The Human Mind

Woo Myung's World Beyond World
The Human
Mind
Man’s eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and body were made as picturetaking tools from birth, and his mind is where the pictures taken
of the world are stored. What we call sin or karma is taking
pictures of that which belongs to the world and living in those
pictures in one’s mind, instead of having a mind that is one with
the world. Such a person is a sinner - one who has accumulated
karma - because he has betrayed the origin that is the world by
making and living in his own world.
When man dies after living in the world, he ends up dying forever
because he lives in an illusion, a world that does not exist in the
real world. However one who has been absolved of all his sins
and has been reborn in Truth is an eternal immortal. Man does
not know this because his mind is overlapping the world and he
mistakenly thinks he is living in the real world. His sin is living in
an illusionary world that he himself has made in his own mind.
This is why life is futile; why life is that of a weed, a cloud, a
bubble, and something that does not, simply does not, exist.
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Man, whose mind is false, is always hungry, which is why
he constantly tries to consume things, and tries to gain
Woo Myung is the founder of Maum Meditation, an
author, and a poet. He has been teaching the Way to the Truth
through world tour lecture every year. He is the author of many
books about Truth. The English edition of his most recent book,
Stop Living In This Land Go To The Everlasting World Of Happiness
Live There Forever, hit #1 Overall Weekly Bestseller in Amazon
and won 4 international book awards such as IBA, NIEA, IPPY, and
eLit in the categories of Self-Help, Philosophy, Spirituality, and
Meditation.
and seek Truth from what he has consumed. However,
such actions only add more falseness to falseness; adding
Calligraphy Woo Myung
ever more suffering and burden. Only by discarding those
burdens, and by this path only, can one truly become
Truth.
While the time of incompletion was the period of addition
and gain, the time of completion is one of subtraction.
If one eliminates all that is false, only what is true will
remain. Because man is false he can become true when he
is eliminated. Those who try to gain Truth while holding
onto falseness cannot achieve Truth, and even if they do
achieve it, it is false.
The human mind is one’s own world that he made by
taking pictures of the world and engraving his emotions
therein; emotions made by what he has seen, heard,
smelled, and felt in his mind. The human mind only has
pictures; it is an illusionary mind that is self-centered and
selfish - a mind that knows only itself.
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And Become One
Can’t bring in the mountains,
I will view it around me
Garden of Old House
Mid-summer bae-rong tree flowers in the front yard of Myungjae-gotek in Nonsan
Choong-nam. Purple-flowered makmundong is also seen.
When most people think about a garden, they think of ruler-precise gardens at
Chateau de Versailles or at an Italian villa, where it takes a lot of garden work.
But in our country of Korea where gardens are deep in our lives, it is difficult
to distinguish where exactly it begins and ends. Our ancestors considered the
nature with its mountains and streams as gardens instead of artificially made
ones. Because of this, many Korean people do not know about Korean-style
gardens.
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Written and photo by Hwang Jin-soo
Our country’s 70% of land are mountainous. They are also
completely full of forests. Many mountains with elevations of 1
km or so start from Baekdoodaegan mountain ranges, up north
to south; they branch down to form landscapes with many small
mountains and streams. There are many charming mountains with
curved rivers and streams, and exquisite rocks. Because there were
such mountains within an easy view over a fence wherever you built a
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Song-ha house in oeam folk village, A-san, Choong-nam; due to its wide yard, it looks like the
house was built in the middle of path of pine trees. The yard has many planted flowers and
looks like a wild field.
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home, there was no need to make a separate
garden at home. Our ancestors considered
the beautiful nature as own gardens, rather
than building one inside a home. Even if
one planted flowers and trees in a front yard,
they could not be compared to the beauty
of flowers and trees of the mountains. So all
han-ok (Korean style houses) have gardens.
Typically, people say that Korean style
gardens are environment- friendly, it is more
correct to say that it is an unique style of
gardening resulting from the characteristic
landscapes.
