The Mountains, Streams And Nature Are Alive

   Drawings and writings of Woo Myung

The mountains and streams are blue and green, and crystal clear water flows in the ravine. In the gorge, a squirrel scurries away scared, while a pheasant flies away. There is an unidentifiable bird flying in the sky and azaleas, rhododendrons and white flowers bloom in the trees. Silver-vine leaves are growing on silver-vine trees and wild aster leaves can also be seen. People are following a path made for putting out mountain-fires, they are going to forage for mountain herbs. From inside the mini-van, the mountain scenery is spectacular. the path is just wide enough to accommodate the van, and we follow the meandering road until we reach the peak. The mountain at springtime is too beautiful for it only to be seen by the few people who are here. Stained through by their lives in the cities, people here mingle with nature, and as they forage for herbs without any human minds, they become brighter as their toxic human minds disappear. The ravine is too steep to climb, but I would like to travel up the water course. There is a decrepit shack and it is impossible to know who lived there and why it is now so disheveled. I think awhile about why someone might have lived here. The spring air is neither hot nor cold, and makes me want to prolong this moment for as long as possible.   Further down, villages are nestled in every valley, and stories of their long inhabitance have passed down through the ages. They were settled by fugitives from the Korean-Japanese war of the 1500’s, who escaped deep into these mountains, so deep it is still inaccessible by car. I’m told most people have now moved out into the cities. The water flowing valley after valley is so clear, and the rocks and pebbles carved by the flowing water through the years are pristinely clean, showcasing the beauty of the hills behind Mt. Gaya, where divine beings supposedly lived.

One must cleanse his mind in order to be a divine being, and only he who has cleansed his mind can know man must repent his evil mind of sin and karma. There are many stories of people all over the world, but people of the past exist because their descendants currently exist – those who have gone are silent, and they do not exist in the world. They are all futile affairs of human life. No matter how much time passes, it is possible to just live, outside of time, if man is born in the world. Then man would still be alive, but his soul is not able to live as long as the age of the world because he is not born in the world. I drink a bowl of makgeolli in a tavern and alone I ponder on the following matters: a divine being who created other divine beings has never existed in the world; a Buddha who made other Buddhas has never existed and there has never been saints or schools who have made more saints. Man struggles and strives to live man’s false lifetime, but a wise person discards himself in order to live to the age of the world – a lifetime of the world. This is something that is truly commendable, it is something to be thankful for. Man’s life is futile, but a person born as Truth lives forever in the true world. This is why man was born as a human-being, this is what man was born to do, and this is where he must go – the place where he must live. However, he does not know this because he is a man.   He simply keeps living his illusionary life, and feeling sorry for man, I order another bowl and drink.