The tale of Shim Cheong(*Shim Cheong is a name of a girl: it literally means a clean mind.) is a Korean classic tale that has been passed down from long ago. In a village, there was a girl named Shim Cheong. Her mother passed away when she was born and she lived with her father, who was blind. She was respected as a filial daughter in the village. Even at her young age, she took care of her blind father, sacrificing her own childhood for him and, without hesitation, doing the tough tasks to earn a living in order for them to survive. She was such a kind-hearted girl. She didn’t even think about getting married and she wished for her father’s sight.
One day, Shim Cheong was walking along the road. “Do you want your father to see the world?” asked a monk. “What can I do to make him see?” she asked without hesitation. Then, the monk said, “To make your father open his eyes, you need the power of the Dragon King. (Dragon King: People in Korea believed that there was a god living in a palace under the sea and ruling it. They called it the Dragon King.) If you present 300 bags of rice to the Dragon King, he will allow your father to see.” Shim Cheong was poor, but still tried to find a way to obtain 300 bags of rice.
Shim Cheong had finally found a way. Every year, fishermen held rites for the Dragon King of the ocean to ensure their safety. As part of the rites, wenches jumped into the ocean, which was called In Dang Soo. In return for devoting their life, they would receive 300 bags of rice. Shim Cheong thought that it was so important to make her father open his eyes that she was willing to give up her life. So, she received 300 bags of rice and joined the rites. The day finally came and she jumped into the ocean caring only for her father’s peace and health. Shim Cheong died and her father opened his eyes. However, her father fell into deep depression because his daughter had died for his sight, and he was unable to feel joy and to really see the world.
Everyone believed Shim Cheong to have died in the ocean. But she regained consciousness at the Dragon King’s palace where she met the King. The King was deeply moved by her sacrifice and devotion to her father, and decided to let her live. With the help of the Dragon King, Shim Cheong was wrapped in a lotus flower and went up to the ocean surface. Her father found her in the flower and cried tears of joy. Shim Cheong made her father see the world and regained her life. They lived happily ever after.
The reason and purpose of why we were born in the world is to become the Truth. We were born to become the Truth and live eternally. The tale being an analogy, Shim Cheong symbolizes us and her father symbolizes the mind of the truth, the mind of the universe that is blinded as we are trapped in our selves. The tale tells us that like Shim Cheong, those who love the truth only – those who sacrifice themselves and do not love themselves – can let go of the self for the truth and, only when you let go of the truth, you can live happily ever after as the real Truth. Let’s love only the truth; like Shim Cheong, we can let go of the false self and live happily in the true world forever.
From master Woo Myung’s Book, “Stop Living in This Land Go to the Everlasting World of Happiness Live There Forever”
Only When You Die Can You Know the World Beyond
When a person in Korea does not have the solution to a dilemma he will often be told, “You will know the world beyond (the after world) only after you die.” But no one in this world knows with certainty about the world beyond. In religion it is often said that those who do good deeds will go to heaven and those who do evil deeds will go to hell. Yet there is no clear answer to this question: Does the world beyond exist or not?
The sky of the universe, the living original existence of Truth, existed before you were born in the world. This existence exists even if you and everything in the world are alive and it still exists even when you and the world disappears. Compared to this existence, the dream that man is in lasts for a split second, and for his life, he lives in a dream having turned away from the origin. Dying is discarding one’s self who dreams as well as the places and the content of the dream.
When one removes all of his life in the dream from the universe, he can go back to the origin. If he is reborn from this origin as the Soul and Spirit of the origin, he can know the world beyond and all the ways of the world.
All material things come from the origin and go back to the origin. This is Truth. The world and the people born in the origin will live forever. He who does not die while he is living will end up dying forever because his true soul does not exist in the land of Truth. Until now, everyone ended up dying and there was no world beyond. One’s false mind that is hell is something that does not exist.
If you die while you are living, you can know whether or not the world beyond exists. Now is the age when the world beyond does exist. The world beyond, namely, the true world, exists for one who by killing his self, is born into it and his self who lives in the world beyond also exists.