Other things also influenced the style of
I l d o - g o t e k h o u s e i n gardens, such as components of politics,
hwamyang, Kyung-nam;
mid-summer jacaranda economics, society, and culture. Chosun
h a s f l owe re d by t h e (old Korea), due to its deep philosophical
chimney inside the inner
roots (yu-g yo), emphasized stability and
yard of the house.
self-control, and suppressed luxurious
gardens. Those who retired from high official positions did make
adequate sized, bangjiwon-dohyung type gardens (a formation
of a small round island inside a squared pond), similar to gardens
of a palace. Also, garden names and formations were centered on
Sungri-hak (old Chinese philosophy), Buddhism, do-gyo, shinsun
ideology, topography or own ideologies and desires, etc. Bangjiwon
ponds also were symbolic expressions of ideologies such as Sungrihak and chunwon-jibang (which means sky is round and ground is
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Took ten years to build a choryu (a small house)
Half has a cool breeze and the other half has a bright moon
Can’t bring in the mountains, I will view it around me
- Song Soon (Chosun middle age literary servant, 1493-1583))
Myungjae-gotek, Nonsan, Choong-nam; a flower
garden under one side of a fence, coexisting of the
architecture with plants is beautiful.
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square Gardens are places where a human
meets the nature. The nature’s gardens are
complete when gazebos are built; without
the gazebos, the nature is just the nature.
When one builds a gazebo in a scenic area, it
becomes a garden. The gazebo is a place for
human beings to stay and view the nature;
such is hard to find in other countries. The
time of 4 years taking pictures of gardens….
the nature’s embrace is always comfortable
and generous and it is a healing space as well
as a comfortable resting place for exhausted
minds of daily life.
Hwang Jin-soo graduated from Hanyang University
with a major of electric engineering and completed
photographic design at Hong-ik University. Since
2001, he was active as a fashion photographer.
In 2007 he started with documentary photowork
of wang-gajaerae; works related to gardens were
<Garden of God, Grave of Chosun King> (2009),
<Korean Garden> (2012), etc. with other photoworks
such as <Ten Years of Photos on the World Travel>. He
plans to publish a photobook with a theme of Seoul
this year.
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Age of Subtraction Now
I am going to subtract now
“When I escaped an
underground tunnel of my
mind, a bright happiness
awaited me.”
The story of a mind-subtraction of Ha Tae“Why are you
young, a Boondangsun subway conductor
Summary Kim Hye-jin & Photographs Choi Chang-won
so happy?” this
i s w h a t H a Ta e -
young (45), a Boondangsun subway conductor often hears from others.
Like a perpetual boy, he has a bright laugh, just like the subway train lights
illuminate the tunnels. But up to his mid-thirties, he felt empty and his
expressions were hard; due to his fundamental questions about life and fear
and anxiety about subway accidents. His mind was really much darker than
the actual underground. This is a mind-subtraction story of Tae-young Ha,
who says he found a bright happiness by escaping his mind’s tunnel.
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The first train of Boondangsun toward Wangsibri starts at
5 in the morning. “Please take care today.” I greet and pat the
wheel of the train and start the run. Day laborers, security
officers, street cleaners….many people await the first train. I
am thankful to start my day with these people who launch
off our society’s mornings. Starting with Jook-jun station,
Ori station, Migum station, Jun-ja station which switches to
Shinboondangsun station that goes to Gangnam station, and
ending at Wangshibri station – many people repeatedly get in
and out. I feel worthwhile as a conductor when I think “Once
again, I was able to help the customers arrive safely to their
destinations today.”
I started my life as a train conductor in my late twenties.
After 8 years of various train conducting, in 2005 I started
conducting a Boondangsun subway trains. Coming from
working outside in midst of scenic
nature, it was suffocating to be inside
an underground tunnel.
But now, even though my body is
underground, I am able to observe
expressions and clothing style of
pe ople. Depending on weather,
or economic situations, there are
differences in expressions and clothing
styles of people. As the economic
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situations worsen, the expressions and clothing styles are
darker and unfortunately many people these days are like that.
