Introduction
✨ In this somber and contemplative writing, Master Woo Myung reflects on the nature of human life—its impermanence, uncertainty, and illusion.
While nature is alive—birds singing, fish moving freely, seasons flowing—he observes that human beings live without knowing why they live, where they are going, or what life truly is. 🌿 People age, fall ill, and die, often without ever realizing the deeper truth of existence.
According to Master Woo Myung, this condition is not true life but a kind of unawakened existence, where one lives within attachments and delusions. Thus, he states: “There is no one who is alive.”
This teaching invites a deep reflection on what it truly means to live, and how one can awaken from illusion into Truth.
Original Writing by Master Woo Myung
There Is No One Alive
Birds are singing,
fish are leisurely playing
and nature, the four seasons, are alive.
Only silent time passes by,
and within it, man ages, sickens, and dies.
Without knowing why, or where he is going,
he departs.
While man lives in the world,
he believes that that is all there is,
and he does not know that he will die.
Although the whole world is complete,
he does not know that it is so,
and he dies with the delusions of his attachments.
There is no one who is alive.
Nightfall brings a pitiful state
for a wanderer with nowhere to go.
There is no one to beseech, and nowhere to go.
He may linger awhile,
before setting off once more into the darkness.
He has forgotten where he must go,
he does not know where he is going
and he has lost the way;
wearily continuing on
dragging his exhausted body.
Without having achieved anything,
without having acquired anything,
everything is a dream of the past.
There was a time when he would whistle as he walked,
a time when he still had strength in his legs,
a time of successes and being acknowledged.
But now that those times have passed,
they too have disappeared.
– Woo Myung
Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
🌿 The teaching of Master Woo Myung challenges us to reconsider what it means to be truly alive.
This writing suggests that living without understanding Truth is like wandering in darkness—driven by past memories, attachments, and habits, yet never arriving anywhere meaningful. The sense of emptiness, exhaustion, and loss described here reflects a life lived without awakening.
At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners are guided to cleanse the mind and discard accumulated thoughts and illusions. Through the teachings of Master Woo Myung, one can reflect on life, death, illusion, and awakening, and begin the journey toward becoming a person who is truly alive—free, aware, and living in Truth. ✨
