Introduction
✨ In this reflective and deeply personal story, Master Woo Myung recalls moments from his youth when he wandered through life searching for meaning. The story unfolds through vivid memories of rural taverns, conversations with friends, and days spent drinking without purpose.
Through these recollections, Master Woo Myung reveals the inner turmoil he once felt while questioning the meaning of life, death, heaven, and hell. Despite the laughter and companionship of those moments, he sensed that something about the human world was temporary and ultimately unsatisfying. 🌌
Looking back from the perspective of enlightenment, Master Woo Myung explains that those experiences took place within a world created by the mind — a dreamlike world of memories and illusions. What once seemed real was actually part of a temporary mental world constructed from thoughts and perceptions.
Through the process of discarding the false mind, he describes discovering the true world that exists beyond illusion, a place of freedom, peace, and liberation. 🌿 In this world, one no longer lives trapped within memories or regrets but exists with the mind of the world itself, free from the burdens that once caused suffering.
ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
The Alcohol I Drank in the Past World
Above the tavern without a street number,
the sky is clear, without a cloud to be seen.
It is a warm, spring day,
and the tavern sits alone
on a road set apart from the village.
It is a place where village people stop for a drink,
as well as those coming and going from the market.
There is an old barmaid,
who has been making her living here for a long time.
Weary from walking, I stop and order a kettle of makgeolli.
With kimchi on the side, I pour glass after glass and drink.
Farmers on their break order huge bowls of makgeolli,
and they gulp it down with some salt
and hurry straight back to work.
Clear water flows in the creek out front,
and the village womenfolk and girls who came to do the laundry
sweep sideways glances at me.
They lay the clothes down on the stepping-stones
and beat it with their laundry paddles.
One glass, two glasses, three, four, five,
six glasses later, the whole kettle is gone.
In the yard, a hen clucks,
leading her brood of yellow chicks around.
Seeing as the village is quite large,
I suppose many would have visited the tavern with their stories and events.
There will be some who laughed and cried;
some who had regrets in their hearts,
and some who drank joyfully.
There would have been some who wanted to end it all
but after a drink, let it go, and did not go through with it.
The tavern is old and worn,
but I feel an inexplicable affection for it,
and I find myself ordering and drinking another kettleful.
The old barmaid at least, has smoothly oiled back her hair
and is tidily attired.
This barmaid granny asks me,
Young man, who are you and where do you come from?
She nods while I explain where I live
and why I am traveling on this road by the tavern.
After I empty two kettles, I pay the bill and set off.
The day is hazy from the heat waves
and I can hear the sound of water trickling along the creek.
Lush green grass is growing everywhere
and there are fish swimming in the water.
After walking silently for awhile,
I subconsciously burst into song.
I alone am merry,
singing under the influence of the wine,
and a farmer pauses his work to watch me.
I reach my destination just as I sober up.
I meet my friend, and we go to another tavern
where we drink more wine.
The wine splashes raucously into the bottom of the glass.
I can feel it spreading all through my body;
I become tipsy, my tongue trips and slurs,
and the discontent inside me begins to boil,
and I curse for no particular reason –
damn people and damn the world!
As we drink, my friend and I blame the world
that does not bend to our will.
We finally head to my friend’s house to sleep as the day begins to dawn.
I have to be half carried and dragged because I have been drinking all day.
I lie down in my friend’s room and fall asleep immediately.
My friend likes to drink as much as I do, so the next day,
we go to chase our hangovers with another drink.
Going from bar to bar, we drink,
then we drink some more.
Without meaning or purpose, another day passes
with the sounds of our voices calling,
Pour! and, drink!
The day after, I finally leave my friend’s house,
and make my way home.
In my youth, I could not achieve what I wanted.
I wasted many days with alcohol,
and the affairs of the world were not to my liking.
Why people live, who goes to hell
and who goes to heaven after they die –
these questions always battled inside me
and I think I already knew the futility of life.
Time passed in various ways,
then when I was almost sixty,
I traveled by car back to that road.
The tavern was gone, the barmaid granny had passed away
and when I visited my friend’s house,
it was his son that came out to greet me.
He told me his father had become ill and died.
Even though I had been busy and rarely heard news of him,
I still missed my affectionate friend.
The friend who had always smiled and listened
when I was annoyed or irritated has passed away,
and the people I knew in the past
have all scattered and gone on to the next world.
Just as it has always been said,
the life we live is really a dream.
Even the mountains and streams in my mind,
that I had seen then, are different now,
changed by the passing of time.
Now that I have come out into the true world
after living in the human world,
I find I had conversed with people that did not exist;
I had exchanged affections with people that did not exist;
I had laughed and cried inside a dream world;
a futile world;
an illusionary world;
a world that does not, does not exist.
I had lived inside a world of illusion,
made from pictures taken of the world.
Now that I live in the world that exists,
those memories no longer exist
and the place where I am is heaven and paradise.
Now that I have the mind of the world,
I no longer take pictures of the world or its affairs,
and it is freedom and liberation.
Now as I look back,
I am thankful for this self that was dissatisfied with the world,
and for not being able to accomplish my will or realize my ideals.
I tore down and killed this self in my mind,
this self that cursed the world,
this self that blamed the world;
I ceaselessly killed and killed, and eliminated this self
until I became one with the mind of the world.
Now I know it was the false things inside my mind that tormented me,
my delusions that persecuted me,
my greed from my sense of inferiority that plagued me.
The silently passing time no longer exists,
and the memories of long ago were the world of hell.
It is immeasurably peaceful to live with the mind of the world;
my enemy had not been anybody else but myself.
I tore down my mind world and the foe that is my self;
I triumphed over myself.
Now I am reborn in the world with the mind of the world,
I am able to live to the age of the world.
— Woo Myung
🌿 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners reflect on teachings from Master Woo Myung that reveal how the human mind creates a world of memories, regrets, and illusions.
Through meditation and the process of discarding the accumulated mind, individuals can gradually move beyond the dreamlike world of past experiences and awaken to the true world that exists beyond the mind.
🌠 When the false mind disappears, life is no longer bound by memories or suffering, and one can experience the freedom, peace, and liberation described in the teachings of Master Woo Myung.
