There was a tiny village in countryside. A famous flea market was in the village with all kinds of things for sale. It opened every 6 months for only 3 days at a time.
When the flea market opened, many people gathered from all around the country. They had a wide range of clothes and antiques, you could also find delicious food and cheap jewelry. As they sold good quality products at a very cheap price, it was especially popular with the ladies. That made this flea market very famous. This side, in a corner of the flea market, a shabby-looking old man was selling combs.
The comb vendor said, “If you buy this comb, you can live for thousands of years. However, this is your only chance to buy one now. Please buy this comb quickly.” However, no one cared about his combs. They just passed by and were only interested in buying food or fancy jewelry and clothes. The next day the comb vendor was selling combs at the same spot. And he said the same thing again, “Hey folks, your attention please. I will sell these combs till tomorrow and won’t ever come back. Your only opportunity is now. If you buy this comb, you can live forever. What is more important in the world than living forever? Please hurry up and buy it.” Still no one was interested in his combs as they were busy looking around at what to eat, what to wear, and the fancy jewelry and antique. The day was getting dark. The comb vendor couldn’t sell any of his combs at all and had to close up. The last day came. The comb vendor bit the bullet and tried to sell just one comb but no one payed him many attention.
3 days passed eventually and the flea market had to close. The comb vendor packed all his bags and left. As he said, no one had seen him ever since.
From teacher Woo Myung’s book Stop Living in This Land Go to the Everlasting World of Happiness Live There Forever
The Reason Man is Born Into This World
Innumerable people have come and gone in this world but there is no one who knows where they have come from or gone to. In any case, those people have all disappeared from the world. There is little difference between a mayfly that passes away after a day and man who passes away after seventy or eighty years. From the universe’s point of view, man disappears after a fleeting, meaningless life. And only man dies holding onto all the stories from his life. When one looks back on those stories after much time has passed, it is all meaningless. When the Creator created man, he created man to resemble himself but man made his own self-centered world by copying what is in the Creator’s world. This enabled civilization to progress but man lost his original nature and lived selfishly.
Man’s greed led to the accelerated population of the world. When the world is populated to capacity, the Creator will come to the world to save man. If mankind had lived without greed, they would have died out naturally. Human life, like the life of a mayfly, is meaningless but it is the will of the Creator to harvest man when the human population is at its densest – that is, to save people when there are as many people living in the world as possible. Now is the time of the harvest. Instead of dying full of regrets and resentment, man should live forever in the land of God by becoming one with the mind of God. The reason and purpose man comes into the world is to live forever.
Dear people who disappear like smoke, without meaning: Just once, think deeply about yourself so that we may go together to live in the eternally living land. There is no meaning in human life; nothing remains from it and everything from it disappears. Now is the time, now – when God, Haneol-nim, Buddha, great compassion and love comes to the world and takes man who would otherwise disappear to the living land of Truth; when man can have the mind of God and be reborn in the mind of God by cleansing his mind; when man can be saved. Is there anything in the world more important than this? This is the reason man comes into the world.
