Once upon a time, a woodcutter saved a deer from danger. To return the favor, the deer would grant him a wish. The woodcutter said that he would want to have a wife since he could not easily find someone to marry in his old age.
The deer told him about a pond where fairies come down to bathe and also told him that he should hide one of the fairies’ wing dress to prevent her from flying back into the sky. Later, the woodcutter married the fairy who had to stay here on earth, had children, and lived happily.
One day, the ever happy woodcutter forgot the deer’s words that he should not give the wing dress back to the fairy until they had three children. When they had two children, he showed the wing dress to the fairy. Then, the fairy put her wing dress on and returned to the sky with her children.
The woodcutter was left alone and lived in grief. But one day, he grasped a chance to take a bucket from the sky. And he was able to go to the kingdom of heaven to be with his family again.
Even though the woodcutter lived together with the fairy and his children in the kingdom of heaven, he was not happy all the time as he still missed his mother on Earth.
The woodcutter whined that he missed his mother. So the fairy let him go to travel by heaven’s horse and advised him not to get off the horse even on the land.
The woodcutter came down to the land from the sky and met his mother. His mother told him to have red bean porridge before leaving. He was having the porridge on the horse’s back and a dollop of hot porridge fell on the horse foot. The horse reared in fright, dropped him off and flew up to the sky. The woodcutter was left on the land again and could never ever return to the kingdom of heaven.
This tale is a traditional fairy tale of Korea but similar stories can be found in many other countries as well. It is a tale of losing the chance to live in the kingdom of heaven due to lingering attachments to the land. It also corresponds with many other stories, like Sodom and Gomorrah where they broke their word that they would go looking forward only and not look back; consequently, they became salt pillars. These tales advise us of attachments and lingering feelings in our human mind. They have lessons about stupidity that humans fundamentally have, and so they have been passed down through the many generations throughout human history.
Even though a gold block is in front of you, you cannot pick it up because you refuse to let go of the poo block that you are holding onto with both hands: this is human’s attachment. Although you get to live in the kingdom of heaven, you abandon that opportunity by your own will because of your lingering attachment to your past: that is how foolish we are. If you throw away that attachment and foolishness, you would not look back any more. Rather, you would live with gold blocks in the kingdom of heaven. It sounds so true; however, one who moves his address to heaven will live in the kingdom of heaven and one who has attachments to the land will live on the land. Let us not become a woodcutter who could not go to the kingdom of heaven because of his lingering attachment to the land. I would like for you to attain enlightenment about what it is to abandon the lingering attachments to land and to live in heaven, through master Woo Myung’s poem below.
One Who Is Born On the Earth Lives On the Earth, One Who Is Born In Heaven Lives In Heaven
The sounds of birds, the sounds of animals
The sounds of the wind, the sounds of everything
The sounds of humans
All are the sounds of heaven
Sound comes from the shape
People have their own language
People have different regional languages
Humans along with the whole of creation
Come from heaven and live in heaven
But because humans do not have heaven in their minds
They live on the earth
One who is born on the earth lives on the earth
One who is born in heaven lives in heaven
One whose body and mind
Are reborn as the body and mind of heaven
Lives in heaven
One who just has his own body and mind
Lives on the earth
When one cleanses his body and mind – his self – and
When that self is no more
When the universe becomes his self
The universe is within him
One who has heaven lives in heaven
Which is the kingdom of heaven
Which is the forever-living, never-dying kingdom
Because it is the living soul and spirit of Truth
It is everlasting and never-dying
– <The Way To Become A Person In Heaven While Living> By Woo Myung
