Ms. Yoon-Jeong Shim who has found the complete self
Interview by Hye-Jin Kim. Photograph by Seong-Hoon Hong
People cleanse their mind to become healthy and to be free from stress.
The diligent practice of meditation and patience will lead them to these benefits.
However, is that really what it means to cleanse the mind?
Referring to Maum Meditation, it is said,
‘Maum Meditation changes the human mind to the Universe mind.’
That is, you throw away all kinds of minds
that you accumulated throughout your life and then live as the Universe mind.
The Universe mind is the everlasting,
never-changing Truth-the consciousness of the pure Universe.
How can this be possible?
There are people who have truly been free from themselves
and live as one with the world. What they did was cleanse their mind
by throwing away all of the false images in their mind.
We met Ms. Yoon-Jeong Shim (44),
who helps with the level 4 guidance at the Maum Meditation Education Center.
Her parents watched her closely. She could not freely wear what she wanted or put on make-up as she wanted. Nor did she have freedom to meet anyone. She felt that she was overly controlled.
When she went to college, she met her husband. Her husband was a dedicated student, and he frequently moved back and forth between Korea and Japan. She felt she could be so free if she lived like him.
Right after graduation, she married him and they went to China together to study oriental medicine. She studied very hard; more than 19 hours a day. She literally memorized every word in the textbooks. Her hard work paid off. She was always ranked first in her class and received scholarships. Even after she gave a birth, she left her child with her mother and she solely concentrated on her studies. In the meantime, her relationship with her husband had been getting worse gradually.
After she had completed a six-year-study in China, she came back to Korea and lived with her in-law’s family, but she was still distant from her husband. One day, her husband left Korea, leaving her and their child behind. She wept with hatred and resentment of her husband who made her life difficult. Also, she suffered from insomnia. Unfortunately, she could not talk to anyone about her pain. She had to suppress her emotion because her marriage was opposed by her family. For a year and a half, she struggled every night in an attempt to rest. ‘Why have I started to have pain’ then in 1997, she started Maum Meditation.
How did you feel when you first started Maum Meditation?
I was too proud and overly confident. I believed that because this world was strange and because I met the wrong people, my life was in a tangle. I believed that my problems were just the result of unfortunate events and conditions and that I would overcome these once I got myself together. I now know that the problems were because of me ? because of my false mind ? and that I had to cleanse my mind. Maum Meditation has the precise method to do this ? to cleanse the mind. As I followed this method, I could clearly see how self-centered I was. Little by little, I moved away from my self-centered thoughts and began to see from the Universe’s point of view. Then, I could see that I had been so arrogant and hypocritical. I was the one who was jealous and envious of others’ goodness. I pretended to be kind and moral. I had nursed my mom for about ten years. When I was with my mom, I pretended that I was a good daughter, but at other times, I resented her, wondering why she had to bother me. I cried a lot when I saw my naked being. How come I only knew about myself…? I was so shameful that I couldn’t eat at all for a month. I couldn’t go out at all. I could never look up at the sky. I truly hoped to escape from such human mind.
You seem to have sincerely practiced throwing away the mind.
The more I saw myself, the stronger the determination I had. I must throw away that existence, ‘me’. Always from the perspective of the Universe, I threw away such mind. I watched myself and every action I made objectively, as if I was a surveillance camera. Although I threw it away over and over again, dust-like mind deep in my mind. For example, if someone had kept disturbing me and bothering me, I had thoughts in the back of my mind like, “How much are you better than me?” Though, when I fully recognized and accepted my arrogance, I could get rid of ‘me’ completely.
‘Throwing me away’ sounds so vague.
My mom passed away few years ago. I was felt a huge void when I saw only a handful of ash left at the crematory. I came to know what would happen after death. It was non-existence, and I would be the same upon my death. I then felt it would be really ‘wrong’ to lead my life of struggle if I were to die and disappear. ‘Throwing me away’ means to break free from that life of meaninglessness in order to live happily with the never-changing mind in the real world of Truth. Simply speaking, it means changing the human mind to the Universe mind. When you see from the Universe mind, not from the mind confined to yourself, you get to see how wrong your life is. You cannot help but admit that you are the existence that should truly be thrown away.
When did you start to guide others in Maum Meditation?
Before Maum Meditation, I had countless minds. I was attached to money, love, dignity, fame, pride, and pretending that I was the best. I had been full of jealousy and resentment. Maum Meditation changed all of that. I wanted to let people know about what I experienced, like the delight and pleasant thrill as I threw away the countless minds one by one. I found true freedom when I broke free from me. I also encouraged students in many ways when they found difficulty in throwing away the mind. In fact, as I helped others, I was the one who had been helped the most. In order to guide others in Maum Meditation I had to truly, discard my false self-my ego…. There must not be ‘I’. There must not be, ‘myself’. Then I could become one with others and sincerely guide them from their perspectives. This was not easy at all but I prayed every day; ‘please, make me able to treat people with the Universe mind without my self’ and if they could throw away their self and become Truth, I could devote everything for them. I felt it from my heart. I have been living with this mindset every day, and it has led me to today.
Can’t you live well even without Maum Meditation?
You might have happiness for a moment. However, as long as you have the human mind, you quickly feel painful and suffer whenever circumstances and conditions change. That’s how humans are. Our human greed is unlimited, and our minds always changes. Maum Meditation actually enables you to live by escaping from all such things. In the past, people believed that death was the state after the end of their lifespan. But in fact, if you are trapped inside your mind world, you are already dead ? meaning you are living with no true, living consciousness. Maum Meditation is throwing away the ‘self’ and being reborn as the Universe mind and living joyfully, happily. So isn’t it worth trying? (Smile)
Are you living as the living soul at the completion of Maum Meditation?
Gratefully, yes. I had been joyfully throwing away my mind every day for more than ten years, and all the sudden, my existence has really disappeared completely. You’ve heard of ‘great freedom’ and ‘great liberation’, haven’t you? This was it. You just come to know on your own when the entire mind is removed. It is difficult to express in words. (Smile) What’s important is you will live the real life as the true soul having the true life when you escape from the delusion and have no mind. What’s truly joyful is that everyone, even you, could achieve this if you throw away the entire mind. The generation of human completion, which I thought was only written in the Scriptures, has really come.
She currently guides level 4 at Maum Meditation Education Center and, she lectures and counsels with her heart at the University Camp. Ms Shim said she couldn’t describe how happy she was every time each person confirmed that the mind had been thrown away. She added that she was grateful that she could guide people at Maum Meditation..
“Through the meditation, you become very certain of living eternally as the true soul when ‘yourself’ disappears. You come to know the ‘eternal life’ itself is ‘you’ and you do not have any human mind world. And also, you realize that the true soul which is the universe is ‘oneness’ itself. I am grateful for the past and my relationships, all the practitioners whom I have met, and Maum Meditation, which have made me to exist today.”
