INTRODUCTION
✨ In this profound reflection, Master Woo Myung interprets traditional Korean tales about “going to heaven” not as literal journeys after death, but as inner spiritual rebirth while still alive.
🕊️ These stories — about the spring of life, the man who jumped from a tree, Shimcheong, and the woodcutter and the heavenly maiden — all point to the same truth: heaven is reached through the complete death of the false self and rebirth as Truth. Only by letting go of attachment, ego, and the human mind can one enter the living kingdom of heaven.
ORIGINAL WRITING BY MASTER WOO MYUNG
Tales of Going to Heaven
There is a saying in Korea that one can forget all of his past if he drinks from the ‘spring of life’ after he dies. What this actually means is that when one dies, the body and mind of one’s self and the universe no longer exist, and the world of Truth – the origin of life, the world of the great soul and spirit, and life itself – will appear. When one is reborn as Truth, the conceptions and behaviors of his past hell world no longer exist, and he can forget all of his past.
This world is the material world, but the kingdom of Truth, where one has received the life of the soul and spirit, is the forever-living and never-dying true world. You will know this when you throw away all of your self while alive, which is to drink from the spring of life. There is also a saying that you will not know the afterlife until you die. But when you completely die while alive, you will know the afterlife. This is like saying you will know Manhattan only when you have been to Manhattan; you only know what you have experienced.
There is an old tale about a man, long ago, who went to a wise man to learn of Truth. The wise man said to him, “Go work ten years as a servant.” After working ten years, the man returned to the wise man, who said to him, “Go jump off that high tree next to the pond.” It is said that when he jumped, he went to heaven. The meaning in the story is that when the man became humble, he could accept his fate in his mind, and in his mind, his self jumped to his death and was able to go to the true land, the kingdom of heaven while alive.
There is another old Korean story about a girl named Shimcheong (which means clear mind). In this story, she was the daughter of Shim who was blind, and she was sacrificed to Buddha, the existence of Truth. Soon after this, Shim regained his sight. The story is about being born in the new world, the kingdom of Truth; when Shimcheong was sacrificed, she fell into the sea and died, but then she was resurrected in the underwater kingdom of the Dragon King, where she became his queen. Here, the kingdom of the Dragon King represents the kingdom of Truth; and drowning in the deep sea means the death of the existence that is one’s self.
With Shimcheong’s death, she became Truth, and then she returned to the human world with the true mind. This story is really about Shim’s blindness not being in his eyes but in his mind. When he met his daughter, Shimcheong, who was Truth, the eyes of his true mind were opened. This means Shimcheong and her father opened the eyes of their minds by completely giving up their selves as well as what was theirs.
Another story is about a woodcutter and the heavenly maiden he married. The woodcutter had saved a deer’s life, and the deer wanted to return the favor. The deer told him how to keep his wife from leaving him and returning to heaven. The deer told the woodcutter that he must hide the maiden’s wings and not return them until she has had three children. But as time passed, he began to feel sorry for his wife and gave the wings back to her, even though she had only two babies. She carried a baby in each arm and flew back to heaven. When his wife left him, the woodcutter followed her to heaven. After staying with her a long time, he wanted to see his mother, who he had left behind on Earth. He begged his wife to help him return to visit his mother. And so she gave him a horse to return to Earth but warned him never to dismount from the horse. Because he would never be able to return to heaven once he set foot on the Earth. With his wife’s warning in mind, the woodcutter came down to Earth and visited his mother without getting off the horse. Later, as the woodcutter was about to leave, his mother asked him to at least have some porridge before he left. He did not refuse and tried to eat it while sitting on the horse. But some of the hot porridge fell on the horse’s hoof. This frightened the horse and it bolted forward, throwing the woodcutter off and galloping away to heaven without him.
This is a story about how a person should not look back once he has gone to heaven, about how the woodcutter could not go to heaven due to his lingering attachments to Earth.
— Woo Myung
🌿 REFLECT AT SANTA CLARA MEDITATION
At Santa Clara Meditation, these ancient stories are used as mirrors to reveal the inner journey from the false self to Truth. Through repentance, humility, and letting go, one can “die while alive” and be reborn into the living kingdom of heaven within the mind, just as taught by Master Woo Myung. 🌠
