The Words of the Pierson Family

Shim-Jung, Hahn, and Tongil (An E-sermon)

Edwin Pierson
December 16, 2000 (re-edited slightly, 7/2007)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

How do we help bring about the unification of Korea while upholding the standards and traditions of True Parents in the process? We've been given many keys, much grace, and great responsibility. Where does the motivation to do so much, by so few come from?

Let's look at Korea and its history. Presently divided North and South, Korea has endured centuries of invasion, humiliation, dependence, and deprivation.

Some of us here may identify with at least some of these feelings and conditions, too.

Right? Is that good or bad? Something to think about, maybe?

This is not an easy subject to talk about or even put in the words of just one language.

However, I hope that it may be of some value to those trying to understand the present situation in Korea as well as those of us who just want to learn all we can about our Holy Land ... or ourselves.

The following is mostly quoted from "The Warrior Worker" by Robert Kearney--a book that first came across my path when it came out in 1991:

All these factors (invasions, humiliation, dependence, and deprivation) have contributed to an emotion in the Korean psyche called "Hahn"---which has been described as 'a complex of emotional states, including a sense of grief, grievances, grudges, hatred, rancor, regret, remorse, and revenge.'

A similar concept, represented by the identical Chinese character, occurs in other Asian cultures: in China the meaning is closer to pure hatred; in Japan, it means remorse. In English, one might talk of a chip on the shoulder or an inferiority complex."

The cross-cultural parallels may not be so important.

What seems to matter is that hahn - actually the desire to be freed or liberated from it - can be, and often is, a sharp spur, motive or force.

Let's look at the Bible.

Throughout it we can find countless expressions and examples of the anguish or "hahn," in particular, of God.

(After the fall in Genesis 3:16,17 concerning Adam and Eve) To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (Genesis 4:13-15 concerning Cain after he killed Abel)

And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

(Genesis 42:21 concerning Joseph and his brothers) And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us.

In the King James version of the Bible you'll find 221 instances where the word smote is used and 215 times the word kill is used. Anger is used 300 times, woe is used 101 times while anguish 30 times. Now I'm not saying that in all these instances God's heart is expressed, but the Bible is meant after all as a kind of history - His Story. And of course we know from reading Father's words in Hoon Dok Hae that: "History emerges through marriage, and from marriage nations appear and an ideal world begins"- right? I'll leave that aspect of "hahn" for a future sermon or essay by someone else.

Our Heavenly Parent has suffered greatly throughout history, but the Bible and the Divine Principle show us clearly that God is at least as complex in emotions as any single human being. We may err however, if we try to "humanize" God to the point we forget His timelessness and omnipresence. Yet, is it not the "humanity" of God that is most often lost in the translation and practice of religious traditions ?

Let's look closer at Korea and its complex character and heart for more insight on God's complex character and heart.

More from the book, "Warrior Worker":

"In modern Korea, hahn has been attributed to the dictators and industrialists who suffered under colonial humiliations, as well as the workers and students who have been repressed and beaten by the hahn-filled industrialists. One also detects a sense of hahn within the changing Korean family, as sons--and especially their wives--start to resent the seemingly limitless impositions of their aging parents. By some accounts, Korea is a land in which seething frustrations eddy around every Confucian obligation."

I think the author here neglects to mention some of the feelings of the parents. Is God ever "seething with frustrations", do you think?

What of Shim Jung, we may ask? Is it merely a dream?

A speech from 1973 "The Restoration Of Heart (Shim Jung)" can give us further understanding.

In that speech, our True Father said: "When we speak about our heart, it means the heart before the human Fall."

So it seems to be correct to say Shim Jung is that original heart or essence before the fall.

God's ideal from the beginning was dashed to pieces. His heart was pierced, pummeled, and broken. How long and hard the path...can we truly know it, digest it, and understand it all?

Yet, through it all, somehow God's TRUE LOVE or Shim Jung never died. The effort to pick up all those pieces, to go forward, despite anger, regret, and remorse, continued. Even for God, it was new territory. How bleak it must have seemed.

How mighty and brave is our God!

Today we have the First True Parents, at last. Adam and Eve, reborn in the flesh, in a historical sense. The (original) realm of shim jung of Adam and Eve, has been recovered.

However, the realm of hahn lingers, at times, it seems, almost engulfing all.

Just as human beings have a hard time to forget injustices, etc., it seems likely, perhaps, that God cannot forget.

"Our cherished hopes" . . .

The CPL (Chung-Pyung Lake) providence is a great healing balm for this realm of resentments and tragedies, but it is up to us to make it, as Jesus prayed/prays, "on earth as it is in heaven" - healing both the heart of mankind and God.

Again from the book, "Warrior Worker":

"One could probably overstate the influence of this emotion, but it would be foolish to ignore it. Hahn is a source of deep passion. It can be used to justify almost any action.

And it explains in part the transparent joy that Koreans find in their world-class achievements. Just as Calvinist Europeans sought financial success as a proof that they were among God's elect, Koreans have pursued it as a denial of their fears of unworthiness or inadequacy. "Korea's distant history was certainly full enough of deprivation and degradation to instill in its citizens a deep, emotional hunger for economic triumph. But if the people managed to retain some equanimity before 1876, their association with Japan, first as a protectorate and then as an annexed arm of the empire, supplied enough hahn to drive them forward for many, many decades."

Our Japanese and Korean families face the realities of hahn everyday. My Korean brother- in-law deeply loves his Japanese wife and their 3 daughters, as well as the Japanese members he's responsible to lead and care for.

It is such a paradox: opposites struggling with various degrees of hahn, yet attracted and joined together somehow within this renewed and victorious realm of Shim jung created by our True Parents.

Amidst it all, what of . . . God's hahn?

If we can understand this realm of heart, as westerners, might it be powerful and comforting in some way, too? Can we, possibly, be spurred and driven forward in a good and powerful way when we come to understand this more deeply?

"Even our dreams . . . "

North and South Korea, like the mind and body of a long-anguished Divine Being/ Divine Image of the world that was meant-to-be seeks unity, but without the power of children of Shim jung to heal centuries of Hahn, the substance or earthly reality may never be realized.

"We'd give our lives . . . "

The title of this sermon is Shim Jung, Hahn, and Tongil. The created world of Shim jung or God's Ideal came first, then because of the Fall of Adam and Eve, an evil world under the realm of Satan and the cloud of Hahn came about. Finally today, we see the hope of Tongil on the horizon while we reach deeply into our souls and out to God, humanity and creation for that original Shim Jung, that essential innocence that binds us all together.

Let us understand and love each other more than before. Let us inherit the realm of True Parent's victory through the Blessing!

"Come here quickly . . . "

From True Father's December 7th (2000) speech upon arrival at East Garden: "God has been filled with ha[h]n. He finally has reached the point through True Parents where there is the foundation to claim all humanity as His children. So God will remain as the eternal True Parents of mankind, and that day is coming. Such a moment is coming. So we have to go through True Parents to welcome that day and moment. Everyone shares these same feelings. Even those born in one thousand years will feel the same about this."

Urie so wonun tongil,
Ggumedo so wonun tongil
I mogsum bachoso tongil
Ton-gi-ri yoo-ra
I kyo re salinun tongil,
I nara chanunde tongil
Tongiriosoora
Ton-gi-ri yoo-ra

Our cherished hopes are for unity
Even our dreams are for unity,
We'd give our lives for unity,
Come along unity.
Unity saving the people,
Unity saving all nations
Come here quickly unity
Come along unity.

Reference:

The Warrior Worker (Hardcover)
by Robert Kearney
Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd (December 31, 1991)
ISBN-10: 1850433437

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