Hyung Jin Moon
May 19, 2010
On April 18, Hyung Jin nim and Yeon-ah nim gave necklaces with the church symbol pendant to Japanese members who had made extraordinary donations to the Cheon Bok Gung building fund.
Is it so that you can do your ministry more powerfully, so that God can help you more, that you do this Jeong Seong?
I do it not so that God can help me but so I can "kill" my self. Jeong Seong is more in order to check myself. Its kenosis: rather than God helping me, it's getting rid of "me." It's always trying to reflect on one's posture in front of God and True Parents.
Is this so that you can be a purer vessel?
Everybody is a sinner in front of God. We cannot burn that away by our own effort, our own Jeong Seong, even. That love and grace come from our True Parents. I cannot get rid of my own sin by doing Jeong Seong. True Parents may have pity on me or forgive me if I offer some condition, but that is grace from God and True Parents. For me, Jeong Seong doesn't have that purging power; it is really checking where one is, making sure you are not doing your work to glorify yourself. That would be from Satan. If you do that, you will have no worth in the spirit world.
The pitfall for anyone who has authority is the problem that authority and power corrupt. And that's everywhere. If you are not aware of that, and you think you are somehow beyond that, and don't doubt yourself, that is arrogance. Every day you have to doubt yourself and "kill" your self.
Is this with the idea of avoiding impure motivation?
Yes. You want to make sure you have doing the divine mission as your purpose. You have to make sure your stance in front of God's throne is one of releasing, letting go and becoming empty. That posture then influences everything you do during the day. It sets the tone in the morning.
Please say something about the metaphor of becoming the dot.
As we follow the spiritual path, the beginning posture is empty, humble; we become as small as a dot. Every item that we see begins as a point; the point is the fundamental dimension, from which everything arises. With a Chinese character, you begin at one point, and end at a point. You have to make sure that as you do Jeong Seong, you remain a point or a dot. Even though you may use other strokes, your heart is a dot. It is from a point that a line can be created. A line needs two points to connect it. Don't think it's worthless just because it's small. Understand that it has the value of everything.
When we do Jeong Seong, it's not just self-annihilation; when we do Jeong Seong we're becoming a dot but we're connecting with a greater divinity, the greater heart, the greater mission -- which is not my own mission but God's mission. We're connecting with the greatest thing. The dot is the origin of the brush strokes on a painting, or of letters you are writing. Culture is shaped and expressed through such things.
Don't be fooled by the appearance of the small dot. Don't think it's the least valuable; because it is the most valuable. When you become a dot, you can truly come to your highest level of value. Don't try to stand on the dot; you must get rid of your self and become the dot. That's the heart we want to begin and end Jeong Seong with. This also applies to your life as a whole.
You say you tend to learn quickly and then move on to something else. So what made you stick with the particular ascetic training you have been doing for more than ten years now?
I always love a new challenge. If I do something and get good at it, I want a new challenge, something harder. Finding a challenge has always been a big part of my search. Reflecting on my past, I could see that I had a pattern of doing something, getting bored, then moving on to something else. With Jeong Seong, after Young Jin hyung passed away, I made a commitment, once I started on this path, to follow it -- to continue to train myself until I die. That was part of it.
Another part was that I knew I had a pattern of not wanting to do things after I got good at them to a certain level. It was a challenge I had to confront, and one I had to confront continuously. Because it's not like other things I used to do. The fight against fallen nature, fallen tendencies -- arrogance and so forth -- is endless. It is constant; and you've got to be aware of that you have to continuously train and battle yourself. Laziness and arrogance keep arising. You have to continuously train. I love spiritual training because it doesn't end; I love the eternal nature of it. Not only do you do it to get close to an eternal God but when you are training you learn to become part of eternity, because it is an unending quest. [Hyung Jin nim laughs] I like that.