✨ Introduction
🌾 In this deeply reflective piece, Master Woo Myung portrays the life of a slash-and-burn farmer, revealing a world of simplicity, hardship, and closeness to Nature.
These families lived with little, yet their hearts were pure and free from desire, finding contentment in the rhythms of the sky and the earth. 🌿
However, as they moved toward modern life, something was lost—warmth, simplicity, and true human connection. This writing gently asks:
What is truly valuable in life? ✨
🌌 Original Writing by Master Woo Myung
Slash-and-Burn farmer
He who makes his living off of
cultivating fields in the mountains
searches far and wide into its rough depths.
He will farm the land for consecutive years
until the soil becomes infertile.
He is a father;
after having cultivated the land for a few months alone,
he brings his family there
and they toil the new land together.
There they build a new hut for themselves
and live together as a family.
Wild boars, deer, and pheasants come and eat the grains.
These families live together with the creatures of the mountains.
They place a large rock propped up with a wooden plank,
and beneath it they put some grains;
when a boar trips the prop stick,
the rock falls and the boar is crushed underneath.
Many a day had passed without any meat on the table,
but now they are able to feast for days.
The nearest town is twenty kilometers
or perhaps forty kilometers away;
the children walk the narrow mountain roads with
lightening speed.
They plant potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn,
which are their staple foods.
These are people who eat the wild greens
that they gather from the mountains.
They are simple-hearted people
for they have no expectations;
with their pure hearts, they live with Nature.
They have nothing and so they want nothing.
They just live observing the sky and the earth;
if they were to be greedy,
it would be that they want the sky to send them rain.
But there are those who grow tired of this kind of life.
So they come to the city,
only to find that they can do nothing else
but undertake manual labor jobs for they are uneducated.
They become unhappy
and they come to miss the warmth of the bygone days;
they blame the city and its lack of warmth.
Though people long for a love in which
there exists no distance between them,
people use it, which is why there is no love at all.
The cultivated fields are all disappearing;
the homes that were built beyond the slopes
and the homes that lined the valleys
have all become abandoned.
How many years have passed, no one knows,
but the land has become thick with weeds.
Those who used to live off the mountains
have all gone far away to make money.
It is a pity that those people have become hardened
and have lost their warmth.
– Woo Myung
🌠 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
At Santa Clara Meditation, this story becomes a mirror for modern life.
🌿 Through reflection and meditation, you can:
- Recognize the difference between material gain and true contentment
- Rediscover the warmth and simplicity of the original mind
- Let go of unnecessary desires and expectations
✨ True happiness is not found in having more—but in wanting nothing.
