To Find the True Self – Spirited Away
Hello, I’m your host Kristine and welcome to Woo Myung Cast, where you can listen to Great Teacher Woo Myung’s words of wisdom.
Today’s story is called To Find the True Self – Spirited Away.
The Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki is very famous. Many people in the world know his work, such as My Neighbor Totoro. Spirited Away that I will introduce in this writing is also a well-known piece throughout the world. It was also nominated and earned an award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The film’s synopsis is truly profound. In short, a girl named Chihiro and her family move to a village and while moving, they arrive at a strange countryside village with no people in sight. While looking for food out of hunger, Chihiro’s parents eat some food and instantly become pigs. Chihiro is left alone. The reason why her parents have become pigs is due to a spell by the witch Yubaba. Yababa runs The Bathhouse, and Chihiro gets to work as a servant girl in the big Bathhouse. The witch changes Chihiro’s name to Sen. She did this because she wanted for Sento forget about her original name and life and work for the witch the rest of her life as Sen. Without knowing the reason, she works as a slave and meets a boy named Haku. Haku is also a loyal servant who carries out important tasks for Yubaba.
Throughout the film, Chihiro wants to be called as Chihiro, not Sen. She could have spent her entire life in The Bathhouse as Sen. However, she continuously tries to escape from it and to keep her name Chihiro. In a circumstance where she could have forgotten her real self, she earnestly goes through many ordeals so that she doesn’t forget her real self. After much effort, she finally saves her parents from the witch’s spell and successfully escapes from the Bathhouse. Haku has been influenced by her and finds out that he is originally a dragon, not a boy. Haku had also lived as a false self under Yubaba’s spell.
Like the characters in this film, we really need to give a thought as to whether the life we live is real or false. I will tell you that the life we live is false. People mistakenly think that they live in the world but they are not actually living in the world. The human body operates under the same principle as a camera. Human’s eyes, nose, mouth, ears and body function as a camera taking pictures. People take pictures into their mind of what they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, smell with their nose, taste with their mouth, and feel with their body. This self who takes pictures also lives inside that mind. Humans have copied the world exactly into their mind and the self who copies the world also lives in that mind of the self.
If you think about elementary school, all of the scenes are in your mind. Teachers explaining in classes, friends and even yourself have been taken as pictures. What happened during the graduation ceremony has all been taken as pictures in your mind. When thinking about it, it can be all brought up, can’t it? When thinking about having breakfast this morning, it is in your mind. And the ‘self’ eating is there, too. Go out for a moment, look up at the sky and come back. If you think about it now, the sky has been imprinted in your mind, and also yourself looking at the sky has been imprinted there in your mind. Try to think about yourself reading this before going to bed. Then, even this moment must have been imprinted in your mind. Humans have never lived in the world. Humans are living as the false self.
Haku was not a boy but a dragon. Sen was not Sen but Chihiro. Likewise, you think the life you live and yourself are real but they are not real. There is a real self. We should find our real self quickly, just like Chihiro did. Chihiro was to live as Sen trapped in the Bathhouse for her entire life. However, time after time, she resisted against that life and kept her real self in the end. Thanks to her, Haku also found his real self and felt thankful to Chihiro. When finding your real self, you can become happy. One’s real self is not human but mind of the universe that exists as it is anytime – even before we were born and after our body vanishes.
Humans are originally supposed to live as the universe mind. However, as we were born, we have been taking pictures into our mind and even the self keeps living trapped in that mind. Therefore, once the lifespan of body ends and the body dies, we vanish and die forever because the self is a picture. Doesn’t it sound horrible? As the life we live is false, we must find our true self and live forever. The way is to destroy the false world that the self has made and throw away the ‘self’ living in that, too. Then, your mind becomes one with the universe mind and you must be born again as a never-dying soul from there. The generation to achieve it has come. Countless people have achieved completion and found the true self, i.e. live the most happily and joyfully. Thousands of people are becoming so every year. Do not die forever after living as the false self. The time when you can find the true self while living and live forever has come. Find the place where the right method is taught. Let’s learn the method and live forever together as our true self.
Let’s live as Chihiro, not Sen. Let’s live as a true one, not false.
To conclude, let me introduce a writing of teacher Woo Myung, a real teacher of the generation who has been devoting his entire life to wish everyone in the world could be enlightened to the truth and live happily forever since he became the truth.
This is called We Are Not Living in the Right Way.
We Are Not Living In The Right Way
The reason the lives we humans live are false is because the empty universe – the original Truth and the original foundation – is our origin. That is to say, even if you had not been born, the emptiness that existed before all creation, exists as it is. You came into the human world with what you call your ‘self’, and have lived as that false self having made your own world inside your mind. From the perspective of the original foundation, your life is less than a second when compared to the eternal land of the original foundation; it is nothing more than eighty or so odd years.
Everyone lives according to his own will inside an illusionary world that he has made, having turned his back on his true self, which is the original foundation. He does not know that the world he is living in is a dream, wherein he has his spouse and children, money, fame, family and love. Believing that the dream is his, he lives only for his own sake, amassing fortune in his world. How foolish is this! Furthermore, he leaves his fortune to his children; in effect, adding burden to their illusionary world. He is truly very foolish. He does not understand that possessing something – making something his – is suffering and burden. Therefore, he constantly tries to gain everything he can and fulfill his purpose. But within that burden and suffering, he dies eternally; which is why his illusionary world is meaningless.
What one truly needs to do and achieve is to completely destroy his false self, become true and live forever. And if he does not amass blessings in the land of Truth, then how can he be called a righteous person? One who lives for the sake of righteousness discards his self and transfers his family, money, love and fame to the kingdom of righteousness. Such a person is truly righteous; he is an eternal, never-dying immortal.
Man is certain that he is born into and lives in the world, but he is living inside his own mind, which is an illusion. He is false and incomplete; in other words, he is a dream-like, non-existent being, a ghost. He does not know the true will of the true world; thus he is selfish and, in turn, creates his own world in which he sees, hears and learns, living only in accordance to his own will. He thinks that only he himself is right and that everybody else is wrong. He lives with discontent and hunger because he lives only for himself, endlessly trying to fill that void with his desires, which only end up becoming his burden and pain.
A ghost is an entity that dies and disappears, and so the only thing it can teach its children, or to anyone, is to have the same greed it has; that is, the greed of its form. Instead, we must first teach our children of death before we teach them of life; of not having before having; of non-existence before existence; and of Truth before falseness. We must teach our families as well as the people in this world to live for righteousness and to live in righteousness together. Living in such a way would be a true and righteous life.
Do not be the sort of pitiful person who only thinks to leave money to your children and family, thus allowing them to die within their minds. It is only when you commit yourself to a true, righteous life while you are alive that the blessings from your life’s actions will remain in the true world. He who does not amass blessings in heaven while living cannot ultimately be born in the kingdom of heaven. This is because God within him is dead and he is more attached to his self that is a ghost.
From Teacher Woo Myung’s book, Stop Living In This Land Go To The Everlasting World Of Happiness Live There Forever
We hope you enjoyed today’s insightful poem by Great Teacher Woo Myung.
Thank you for listening and please join us next time on Woo Myung Cast where the more you listen to Great Teacher Woo Myung’s writings, the more you gain wisdom. This Woo Myung Cast is sponsored by Maum USA. If you would like to learn more about Great Teacher Woo Myung, please visit Woomyung.org.
