Introduction
✨ In this deeply emotional and reflective writing, Master Woo Myung speaks of home, memory, loss, and longing.
Through vivid recollections of childhood, poverty, family, and the passing of time, he reveals a universal truth: everything in the physical world—people, places, even the land itself—changes and eventually disappears. 🌾
Yet beyond this impermanence, Master Woo Myung points to something eternal—the sky, the Universe, and Truth, which never disappears. This teaching invites us to shift our understanding of “home” from a physical place to a state of being, where one lives as Truth, free from burden and suffering.
Original Writing by Master Woo Myung
Birthplace
In my hometown,
larks would trill and the sparrows would chirp.
Although the events of that birthplace
are now all dreams of the past,
they have changed to longing.
Now everyone has left,
and there are not many familiar faces remaining.
The adults of old, have also all passed on.
Steeped in poverty,
the village people had no choice but to farm rice and barley.
There were never enough helping hands on the farm
where my mother toiled, with my younger siblings and I.
Such toil was the mark of our childhoods.
The sight of children playing without a care in the schoolyard
always filled me with endless longing.
I worked at a neighboring village
and it was always night when I returned home.
My mother and one of my sisters have already passed away,
so most people there are now unfamiliar strangers.
Even when my longing for home takes me back,
there is nowhere for me to stay.
The people who used to sing, and quarrel,
and rush about their chores on the farm,
have now all left for the cities, to foreign places,
following the tide of time.
Only those blinded by civilization remain,
guarding the homestead.
My mind is filled with longing for everyone,
for all those sorry events;
for someone like me who has to wander and roam
thousands of miles in foreign lands,
there is much longing in my heart for my home.
Everyone I knew has gone,
they left silently without words,
but the Wisu river in my hometown still flows,
and the trees and mountains are still as they always were.
But countless ages later
even they will change
and long after that,
there will be nothing that remains.
Even when the land itself disappears,
the sky will still remain.
Even when the land itself disappears,
I will still be living.
To tell people they must become
the Energy and Light of the Universe that never dies,
I travel the world.
Let’s live –
let’s all become the Energy and Light of the Universe,
and live in the land of this existence as one.
Where you are living now is your second birthplace,
and where you are living is your home.
This life is just a transit stop,
so shed your burdens of this life
and let’s all rest awhile.
Let’s just live and just exist.
A person with many burdens and suffering
has them because he has taken in many minds.
If he lives as these minds order him to,
he is needlessly busy without achieving anything.
This is suffering itself and burden.
Burden is to live inside the conceptions and habits
that is one’s self, and this is suffering and sadness.
To all those bearing burden:
Seek Truth and become Truth,
and if you live as Truth,
there is no suffering, burden or sadness;
it is freedom and liberation,
it is the rest of rests,
and it is the way to just live.
– Woo Myung
Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
🌿 The teaching of Master Woo Myung begins with personal memory but expands into a universal realization: everything we cling to as “home” is temporary.
This writing gently guides us to see that true rest does not come from returning to the past, but from letting go of all accumulated thoughts, attachments, and burdens. When we release these, we discover a deeper home—the eternal existence of Truth.
At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners are guided to cleanse the mind and discard the false self. Through the teachings of Master Woo Myung, one can reflect on impermanence, longing, identity, and liberation, ultimately finding a place where one can truly rest, live, and exist as the Energy and Light of the Universe. ✨
