Leadership and Our Eternal Center

Hyung Jin Moon
March 19, 2010

On March 19, Hyung Jin nim spoke to leaders from various nations studying on the 120-day workshop that Father is hosting in Korea.

Hyung Jin nim began by explaining how he had asked True Parents to tell him which Chinese character each treasured the most. Father chose "Seong," meaning sincerity. Mother chose "ae," meaning love. A feature of the 120-day workshop is that all participants follow a course of early morning Jeong Seong in the form of bows and meditation, and Hyung Jin nim sought to enhance their appreciation of that tradition. He spoke in Korean.

In the two years that I have been conducting this ministry, shouldering various responsibilities, I have thought of these two Chinese characters as being our pillars. There are times, aren't there, when we don't know what the right thing to do is. We must lead others, but we are uncertain of the way to go. In such times, we can come back through those two kinds of training [in sincerity and love]. These are not just external Chinese characters, they are definitely characters that let us know how we should live.

When you offer Jeong Seong, your attitude is very important. Offering Jeong Seong is not done to inflate our egos. Some people use certain aesthetic practices to inflate their self-image. They think that because they know more, they are growing. If we work in that way, we are immediately on the path to the devil. This attitude in offering Jeong Seong can lead to self-deception. That is what happens if we use this in the wrong way.

We may think we are offering much Jeong Seong but as we grow we can create in ourselves the mindset that "I am becoming a more wonderful person, a much more wonderful person than you!" Without realizing we may be making ourselves bigger. From such egoism comes arrogance. This is a truly dangerous part of the practice.

If this happens, Jeong Seong becomes something evil. Jeong Seong is therefore a fearsome thing: As I make this devoted effort my ego is growing and God and True Parents are becoming less significant in my heart. I can be as great as True Parents; they are not so special. I am getting up earlier then they are anyway.... This is a very dangerous aspect of Jeong Seong. Many ascetics train themselves incorrectly. When someone claims, "I have penetrated the Way," or claims to have been given some kind of magical powers, he is a fake.'- He's on the path to the devil.

So what if you can run on top of bamboo? Father was resurrected seven times from death. How can you be proud of being able to walk on bamboo stalks? You don't offer Jeong Seong for such purposes. If you do offer Jeong Seong with such an aim, very soon you will be walking on the devil's path.

On the other hand, if you follow the path of Jeong Seong and spiritual training and rid yourself of such thoughts and cut yourself down in size, and ponder, realistically, how proud you have been of yourself and how great you thought you were and come to realize that it is not true, you can do great things.

When we do Jeong Seong, we begin from one point and end at a point. From that point, you may make a horizontal stroke to write the character for "one," and another vertical stroke would make it into the character for "ten." In the art of calligraphy, this dot is the simplest yet at the same time the most difficult stroke. Contained within the dot is all the chi [energy]. If you understand this, you will realize that it is the same for offering Jeong Seong.

Spiritual training can be difficult; also, during the time you prepare and train your mind, many temptations will come to you. You will have experienced many temptations during the short period of exercises and the meditation, which was to train yourselves in mind -- body unity. There will be temptations to make your body more comfortable; you will feel inclined not to want to continue the training; and there will be worldly temptations coming into your mind.

This is a time to offer gratitude to God and True Parents. During this time, other issues constantly come to mind, disturbing us.

If we are leaders in the Unificationist faith, what is our eternal center? It is True Parents. So every day when we get up, we hold fast to that center. We offer a full bow to our True Parents, and begin dedicating ourselves to our day's work. As you go on doing this each day, it becomes easier. You feel more comfortable with it. You can come to long for that time.

At first I did not want to get out of bed in the morning. But I now have the desire to get up and do it. I'm not sure if you've had this experience within the twenty-one days, but if you continue over time it becomes easier and you become more comfortable doing it. You can feel True Parents love. You can truly feel God's love. You feel moved in your heart. You feel Heaven's grace and blessing. As I come to be aware, little by little, about life, I can feel how valuable this life is, how valuable it was to be born like this, how precious it is to be able to live during this time. Breathing is also the same. I had taken it for granted but one day I realized how precious it is to be able to breathe. "I am breathing and I am alive on the earth," and because of that, I can shed tears, I can feel moved and I can encounter the working of the spirit world. In so doing, because I have experienced a taste of Jeong Seong and training myself, it is truly an important part of my life that I would not want to lose.

