Fundamentals of Meditation

Fundamentals of Meditation

The human mind is the master of all spirits in heaven and earth.
The human body is the house of yin and yang's creation-transformation.
Enlightenment is attained through one's own dao of creation-transformation.

Do not think of being benevolent,
Do not think of being malevolent.

By forgetting my form, forgetting my existence,
my flesh no longer exists, I do not exist-nothing exists.
I then penetrate the heavenly realm above,
and pierce the depths of the earth below.

-Composed by His Holiness Ahn Un-san, the Taesang Jongdosanim of Jeung San Do-


When you meditate, the ultimate purpose is enlightenment, but to become enlightened is not easy. Think of Buddhist monks. Just to attain enlightenment, they leave their parents, siblings, and the world. What should we do to be enlightened or as Buddhists say "see nature"? Though Buddhist monks meditate, they cannot easily achieve its ultimate purpose. Though many secular people meditate, they do not change much. Secular people and monks are the same, so the way to meditate is the same. What should be the basic mindset for meditation? Throw away desire and become one with nature. In other words, do not try to be good, do not try to be bad. To think of being good or bad requires mental energy. Your mindset should be "I am neutral. My existence is in accord with nature. I am a natural person."
 

The human mind is the master of all spirits in heaven and earth.

The mind is the master of all existence in the universe. That is why humans govern all things. The human, born with all five energies—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—is the master of all things, and the human mind is the master of all spirits in heaven and earth.

The human body is the house of yin and yang's creation-transformation.

Your physical body is the house in which yin and yang make creative change. I come to exist through the union of body and mind, the physical and nonphysical. Mind is nonphysical. It has no form, no trace. Body is physical. It has form. When you attain enlightenment, your mind, the nonphysical, becomes the master of all spirits, and your body, which has form, becomes the house in which yin and yang make creative change. With enlightenment, you can summon wind and rain or even shrink heaven and earth. According to your will, you can easily make something bigger or smaller. Your body can make all kinds of creative change. Though it is not written here, it is said that the entire universe is contained in your hand.

Enlightenment is attained through one's own dao of creation-transformation.

Because your mind becomes the master of all spirits in heaven and earth, and your body becomes the house of yin and yang's creative change, enlightenment is the way of self-creative change. Enlightenment is not something that can be given to you as a favor or gained because you know influential people. Nor can it be bought with money. You cannot buy it even for the sum of all heaven and earth. People cannot be born of their own accord. Only when parents sow seeds, when they meet and make a child, can a person be born. But, after the body is born, that person has to eat and act to live. Being part of nature, you should do everything for yourself. It is you who decides to live, it is you who decides to die. That is the way of self-creative change.

Do not think of being benevolent,
Do not think of being malevolent.

What is the process of becoming enlightened? As I said before, during meditation, do not think of goodness and do not think of badness. Intending to be good uses your energy. Thinking of giving alms like a Buddhist, thinking of loving others like a Christian, or thinking of being loyal to your family and country like a Confucian all require mental energy. In meditation, all intentions, good and bad are obstacles to receiving the qi of great nature. So do not think of something good, do not think of something bad.

By forgetting my form, forgetting my existence,
my flesh no longer exists, I do not exist-nothing exists.

When you chant a mantra sitting in such a state, you come to forget your existence and form. This is the state that leads to a temporary opening of the spiritual eye or even enlightenment. I am telling you to forget completely whether you live in this world or not. In doing so, you come to forget your form and existence. You come to forget yourself completely, and you reach the state in which you do not exist. In that state your mind becomes one with nature. You become nature itself, untainted by worldly things. At that moment, you hear some news. That is the beginning. Now you are knocking on the door of enlightenment.

You should become one with the principle of nature. There is a state in which there is nothing, and there is a color in which there is no color. When you experience this, you can enter truth. You are immersed in nature, and nature enters you. Finally, nature and you become one. You forget all things around you, and you forget you. There are no things, there is no you, there is nothing. When you reach that state, your practice begins to go well.

You should not insist that anything in this world is yours. Does nature exist for you? Nature's principle exists as it is. It does not belong to anyone or anywhere. Do you think nature is on your side? You are a villain if you think you will control the world after gaining enlightenment. Who controls whom? Such thinking is erroneous. It is in defiance of nature and a rebellion against the world. For a practitioner, it is an act of suicide.

 
I then penetrate the heavenly realm above,
and pierce the depths of the earth below.

My method of meditation is different from that of Buddhists. In Buddhism, they cultivate their nature, and when they die, they leave behind sarira. In my method you get to know the spirit world thoroughly. There are many methods of meditation, but mine is the quickest. It would take many hours to explain the various methods, and there is no use for you to know them now. If you chant Jeung San Do's Taeeulju Mantra, your practice will come along easily. If you do it well, it will be one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand times easier than other methods.

You will penetrate the heavenly realm above and pierce the depths of the earth below. When your meditation is successful, you can look into heaven and see inside the earth. There is no end to talking about meditation. I could say enough to fill volumes, but for now just know the main points. Too much knowledge will hinder your meditation. The more you know, the more trivial thoughts you have.