Truthfully, I was one of these people with hardened facial
expressions.
I was born as a third child among 3 boys and one girl under
parents who farmed in Poong-gi, Kyungbuk. Precocious,
since middle school, I wondered “the mind is the master; why
is the body always commanding it?” As I got older, I worried
“who am I? why do I live?”I felt since I was born anyway, I
should know at least 1% of myself before I died. To know me
and to win over my body, I hiked in mountains, did strenuous
exercises and sought out many things without any solutions.
While conducting the subway trains, I always had fear and
anxiety about accidents. I was living as well as I could every
day like a squirrel in a wheel, but sometimes I felt so empty,
anxious and suffocating….I wanted to escape my mind that
was darker than the underground. In 2006, I saw a brochure
from Maum meditation in a cabin. The moment I saw
the words, Maum meditation, I thought, “ah, there will be
answers to my questions here.” I started meditation soon after
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and threw away accumulated minds one by one.
One time, the train was inoperable during a run. I was
beside myself. Since the train was delayed, everyone came
up to the conducting room to knock; it was not repaired
immediately and I was having a cold sweat with a lot of fear.
It wasn’t a big accident, but these were one of the biggest
anxieties in my mind. The news in which someone committed
suicide by jumping into the rails, horrible subway accidents,
big and small accidents heard from fellow conductors….even
when I did not directly experienced them, these occupied
big parts of my mind. Due to these minds, I was worrying,
nervous and anxious. I ardently subtracted these worries and
anxieties.
I continued to throw away and at one point, there was
enlightenment. “Ah, I did not exist originally. I came
originally from the Universe, this Universe is me. I just need
to live as this Universe mind….” It felt like all of previous
suffocating feelings suddenly exploded and disappeared. I also
gained answers to the fundamental questions of life. How
could I express my bliss and delight? I was extremely happy. I
also repented.
“How do I exist? Because there is air, I can breathe to
live; because this train exists, I can conduct it; and because
customers take trains, my family and I could live (through
earnings) – I was caught in myself and did not know to
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thank.” I was so repentant. After repentance, my mindset was
different. It is as though I started to think from the world’s
view. Afterwards, each customer seemed more precious and I
was more thankful.
Customers who behave dangerously in the stations,
customers who try to open train doors with hands and feet
or bags when it is already closed, customers who are drunk
and causing problems….I meet many different people when
I conduct the trains. Before when I saw these customers, I
was irritated and stressed, worrying about possible accidents.
Now I think from their points of view, “they must be very
busy, they must be having a hard time”; and I am more able to
take them in for a ride with bright smiles. When I see people
in wheelchairs or blind, I am able to start a little later than
usual and call service agents to assist them out of the train;
I became to serve customers
Requests from Conductor Ha Tae-young:
with more attention.
Since meditation, I often “it’s very dangerous to try to open the
closed doors with hands or feet. Since the
heard that my face seemed
doors are not automatic but controlled
softer and happier. When I by the conductors, if the conductors did
had a lot of pictures in my not see you, it can lead to big accidents;
definitely do not attempt it. And in
mind, I had so many useless stations where there are no screen doors,
thoughts and my mind was it’s very dangerous to be too close to the
safety line. If you take a little time, I think
constantly changing. Once it would be good for everyone. Thank you
those pictures were taken out, (laugh).”
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I was able to concentrate on this moment and do my best. I
am aware daily that this is living with one body and mind.
The Universe mind is the mind of helping and saving each
other. The most thankful and happy is that I am able to start
and finish the day with thankfulness.
When conductors experience accidents, they often have a
difficult time with post traumatic stress. Because they work
underground in a narrow conducting cabin, they tend to
develop claustrophobia or panic disorder after a while. I
feel bad when I hear a conductor committed suicide due to
a panic disorder. My dream is to create a Maum meditation
club for conductors and offer a place to mindsubtract while working. When you escape the dark
tunnels of mind, really bright happy life is waiting
for you. I would like many more people to experience
such happiness.
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