📖 Introduction
😔 Master Woo Myung reflects deeply on the nature of regret, life, and human suffering. This writing reveals how a life lived without true awareness leads to sorrow, loneliness, and unanswered questions at the end.
🌫️ Even after a lifetime of effort, many realize too late that they do not know where they came from or where they are going. Regret arises when one sees that life has passed without discovering Truth or one’s true self.
🌌 Through this powerful reflection, we are reminded that without wisdom and inner awakening, one continues to wander—even beyond life itself.
📝 ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
Regret
A sick man lies down in a frosty-cold room,
and thinking back over the years
tears run down his face.
Not knowing where it is he should go,
or where he has come from,
his fate has been to live a life of struggle,
and he has become ill, to boot.
His wife, who despite their scarce means
served him like a god, is now buried and gone,
and tears blur his sight as he thinks of her.
He wonders when his son will come back
from serving in the army; his days of youth,
when he was just married, seem like yesterday,
but an endless amount of time has gone by.
Frustration and desolation
keep the tears falling.
When he was young, he lived with his family,
together with his affectionate parents.
But now that he is old and weak,
his siblings in the next village do not visit him once.
Deep at night, he is alone in an empty room,
waiting endlessly.
It is his fate to die alone, and having become such
he knows that life was in vain.
Since he is still holding onto his last breath,
his neighbors take pity on him and give him a bowl of porridge.
What is life, and what is it to have lived?
There is no use in regretting a futile life,
but his tears keep falling as he thinks of his past self
which he can never return to.
He is not an educated man,
but if he could leave behind something in the world,
it is that people should live with compassion
while they are still in the world.
No one listens.
He keeps his mouth shut;
he has lived seeking God,
he has lived committing many sins and many wrongs,
and a few days after repenting,
he passes away.
Relatives come in droves
and bury him in the ground.
He leaves life, still holding onto many regrets and sorrows,
and since he has learned nothing,
he does not know where to go.
Steeped in the habits of life,
he has only made scraps of his mind.
He is the same as when he was living,
and he does not know who he is.
He continues as he is, not knowing that he is dead,
and since he died without wisdom,
he is unable to become enlightened.
He keeps wandering and wandering –
when will he be able to find his true self?
– Woo Myung
🌿 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation
At Santa Clara Meditation, one can reflect on the meaning of life before it is too late. 🌠
Through meditation, individuals learn to discard the false mind, awaken to Truth, and live without regret—finding their true self while still alive.
