One day, a kid had his wisdom teeth pulled out and was going back home with his dad.
He asks his dad, “Dad, you don’t need to pull out other teeth but why wisdom teeth? It’s too painful.”
His dad replies, “Yes son, the difference is that wisdom teeth will decay if you just leave them.
When they decay, it is much more painful. Wisdom teeth must be pulled out.”
“Dad, can we pull out our false mind like wisdom teeth?” asks the son.
The dad replies, “Of course. We have false mind in our mind and that must be eliminated, like wisdom teeth.
If we do not throw it away, and hold onto that mind, we just suffer.
Just as we have to pull out wisdom teeth when they bother us,
the false mind in our mind that bothers us must also be taken away.”
The son says, “I feel good that I removed my wisdom teeth, dad.
I think I would also feel so refreshed if I take away this false mind from my mind.”
The Era of Being Educated To Become Complete People
The South Korean Ministry of Education has often spoken of educating the whole person. In schools, a ‘whole person’ has often been termed ji deok che ye (understanding, virtue, health and courtesy) and there has been much discussion on this topic. In China, the whole person is called ji in yong (understanding, benevolence, courage) and this is what is meant by ji deok che ye in Korean.
The real meaning of a ‘whole person’ is one who is complete. A complete person is a true person whose true soul never dies. Such a person is called a saint. Man will live a life of righteousness when this term is no longer just empty words and slogans and he actually becomes a true person and lives as one. While man has craved and struggled to become complete, it has not been easy because he is incomplete and false. Completion means one must be alive, without death.
In order for man to become righteous, we must first know about the structure of the human mind. A human-being is a camera that takes pictures of what belongs to the world. Even though man thinks that he lives in the world, the moment he sees the world he takes a picture of it in his mind and lives inside the picture that he has taken. This is why man is false. The world and the human mind are overlapping so man mistakenly thinks that he is living in the world.
Everything that he has experienced, is it not all within his mind? What he has seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, smelled with the nose, tasted with the mouth, every word spoken and everything sensed is all engraved within his mind. The human mind is like a photocopier that makes copies of what belongs to the world and all that happened in the world. The human mind is a copier that makes copies of the world. Even though man believes he lives in the world, he does not live in the world and because he is living in his own mind world he is unable to become a complete person.
In order to become a complete person, a whole person, one must start subtracting from his mind which, until now, he has always added to. Only then can he walk the path to human completion. Truth is revealed to the extent the pictures, which are false, have been discarded. Completion is when a man who is false becomes true. Until now people have always added more and more in their lives. However when one subtracts the pictures inside his false mind world and discards his self that is living in that false world, he can become complete and recover his original nature.
The term ‘original nature’ means simply, the nature of the origin. The nature of the origin is God’s mind, the mind of Truth. If the copied human mind is gone then one can find his original nature. What originally existed before being copied is the original nature, the world. The reason you can exist in the world is because the earth, that is, the ground exists. The earth exists because the sky which is the original foundation exists. Becoming the mind of this sky is to regain your original nature. If man’s false mind and his self dies completely and only this mind of the sky, which is Truth remains, then man can regain his original nature.
When one is born again in this original nature which is the sky, then he is born in the righteous land which is Truth. Therefore, he has no death and is the world itself. He will know all the ways of the world and become a person of wisdom itself. He will live a life of universal order. The world will then become a paradise on earth with no thieves or bad people.
Currently, education focuses on the knowledge and skills needed to make a living. If one first becomes a whole person, a complete person, he will know all the ways of the world; consequently he will even better at his studies and live a better life.
It is now the time of recovering one’s original nature. In these times, the country where people regain their original nature first will be the one where people are better off. This meditation is the place where you can recover your original nature and since it is the place where it can actually be achieved, many people have come and many of them have already regained their original nature.
From Teacher Woo Myung’s book, <Stop Living In This Land Go to the Everlasting World of Happiness Live There Forever>