When you chant, one thousand thoughts and ten thousand concerns come to you—the memory of suckling your mother's breast, the memory of fighting for the tasty crust from a pot of rice, the memory of being hit by someone. But when ten or twenty days pass, such thinking gradually decreases, and when more time passes, you reach the state of forgetting them. When you meditate regularly, the time it takes to forget trivial thoughts decreases. For a person with a calm mind, trivial thoughts disappear quickly and the person's mind plunges into dao. The mind becomes like clear water. That person can easily meditate well. To reach that state, please chant the Taeeulju Mantra often, and throw away useless thoughts. If your head is full of thoughts such as "I lent money to that guy," "I am jealous of her," or "I wanted to hit that bastard I was drinking with," do you think you are fit to meditate and follow a system of belief? Please live and meditate sincerely. Have the intention to volunteer for both menial and difficult tasks. This is the attitude of a sincere believer and true practitioner.

When someone intends to meditate, demons interfere. Some meditative practices have led people to serious injury, but nobody will be harmed by our method of meditation. Practitioners receive their leaders' energy. Here Sangjenim's dao is genuine and the leaders are also genuine. Nobody will go the wrong way in this meditation. You should just sit and chant mantras, forgetting your mind. To practice the right way, there should be a teacher who leads you the right way.
 

When you meditate steadily with the right mind, you experience something. Experiences vary according to the person. For example, you may see your ancestors or a resplendent being that looks benevolent. A virtuous person with no trivial thoughts can foresee big social changes such as the outcome of an election. Furthermore, if you are faithful in your belief, you can see what will happen at the time of gaebyeok or you can go up to heaven and see the spirit world. Upon reaching a certain level, you can see your previous lives. You may experience such unimaginable things. You can consider them a blessing from Sangjenim. If you meditate well you can receive such blessings, but do not cling to these experiences. If you are shown something false, you can be led the wrong way. You should not be deceived by them.

When you meditate, you meditate together with spirits. I must stress that it would be useless to meditate without a pure mind. You should not intend to harm others. When you intend to harm somebody, that person's ancestors foresee it and protect them. The ancestors tell them spiritually or guide them in dreams. Their ancestral spirits may keep your work from going smoothly, and may even block your work. Do not harm others even in your dreams. Even in your dreams, be good to others. Do not have ill will towards even those who intend to harm you. If you do nothing against such malicious people, spirits will punish them, thinking they are rogues for having bad intentions toward someone so genuine. Though harm may come to them, you will have nothing to do with it. If you live with only good thoughts, you are a sincere person and can be a genuine practitioner.
 
I want to emphasize that the words I have shared with you today are immutable principles of meditation. It is the same for anybody. With these principles, Buddhists would also make faster progress in their meditation. Together they constitute a short cut to meditation. Please write them in your notes and keep them in your mind, and share them with other people in your dojangs (dao centers). Mind is the master of all spirits and body is the house of yin and yang's creative change. All of these are the dao of self-creative change. This means enlightenment is the dao of making self-creative change. If you meditate continually and without trying to be good or bad, you forget your form and your existence. Forgetting form and existence leads you to forget things and yourself. You and nature become one being. Then you see everything. Though your eyes are closed, you see a distant mountain. You become bright, as bright as the clear autumn sky. You can see a worm eating the needles of a pine tree even though the tree is miles away. And then you can travel to the heavenly realm. If I coach each of you individually, I could make you reach the first stage of opening the spiritual eye within three days or at most one week. But how can I personally instruct so many people?

I will give you a hint that will make your meditation progress faster. Usually, when you meditate, you practice in the same place and chant the same mantra. Isn't that right? And if you meditate for one hour ten times that makes ten hours. But, can you meditate sitting in that place for ten hours straight? Perhaps some people cannot endure ten hours because they will have to go to the bathroom. Since most of you are young, I guess you can do it. While you are chanting, you should not be aware of yourself. I said in the beginning that you should forget your form and existence, and you should forget things around you and yourself, and then nature and you become one. You forget whether you exist or not in the world. Chanting like this, you reach the state of knowing nothing. At that moment, you are entering the gate of enlightenment, becoming one with everything. So, try to chant for a long time without stopping until you forget the state of your body. When you stay still for a long time, you forget everything. You forget that your legs have gone numb and forget whether you have been sitting for five or six hours. Upon reaching a certain state, your mind becomes united with nature though your body stays as it is. And there is one thing you should know. If you meditate like this, your body temperature may rise to over forty Celsius. If you touch a person in that state, it feels like your skin will peel off. You may think it would cause a big physiological problem, but it is okay. If you travel to the spirit world in that state, your body can stay as it is for many hours. When you surpass that level, you will soon reach completion. This is my hint for today. Today, for the first time I have told this to you.

Besides meditating you should also share the teachings with others. And of course you have to devote yourself to your job, which provides you with money, and you should be a model citizen. If people think there is something wrong with you, you will harm Jeung San Do. Though society has become rotten in many aspects, it is essentially just. Justice leads this society. If you digress from justice, they will say you are a degenerate. You should be a just person in your family, organization, society, nation, and tribe.

-Lectured by His Holiness Ahn Un-san, the Taesang Jongdosanim of Jeung San Do-


This teaching is really priceless and too precious to simply share with the public but I just share this for the destined people who could  truely appreciate his teaching. This is the essence of all the wisdom about meditation and spirituality.