Master Woo Myung Biography (Wikipedia)
Life for Complete World
As a result of years searching for a way to achieve human completion, Woo Myung founded Ma-Eum Su-Ryun (our meditation method) with its 7-level method to discard human mind. He has since dedicated his whole life to helping people of the world to discard all of their human minds so that they can live completely with the mind of the Universe.
Childhood Questions About Life and Death
“I was not a great person or a clever one. Rather I was a person who was most lacking. I lived scolding myself constantly, telling myself that I was the worst person in the world. I did not have any minds of superiority or arrogance. Perhaps that is why I was humble, and because I knew I was lacking, I lived and worked hard.” – Woo Myung
Woo Myung was born in the midst of the Korean civil war, in a village called Euisung of Kyungbook province, South Korea. Located between Mt. Bongwoojae and Mt. Ansan, Euisong was a battleground during the war, with one mountain occupied by South Korean forces and the other by the North.
During his childhood he often found human bones strewn around the fields and countryside, which sparked his first thoughts about life and death. At the tender age of nine, he became a head of the household when his father passed away, and those faint thoughts turned into deep resounding questions.
After school, he would load an A-frame on his back and set off into the mountains and fields to work. It was on his way home, dragging his exhausted body, that he most missed his father. He recalls, “Our family was one of the many sorrowful families of that time.” Every time he stepped into the room he had shared with his father, he would wonder, “Where has my father gone? Where do people go after they die?” He lived life often pondering upon the futility of man, and the meaning of life and death.
The Path of Seeking Truth
“Simply living out one’s lifetime cannot be all there is. Why is it that everyone lives then dies so meaninglessly?” -Woo Myung
This question was the reason he spent much of youth in deep introspection and seeking Truth. By the time he turned thirty, he had read innumerable religious and philosophical books but he was not able to find any answers that satisfied him. He also sought out many sages and ascetics, but there were none who could answer his questions.
With unanswered questions about Truth remaining in his mind, he turned his focus to other areas of his life. He became financially comfortable, running a successful college preparatory academy. But this thought always remained in the back of his mind, “If I am alone in living well, what meaning is there in that? There is no happiness as long as there are people in the world suffering.” He wondered what he could do in order for everyone in the world to become happy. This was his greatest quandary, and he was certain that happiness did not come from material wealth or fame. He believed that true happiness could only be found when one knows where he comes from, where he returns, and the reason he was born. Eventually he made up his mind to seek the answers to these questions once and for all.
Attaining Enlightenment
At the end of 1995, Woo Myung decided to go to Gaya Mountain in search of enlightenment, and his wife joined him on his path of seeking Truth. They began to discard their mind worlds and all the minds they had accumulated since birth. His wife attained enlightenment first, and Woo Myung recollects, “I looked back on the life that I had lived, and realized I had more sins than anyone else. I told myself that the whole world would laugh if a person such as me actually became enlightened.” Rather than striving to become enlightened, he discarded his mind as well as his very self and on 3rd January, 1996, he was able to discard his mind world completely. He was enlightened that the Universe is his mind and that he is Truth.
“Truth is the infinite Universe. The Universe is originally the great Soul and Spirit, and a person who becomes this existence itself does not die but lives forever. Such is what human completion is.” – Woo Myung
When he was resurrected as Truth, he came to know the principles of the world, and all of his questions about life and death were answered. Realizing that people can only truly live when they discard their minds completely, he made up his mind to teach people how to become Truth.
The Method of Human Completion
Among the seven billion people on this planet, no two people have exactly the same minds. Each person lives with suffering and burden, each in their own way. In order to escape from suffering and achieve human completion, and for all people to become one, each person must discard his own mind world. However, there had to be a method to teach people who are incomplete how to achieve human completion.
“In order to teach the people of the world, there needed to be a method, and so I thought from their perspective. After studying on this twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, I was enlightened of the method with which I could teach people.” – Woo Myung
Woo Myung wished for all people to become Truth as he had, more than anything else. While there was no need for him to further cleanse his mind as he had already become Truth, he studied more diligently than ever in order to be able to explain Truth to people in a way they could most easily understand, which culminated in 7- level methods. The scientific and systematic method of discarding minds that he founded stands out from other meditations in that it allows anyone to easily achieve human completion, regardless of age, gender, or race; the method which results in as much enlightenment as one has patiently discarded his human mind.
Many People Begin to Achieve Enlightenment
Despite the ease of the meditation method, it was not easy for people to understand the principle of the method. While many people wanted to enjoy the fruits of enlightenment, their egos were strong and they did not want to discard.
Woo Myung had to first make people understand that the minds they had inside them were illusions; that the world they saw when trapped within their mind worlds was a false one; and that in order to achieve Truth and have the true mind, all of one’s human false mind must be discarded. When they began to attain enlightenment, Woo Myung was more overjoyed than they themselves, “It is impossible to describe the joy of countless people attaining enlightenment. I felt more joy when other people were enlightened than I had felt with my own enlightenment.”
In order to spread Truth to the wider world, his annual seminar tours around the world began. From the U.S. to Europe, through Africa, Asia, Oceania, and South America, he travelled relentlessly, sometimes crossing two national borders in one day.
“There is nothing more important or urgent than the business of becoming of Truth. There is nothing else that must be done in this human life of limited time, but my mind is hurried because the world is wide.” – Woo Myung
The Era of Human Completion Begins
Woo Myung continues to travel the world today, waiting for the day when everyone escapes from their realities of suffering and lives as Truth and oneness. Meditation which began in a small country inn with ten people, has now spread to over four hundred centers in thirty-seven countries worldwide with over four hundred thousand practitioners.
“Until now, it was an age of adding in a false world. Adding or having only leads to more suffering. Now we must discard our minds and return to the Universe.”
– Woo Myung
His message is that the reason we are born is to live forever; even though our bodies will die and eventually disappear, our Soul and Spirit that is reborn as the body and mind of the Universe lives eternally.
Even though there are many people all over the world who are on the path to completion through the 7 levels of Meditation, Woo Myung does not rest because of the countless more who are still living with suffering, waiting for a way to be free of their struggles and become Truth. Teaching people that it is their right to live eternally, Woo Myung continues to awaken the Universe within people, one at a time.
“It is my hope that before I die, Truth will spread all over the world and that all people become Truth.” – Woo Myung
