I'm now welcoming high summer in Korea after finishing a 70-some day stay in
New Zealand last week. While I was there, 512 people came from all over the world for 11 meditation tours. My heart feels so full even now when I bring to mind the time of self-discovery we shared together, the joys we felt as we communed with each other, and the hope and passion for a new world we experienced.
Along with Sedona, Arizona in the United States, New Zealand is a place that has long pulled on my heart. There, your mind opens up automatically and effortlessly, thanks to the energy of healing and restoration that are the gift of untainted nature.
I've traveled in New Zealand frequently over many years, and, for the last several years in particular, I've focused on exploring many places in New Zealand's North Island. We started our first New Zealand Meditation Tour last year, centered on 12 locations and experiences that brought me new realizations and inspiration.
From the beginning, I designed this meditation tour with a clear purpose in mind. It is a Tao Meditation Tour that brings enlightenment, not an escape for enjoying beautiful scenery or relieving daily stress. That's why I tell people who take part in the New Zealand Meditation Tour to "be awake" every moment. For, unless you're awake, you cannot feel enlightenment even when it's right there in front of you.
We ask ourselves two important questions while we're on the New Zealand Meditation Tour. They are fundamental questions asked by all humans, and you may have already asked yourself these many times: Who am I? What values should I live for? Opportunities for enlightenment come to you 12 times while you're doing the meditation tour with these two questions in your heart.
The first opportunity for enlightenment comes once you've arrived at Oakland Airport in New Zealand. It's the first feeling you get from the wind and sunlight, sky and ground of New Zealand. Whether it's your first visit to New Zealand or the most recent of many, having chosen the meditation tour, you feel the trembling of your soul as it looks toward change and growth.
The second opportunity for enlightenment comes in the forests of the Waitakere Ranges. Whenever I come to New Zealand, I always visit the Waitakere forests first, before I even unpack. It's a time for me to feel and commune with myself in the peace nature brings as I walk the primeval forests filled with wild sounds and scents.
The third opportunity for enlightenment comes while watching the cultural performances of the Maori people. Responding to the unaffected, pure rhythms of life contained in traditional Maori culture, I realize that all cultures are connected with me. I realize with my whole body why we are Earth Citizens.
The fourth opportunity for enlightenmentcomes at Solar Human Park. Solar Human Park is an educational space I created in Kerikeri and the base camp of the New Zealand Meditation Tour. I become one with nature as I pick kawakawa leaves, a native herb of New Zealand, in this place, which symbolizes the people of the sun—the community of Solar Humans—who illuminate themselves and the world.
The fifth opportunity for enlightenmentis the time you spend with me at Solar Human Park. Why I came to start the New Zealand Meditation Tour, what messages and inspiration I received in this land, what it means to live in a way that is truly worthy of a human being . . . .
You hear my story and messages, and then meditate on your own worth beneath a 300-year-old hwangchil tree.
The sixth opportunity for enlightenment comes on the Rainbow Falls walk. It's a place where you can empty yourself and encounter your true nature in deep meditation through sounds of nature that nothing artificial can imitate, the harmony of heaven and earth, and the light, sound, and waves of New Zealand.
The seventh opportunity for enlightenment happens again at Solar Human Park. You feel the pure joy and freedom of a child as you ride a swing I made myself. In three places with the best energy in Solar Human Park, you receive warm sunlight, practice Solar Circuit Meditation, and experience muah (nothingness).
The eighth opportunity for enlightenment comes in your second meeting with me. It's a time for awakening to the reason for and value of your existence, and of gaining courage and wisdom for becoming the new designer of your own life.
The ninth opportunity for enlightenment comes in the Puketi Forest Meditation. Encounter yourself as you are, at your most natural, in a forest of
Kauri trees that have lived for millennia. The power to newly design your own life emerges from that encounter.
The tenth opportunity for enlightenmentcomes on the Matauri coast. You practice vision meditation on a beautiful hill overlooking the beach. You design your future, contemplating what values you consider most important and how you will realize those values as you live your life.
The eleventh opportunity for enlightenment comes with a ritual. It's a time for you to declare to your own divine nature what you have felt and realized through the New Zealand Meditation Tour and to receive a blessing.
The twelfth opportunity for enlightenment is your visit to the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial Park. You confirm how worthwhile a
Hongik life is at this park, which celebrates New Zealand's most respected prime minister, who worked with dedication for the good of the people. It's an opportunity for you to find your own complete answers to the two questions of the New Zealand Meditation Tour: Who am I, and what values should I live for?
These 12 realizations will come easily and naturally if you but open your mind and stay awake. The unspoiled nature of New Zealand awakens the nature inside us. There, anyone easily becomes one with nature and realizes that they are a part of nature. You feel the breath of Mago, mother nature, through the New Zealand Meditation Tour, and encounter the great human spirit within us, your own lost true nature. You experience
bokbon, the Returning, the recovery of your true nature.
Next season's New Zealand Meditation Tour begins in November of this year. Together, let's begin the beautiful journey of
Returning to Mago Castle in New Zealand. Have an encounter with yourself in this place, which is something no one can do for you. Feel what a beautiful and perfect being you are. And feel how natural it is to live practicing Hongik and loving all humanity and the
Earth.
I would love meet you in New Zealand.