107
The Sword Moving Within the Body
Study does not end with listening and understanding.Through repetition it becomes familiar, and only when that familiarity reaches a point where no force is used does the principle begin to show its form.At that moment, knowing arises in the body before it does in the mind.When that knowing takes shape through the body, it is called chehoe (體會).*
* Chehoe refers not to understanding a principle with the intellect alone, but to grasping it through direct bodily experience and deep inner realization.It is close in meaning to "internalization," yet in the contexts of Zen (禪) and the Way (道), it indicates a state that transcends mere intellectual comprehension.
The days continued—cleaning, drawing water, splitting wood, sitting in meditation—without separating stillness from movement, breath flowing through everything.At some point, the distinction between day and night grew faint.He no longer knew how many days had passed.
Each new discipline added to the daily practice was difficult, yet he could complete them all.Now repetition mattered more than novelty.Dozens, hundreds, then hundreds of thousands—eventually millions of repetitions each day.He did not merely mimic the motions absentmindedly.He devoted his whole heart and strength—jeonsim jeollyeok (全心全力).
So focused was he that he forgot the passing of days.There was no night or day, no season.
Night was hushed.Moonlight spread faintly across the ridgeline.The sound of the stream flowed on, like the deep breathing of a giant.
Park Seong-jin sat in meditation.The stone beneath his knees was cold, and that chill sharpened his awareness.Breath began to flow.The inhalation received the mountain's vitality; the exhalation pushed out what had long stagnated.
Iwol-gun's words surfaced in his mind.
"Even without movement, the sword flows.Breath itself is the blade's edge."
Those words had been fermenting within him for a long time.There was understanding, and embodiment waited for time.
But that night, explanation quietly stepped aside.
Beneath the heart, deep in the place called the danjeon, a faint vibration stirred.Warmth bloomed—not as fire, but as living body heat.
"Hundred days" had been a measure.What was unfolding now had crossed beyond that measure.Calculations belonging to common sense retreated, and sensation took the lead.
The warmth spread along his bloodlines—from the danjeon to the arms, to the shoulders, to the fingertips.Each finger vibrated subtly.That tremor resembled the sensation of a blade grazing empty air.
In the danjeon, a seed no larger than a mustard grain had taken root.It still bore no name.
As his breathing deepened, the warmth became a thin, supple line circulating within him.It passed the shoulders, traveled up the spine, and returned again to the danjeon.A cycle.An unbroken flow.
With each repetition of that circulation, the sword within grew clearer.It transformed—not into force, but into a perceivable form.
With his eyes closed, he was seeing the sword's trajectory.A blade made of light.It held no killing intent.It was a living sword.
When the breath reached its peak, the sword swept once in a great arc within his body.At that instant, the wind hesitated, and the sound of water softened, as if catching its breath.One vibration remained.
The vibration of the sword.
It was not a sign of collapse, but of generation—the sensation of something awakening.
What moved now was not the body, but the breath.
All the words he had heard countless times aligned toward this single moment."To be alive" meant a state in which breath flows of its own accord.
Living breath circled the body's center, forming the shape of a sword.
Time loosened within that flow.
When the first bird of dawn cried out, he opened his eyes very slowly.The trembling at his fingertips settled evenly.
Then, from behind him, Iwol-gun's voice came.
"Did you see it?"
The master asked not do you understand, but did you see.
Without lifting his head, Park Seong-jin answered,
"Yes."
"That sword is inside you."
"From now on, the outer sword merely follows that flow."
The dawn wind passed.Mist brushed his sleeves.In Park Seong-jin's eyes, the luminous trajectory still lingered.
The line of the sword that had circled within him was quietly seeping into all the winds of the world.
The Moment Breath Spread Outward
It was morning.The sun had not yet crossed the ridge, and the mountain lay submerged in a faint blue light.Mist hung low, revealing only vague outlines of trees and rocks.
Park Seong-jin stood in the flat earthen yard below the hermitage.He did not hold a sword.His hands rested naturally at his sides, and no strength gathered in his toes.
Iwol-gun sat at a distance.He said nothing.It was the silence that signals a teaching has reached its end.
Park Seong-jin inhaled.He did not force depth.He allowed the breath to come.
When the breath reached the danjeon, the familiar warmth there stirred faintly.A vibration he had known only at night.
He did not try to move.No intention to draw a sword arose.
At that moment, on a small moss-covered stone at the edge of the yard,a single dry pine needle resting there slowly—almost imperceptibly—turned over.
There was no wind.The mist did not flow.
The pine needle stilled again.The scene returned to quiet, as though nothing had happened.
Park Seong-jin's chest resounded once.
Not the sensation of a racing heart,but the feeling of an internal confirmation being made.
Just now…
He did not stop breathing.There was no need.
As the breath flowed out, a subtle line rose from the danjeon, passed through his arm and fingertips, and seeped into empty space.
It was unseen.There was no sound.
Yet the air that remained there was unmistakably different.
The mist parted into a thin seam.Through that gap, a single ray of sunlight descended earlier than it should have.That light brushed the edge of the overturned pine needle.
Only then did Iwol-gun speak.
"Did you see?"
Without adjusting his breath, Park Seong-jin replied,
"Yes."
"You did not do it."
Iwol-gun's voice was low and precise.
"You did not swing a sword.You set no intention.You used no force."
He glanced lightly around the yard.
"And yet the mountain responded first."
Park Seong-jin looked down at his palms.Hands in which nothing had happened.
Yet within, the subtle vibration continued.
"Is this the inner sword?"
Iwol-gun shook his head.
"No."
A brief silence passed.
"The sword did not come out.The boundary between inside and outside disappeared for a moment."
Those words dropped into his chest like a stone.
"Such moments will not be common going forward.They will not happen often, and they cannot be summoned by desire."
Iwol-gun rose slowly.
"So be careful.Most people break at this stage."
"Why?"
"Because they mistake it for power."
He lightly touched Park Seong-jin's chest.
"What you have now is not power, but influence.And this is only the beginning."
The wind blew—this time a definite wind.The mist scattered.The earth of the yard revealed itself under sunlight.
The pine needle no longer moved.
But Park Seong-jin knew.
For a brief instant just before, his breath had brushed the surface of the world.
From that day on, he became even more careful.Whether taking up the sword, setting it down, or even breathing—
he already knew:
once a world has been brushed,it never returns with the same grain as before.