🏔️ Let Us Go up and over the Ariryeong: Finding the True Self | Master Woo Myung | Santa Clara Meditation

INTRODUCTION

✨ In this teaching, Master Woo Myung reveals the hidden meaning behind the ancient Korean folk song Arirang.

Ariryeong is not merely a historical mountain—it is the inner mountain that each person must cross to discover the true self. Only by eliminating the delusional self can one truly go “up and over the Ariryeong” and meet God or Buddha within. 🌿

ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG

Let Us Go up and over the Ariryeong

‘Arirang’ is the name of an age-old Korean folk song, for which this name is believed to be derived from the word ‘Ariryeong (我利嶺)’. There are many different interpretations for Ariryeong – the majority of them based on historical accounts or historic figures. It is also believed that the Ariryeong is metaphorical – that it does not refer to a mountain that actually exists, but it refers to the mountain that one must go up and over in order to find oneself. Going up and over the Ariryeong means to find God or Buddha within.

This mountain is one that can be overcome only when each of us has eliminated our own delusional sense of self. Only those who have rid themselves of such delusions, along with their own demons, are able to cross that mountain. Only those who no longer have their own selves can gain their true selves.

In the song Arirang, the lyrics read, “He goes up and over the Ariryeong. He who abandons me will not go far before his feet ache.” What this means is that he who abandons his true self will no longer have a place to go, nor will it be possible for him to have new life; it means that he will live in his own delusive thoughts and that he is dead.

A similar verse can be found in one of the Buddhist sutras, which reads, “Let us go! Let us make haste and go! Let us go over that hill!” Even in the Christian Bible, there is a verse that says we will ‘meet after having crossed the River Jordan.’

– Woo Myung

🌿 REFLECT AT SANTA CLARA MEDITATION

At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners learn how to cross their own inner Ariryeong—the mountain of the delusional self—and awaken to the true self that lives beyond the mind world. 🌠