Introduction

✨ In this deeply personal reflection, Master Woo Myung shares his inner thoughts about his life, his spiritual journey, and his dedication to teaching Truth. The passage reveals the sincerity and humility behind his path as a teacher who devoted his life to helping others awaken.

Looking back on his past, Master Woo Myung recalls the solitude of studying in mountain temples and the countless struggles that shaped his understanding of life. Through these experiences, he came to realize that the greatest joy was not personal achievement, but witnessing people awaken from falseness to Truth. 🌌

As he continued teaching meditation and guiding people toward enlightenment, he saw how individuals carried countless worries, sufferings, and accumulated minds. Yet when those burdens were discarded, people could experience the profound transformation of realizing Truth.

In this reflection, Master Woo Myung expresses his heartfelt wish: that the teachings of Truth will spread throughout the world so that humanity can awaken and live meaningful lives beyond suffering and illusion. 🌿

ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG

My Will

Deep in the night,
a nameless bird sings sadly from a tree.

Long ago, when I was studying
in a mountain temple, steeped in solitude,
the hoots of an owl and the gurgle of a flowing stream
would sound throughout the night.

Those lonely times of solitude have changed to longing.

There was a time when countless thoughts boiled over in my head;
a time when I was chased by my circumstances
but did not achieve anything.

Now with hindsight, I see it is fortunate
I did not fulfill any of my big ideals.

I was not a great person,
and I lived ridiculing myself;
disliking, ignoring and cursing myself;
telling myself that I was the one who was wrong.

Perhaps this is why I did not have much to repent.

I was not great in any way
so I was humble and I worked hard.

As a result, I lived well
compared to the days of scarcity in my childhood.

Of the years that silently passed, during the time
when I first started teaching Truth in Mount Gaya,
I again heard the cries of that owl every night;
the owl that had struck a chord in my lonely heart.

Everyone who sought me out each came to me
with fifty thousand thoughts.

As they shed these fifty thousand agonies,
they showed the forms of their minds
in fifty thousand different ways.

Only then did I realize man is uglier, dirtier,
and infinitely more vile than I was.

When I had scolded myself,
telling myself that I was dirty, ugly,
and the worst person in the world,
it had been an unknowing repentance.

With the title of dō-in, I awaken people.

I cannot describe the joy I felt
when after many nights meditating together till dawn,
those countless people, who had laughed and cried
within their fifty thousand agonies, enlightened to the Truth.

I had also felt happy when I escaped from the grave
and came out into the world,
but I had more joy in their enlightenment than I had in my own,
which was boundless each time a person’s consciousness
changed from falseness to Truth.

It was the first time in the world
people were truly becoming enlightened,
and as the founder,
the fact that people were actually achieving Truth
was tremendously moving.

People’s fifty thousand agonies decreased
as they moved up through the levels,
but there were those who tried to achieve Truth
inside the framework of their selves,
which is something man grimly holds onto until the end.

Those whose false selves tried to enlighten to the Truth
were unable to ignore their false selves or progress further
and ultimately did not achieve Truth.

However those who were like bears and did not give up,
those who were constant and had thankful hearts
are still meditating and are close to completion.

Time flew by silently,
and since then twelve, thirteen years have passed.

I started teaching Truth in my mid-forties,
but now my hair has turned grey
and my youth and energy have vanished.

I am entering into old age;
I am becoming a wrinkled grandpa,
with grey hair and ground-down teeth.

My body does not move as I will it to, as it did in my youth.

The world is wide,
but I am living a human life with only seventy to eighty years,
and there is so much left to do in the world.

So regardless of whether it is day or night,
all my time is dedicated to teaching people Truth.

My mind is busy, so busy, with the constant thought
that people all over the world must be awakened;
and I am waiting and waiting,
for the day when all people have become complete,
and all people are able to live.

It is my hope that before I die,
Truth will be spread all over the world
and everyone will be resurrected as Truth.

I pity people who live and die without meaning or purpose;
it is heartbreaking.

It is my will to work hard
so that even one more person may live.

β€” Woo Myung

🌿 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation

At Santa Clara Meditation, practitioners reflect on teachings such as this one from Master Woo Myung, which reveal the deep compassion behind his efforts to guide people toward Truth.

Through meditation and self-reflection, individuals can begin to recognize the burdens of the accumulated mind and gradually discard them.

🌠 As the false mind disappears, people can move toward the state described by Master Woo Myungβ€”a transformation from falseness to Truth, where life gains deeper meaning and purpose.