🌟 INTRODUCTION
✨ In this vivid and compassionate poem, Master Woo Myung depicts the life of the slash-and-burn farmer—a person who lives in harmony with Nature, sustained by the mountains, soil, and sky.
Through the simplicity of their lives, these people embody a natural purity: they want for nothing, live without greed, and coexist peacefully with animals and the land. 🌿
Yet as society modernizes, they are drawn to the city, only to lose their connection to Nature and the innocent warmth of their former lives. Master Woo Myung reminds us that the true value of life lies not in possessions or status, but in living with a pure heart, gratitude, and love that has no distance. 🌾
📜 ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
Slash-and-Burn Farmer
He who makes his living off of
cultivating fields in the mountains
searches far and wide into its rough depths.
He will farm the land for consecutive years
until the soil becomes infertile.
He is a father;
after having cultivated the land for a few months alone,
he brings his family there
and they toil the new land together.
There they build a new hut for themselves
and live together as a family.
Wild boars, deer, and pheasants come
and eat the grains.
These families live together with
the creatures of the mountains.
They place a large rock
propped up with a wooden plank,
and beneath it they put some grains;
When a boar trips the prop stick,
the rock falls and the boar is crushed underneath.
Many a day had passed without any meat on the table,
but now they are able to feast for days.
The nearest town is twenty kilometers
or perhaps forty kilometers away;
the children walk the narrow mountain roads with
lightening speed.
They plant potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn,
which are their staple foods.
These are people who eat the wild greens
that they gather from the mountains.
They are simple-hearted people
for they have no expectations;
with their pure hearts, they live with Nature.
They have nothing and so they want nothing.
They just live observing the sky and the earth;
if they were to be greedy,
it would be that they want the sky to send them rain.
But there are those who grow tired of this kind of life.
So they come to the city,
only to find that they can do nothing else
but undertake manual labor jobs
for they are uneducated.
They become unhappy
and they come to miss the warmth of the bygone days;
they blame the city and its lack of warmth.
Though people long for a love in which
there exists no distance between them,
people use it, which is why there is no love at all.
The cultivated fields are all disappearing;
the homes that were built beyond the slopes
and the homes that lined the valleys
have all become abandoned.
How many years have passed, no one knows,
but the land has become thick with weeds.
Those who used to live off the mountains
have all gone far away to make money.
It is a pity that those people have become hardened.
– Woo Myung
🌠 REFLECT AT SANTA CLARA MEDITATION
At Santa Clara Meditation, this poem invites reflection on what it means to live with contentment and purity. 🌿
Modern life often separates people from the simple joy of existence—from gratitude for food, family, and the natural world. As the slash-and-burn farmer shows, when one lives without greed or expectation, happiness arises naturally.
True peace is not found in the city’s noise or ambition, but in the quiet mind that lives with Nature and sees all beings as one. 🌻