Truly I am renewed in my feelings for everything -- life, nature, spring, winter, all. My eyes and heart discover the beautiful Jeong Seong of God in the smallest, most mundane things or activities. I am able to realize again the things that I previously had little concern for, such as the beautiful scent of flowers; whether it is the beautiful sunlight or raindrops, or whatever, I am discovering beauty and mystery. Wherever I go, God embraces me, always giving me gifts.

Offering Jeong Seong is not something you do for one or two days. It is the building of a great mountain, a mountain made by piling up little stones every day. In the twenty-one days you have been doing this, you have placed twenty-one pebbles here.

Generally, as you use something its value depreciates. It is the same for a car, or for any item. However, there is something which, the more you use it, remains forever, and whose value does not diminish: that is Jeong Seong. Over time, as we offer Jeong Seong, its value grows.

The most important thing with Jeong Seong is to be consistent. When I was a child I had the habit of quickly learning whatever I learned. Father too, whatever he does, he picks it up quickly. Because I learned quickly, I would soon just move on to something else. When I reached the same level as the person who was teaching me, I moved on to something else. That is the kind of character I had.

On one hand, this is a good, but on the other hand, it isn't, because there is no consistency. When you arc able to do a little of something quickly, you tire of it fast and move on to something else. I guess that's probably why I wasn't good in my studies. On the matter of study, my older brother Young Jin would say to me, "It's easy to do well in school; you just need to be consistent. You need to consistently write down what the teacher says every day, do your homework every day and do it properly, and when there are exams coming up, prepare for them and do well in them." This is what he taught me.

I was a fast learner, so I thought that I didn't need to do my homework that day, that it wouldn't matter much because the exams were months away. But that was wrong. That's why I was very bad at studying. But after he passed away, I began to follow the path of an ascetic life, and it was a big challenge. In my case, because I learn and tire of things very fast and always want to learn something else, having to train myself day after day -- that is, training my mind and body every day with consistency and without exception -- has been difficult.

In the beginning it was a completely new thing and therefore pleasurable, but after three years it became a struggle. It was even excruciating, as if I were having all my teeth pulled out. Not only waking up early by myself, but doing the training every single day in the same place, became more than loathsome; it got to the point that I felt stifled and angry and never wanted to do it ever again even if I died.

When you begin to experience such things, many satanic temptations come to you. "Don't follow this path, it's useless and unnecessary. It was enjoyable at first, but now it's a waste of time. You are throwing away your potential. Why should you do things like this?" Also at that stage, many of those near me suggested, You've been doing this for a long time. Why don't you do it in a more comfortable way?

And when some people were given a special responsibility, it was difficult for them to continue doing the conditions, so I was asked if it was okay for them to begin their spiritual training at 5:00 AM or whenever else they do Hoon Dok Hae, rather than at 2:30 AM. However, that's not how I think.

After Young Jin passed away, I promised him that I'd follow the path of an ascetic life. But Jeong Seong is not something you can do for a short time to feel more spiritual, so you can say, Oh, I feel very good spiritually. That is merely a vacation, a recess. Jeong Seong needs to be offered whether it is night or day, raining or snowing, showering sparks from heaven or not, whether there is a world or not -- whether it has come to ruin or not. Maintaining the training, your spiritual practices as if you're doing them for the first time every day becomes your Jeong Seong.

Self-inflation is not the point of following this path. If your ego is getting bigger, you are following the path of Satan, the devil. Through the path of Jeong Seong, we are making the self smaller, and as we grow smaller, God and True Parents within our hearts grow bigger. At first all you see is "I." You might think, This is too difficult, I don't want to do it, or you might think, This is so peaceful; it's so good for my blood circulation. Everything you are thinking is for "I" or "me" at first. Your heart is like that, but that is not yet Jeong Seong.

We diminish our egos when we offer Jeong Seong. As they become smaller and we become humbler, we can see only True Parents in our hearts, or feel them growing bigger in our hearts. Every day, you waver back and forth as you engage in training, in Jeong Seong.

For example, if one day your self-centeredness goes down a level whereas your focus on True Parents goes up a level, there is a difference of two levels overall. Then you can feel you have grown that day.

But let's say the very next day you have maintained the level of focus on God and True Parents, but the degree to which you focus on yourself has gone up three levels. In that case, the difference between the two is a minus already. You are engaged in that type of struggle every day. Sometimes you have a bad day; sometimes you get bad days for a lengthy period, weeks or months.

It's an everyday struggle that starts from the physical body. Getting up at an hour when no one else is up and wishing you could sleep for two hours more... There is a big difference between getting up at 2:30 AM and 4:30 AM. It's a very big difference. How wonderful it would be to sleep for those two hours!

