🌠
