Category: Master Woo Myung Poems

The mind does not really exist.

Long ago,
we would make a fire,

Do not sing or dance about human life.

Truth is a never-changing, living existence
that man cannot see.

The original Truth is
the universe before the universe,

Although there is daylight
sleeping people do not know it.

The mind that thinks;
the mind that loves;
these minds are all man’s thoughts.

A drifter has no home.
A drifter has no wants.
A drifter is man.
A drifter’s mind is nervous.
A drifter is lonely.

I can see the terraced rice paddies in these mountains;
hail falls from the sky.

The elixir of life sought by Emperor Qin,

At home the flowers bloom as they always do.

A person who has experienced

Birds are flying in the sky.

A person who chases out demons weeps tears of blood.

The wind chimes of Heaven ring leisurely,

Love is endlessly peaceful.

Patches of clouds are afloat in the sky.

Human life does not actually exist,

“So long!”
“Good-bye!”

A demon is none other than yourself.

To live without attachments is to live well.

When dealing with another,

The day the dark clouds are lifted

Love is endlessly peaceful.

A new life is unfolding.

The world is full of words and so noisy
but nothing happens according to man’s will.

A person who believes himself to be superior,

Man ages with time,
with life.

Clouds are floating peacefully
in the infinite sky.

People live with worries
because they need to eat and survive.

The wanderer has grown accustom to this foreign land;
he is bound to the land due his love for it.

Clouds are floating peacefully
in the infinite sky.

Human life is not true, but false
so there is nothing to gain, receive or have from it.

A couple should be of one mind
in order to be husband and wife.

Youth is a time filled with endless dreams.

If you want to know me,
if you want to find me,
if you want to see me,
to resemble me,
to be one with me;
come to heaven.

Even the young cowboy who feeds his cattle
has become so worn by the city and its civilization
that he cannot find his cattle.
He says he tends to them
when in fact he does not know what cattle are.

Dear Adada,
You have been born in to this world as a human being,
but you are a dumb mute.
However you are infinitely good.
Dear Adada,
Who could possibly know your heart?

A walker walks
and a runner runs.
There are many different paths that people take,
but people hurriedly travel their paths
ignorant of where they are headed.

Every person has memories.
Memories are what one remembers of the past.
Past memories become the roots of one’s mind,
and they form the present,
which is lived with this karma.

Cosmos flowers, swaying in the breeze,
blossom by the roadside and are beautiful
even in the cold wind and frost.
Cosmos flowers, swaying in the breeze,
are both fragile and strong.

The Mind is absent of wants.
The Mind is all creations in the universe.
The Mind is the minds of all individual things
which are of various shapes and images
that live and think.

To be complete is to be without death, and the world that lives eternally is the complete world.

The passing sailboat
may look peaceful, detached, and beautiful,
but it is not so for the sailboat.
Pushing through the blue waves,
with its white sails raised,
it is lonely.

I knew not what ‘doh (Truth)’ was,
but upon walking its path,
I am now on the true Way.

I try flying endlessly
in the blue sky.
No matter how far I go
it is always the same place,
the same spot.

In the far distance, puffy white clouds
are drifting by.
Clouds pass,
and it is me that watches them.

There are countless stars shining
outside, through the window.
They are not of anybody’s mind,
but they all keep order
and are in their places.

I am naked and my life is naked, too.
I lived wearing clothes –
I lived behind a mask.
Which was more expensive,
the clothes or the man?

Man lives carelessly,
not knowing Truth or falseness,
but comes to know them by coincidence.
Such is none other than the path of ‘doh (Truth)’.

I was one who could not die, for I was afraid of death.
But now that I have died
and have thus become free of all my burdens,
I have reached the state of great enlightenment.

Though one may live in the world sighing,
though one may live in the world laughing,
they are all futile dreams.
Time passes,
making everything into a dream
and scattering all existent images into pieces.

Mountain birds live in the mountains;
river birds live near the river;
and seabirds live by the ocean.
All things live where they should;
everything is in its rightful place.

When the wind blows,
I follow the wind;
and when the rain falls,
it soaks my body.

Many things may come and go in the empty space of the sky,

When fog densely covers the world,
people are unable to see through it.
That the fog and the emptiness are different
is a meaningless distinction that man makes.

The days of playing my willow pipe,
the days of laying near the stream
dreaming about my future,
have all become a longing
now that I am living absent of self.

The mind differs depending on the person.
Man’s mind is formed out of the experiences of his life;
it is formed out of his environment.
The lives people live are different depending on the person.

With the dawning of a new day comes
the birds’ flight.

I say to you all:
do not try to know
where it is I have come from,
or how I have come to know
the Truth I teach.

When seen from the big point of view –
from the world’s point of view –
the whole world is one.
But people live blaming the world.