So, the limitations, the struggles, begin with the physical body, and you first need to fight with them and win. But if you continue to do this, it will become a personal habit within a few years. At first, when I was offering Jeong Seong, I sometimes became sick, caught a cold or became sore all over. Now, though, I get a cold and feel fatigued when I don't do Jeong Seong. That's quite a mystery, isn't it?

There is a connection between the first and second blessings -- isn't there? -- between the perfection of the mind-body relationship and the perfection of a true family. When you offer Jeong Seong, you need to do it with a sincere heart, as sincere as the pledge you made to stay together forever that you made in the Blessing Ceremony. It's as important as keeping your marriage vows.

When you have people working under you, you hear many compliments such as, "You are so great" or "You are working so hard," or even "You are so handsome." We receive compliments that prompt our ego to grow, and the greater our responsibilities are, the more "temptations" of this type arise. As you become increasingly successful in fulfilling your responsibilities, those temptations grow bigger and sweeter. If you don't make the time to check yourselves, meditate and train yourselves and reflect on yourselves as leaders, you can very easily become bad people within a short time. Very soon, your responsibilities become a way to display how great you are rather than a way to give glory to God and True Parents. You start to think, I am such a capable person.

As time goes on, a person in charge of a particular responsibility has the potential to convert his mind-set into a culture. Thus, the culture of an organization comes into being through him. If you do not restrain the creation of an egocentric culture focused on making your ego grow bigger, your subordinates will learn that from you. And when they adopt this egocentric culture, they will use it to control their leader.

Just as Satan controlled Adam and Eve, they can lead you into temptation. They can entice you in ways reminiscent of Lucifer enticing Eve. In time, that demon may dominate you. That is the greatest danger. That is why offering Jeong Seong as a leader, that is, always making yourselves smaller while expanding your heart toward True Parents and training yourself as a way of denying your ego, is not done for yourself alone; it's something you do for everyone, because the leader affects everyone.

People ask me, "Now you are the international president and in charge of world mission headquarters, the church and even UPF, so why don't you do your Jeong Seong at 4:30 rather than 2:30?" When I hear such things, I think to myself, "This is Satan!"

Having a position and responsibilities or not does not make Jeong Seong less necessary. If that were the case, it would relegate Jeong Seong to only being the means to get a position. It would be fake. Whether I have a position or not, whether I am the international president or released from all responsibilities by Father tomorrow, I will still get up early and meditate. When Father gave me this big responsibility, even on the day of the inauguration, we climbed the mountain and meditated, the same as always. That's what's important.

In the end, Jeong Seong not only elevates God and True Parents in our hearts and protects our community and culture from moving toward Satan through self-centered arrogance, it also saves us. Jeong Seong makes us reflect upon ourselves, makes us constantly and continuously ponder the attitude we should have in relation to True Parents. And so when you offer Jeong Seong with sincerity, your Jeong Seong will give you the strength to save yourselves.

That is why Jeong Seong is important. Frankly speaking, the tradition of training and offering Jeong Seong has been rather weak in our church, but I have seen many changes occurring. Many members around Korea and worldwide -- such as those in Europe -- are training themselves in offering special Jeong Seong.

It is quite interesting to see that in the end the most fundamental thing is the most difficult. You simply need to love your wife and trust her and care for her. It sounds simple, but there are many difficulties as you go on living together. Even in offering Jeong Seong, the simplest way is to bow to True Parents. Second-generation members learn about offering bows to True Parents from when they are a year old, because it's the simplest. However, it is very difficult to reach the stage of doing it perfectly. It is very difficult to completely rid ourselves of our ego in offering a bow, and to become completely one with True Parents until "I" disappear completely.

That is why we follow the path of offering Jeong Seong. Even if you forget everything else I've said today, I hope you will not forget to become "the dot."

We need to return to the dot. A person learned in calligraphy knows that the dot is the most beautiful stroke. It encompasses all of oriental art's beauty. It's all included in the dot. People who do not know about that ask what is so beautiful about that dot, but the dot is the most beautiful part. Similarly, the most beautiful Jeong Seong you can offer is the one begun from that dot, which is the beginning point of innumerable Chinese characters and reflects thousands of years of oriental art tradition.

If you can feel the beauty of it, and realize that, and come to resemble that dot, many miracles can be wrought without our knowing about them and many people will come forward to help us. Then, without our being aware of it, True Parents will come to shine even more brightly even if we are not present, and their teachings will spread throughout the world. More and more people will become believers and appear among us as our brothers and sisters who love and serve True Parents. Then we will become the unified family that can move Heaven through our Jeong Seong. I firmly believe this.