Dr. Jenelle Kim, a business owner and doctor of traditional Oriental medicine, recently wrote a book titled “Myung Sung: the Korean Art of Living Meditation.” One way that the Korean “Myung Sung” can be translated is simply as “meditation.”
“I take it a step further and what I speak on is living meditation,” Kim said.
She describes herself as a living example of East and West, raised by a Korean father and an American mother in La Jolla. It was her father who taught her from a young age the principles of Myung Sung, which were passed down to her through generations.
“I realized it is daily action, daily habits,” Kim said. “Meditation doesn’t just stop when you stop sitting down or doing yoga or martial arts or whatever that means to you. It should be in every single moment of your day.”
Myung Sung consists of three pillars: meditation, medicine, and movement, which are laid out in eight keys in the book.
“You incorporate all three of these things — which is what the eight keys kind of encompass — into your daily life,” she said. “Meditation, to me, is a way of living. Wellness is nutrition and supplements and movement is simply that; movement.”
Her father raised her with these principles from a young age. “From the time I came into this world, this has been a part of my life,” she said.
For the last 10 years, Kim knew she wanted to write a book on Myung Sung. She spent a lot of time with her father before he passed away.
“That’s when it hit me, that I need to put this book out there because I know how much these principles have helped me throughout my life on all aspects that I speak on — parenting, business, relationships, you name it,” she said.
The book is meant to help people learn how to better handle difficult things in their life and the world.
“They don’t necessarily just knock us down completely, but we’re ready because we’re constantly balancing ourselves,” she said.
Kim describes writing the book as a daunting process but she felt it was something the world needed.
“It truly is for everyone,” she said. “There are principles that I started teaching my son at the age of 3.”
For the last 20 years, Kim has focused her life on the medical aspect of the three pillars. She has a manufacturing lab called JBK Wellness, named after her great-grandfather, which makes products based on herbal formulas that were passed down through her lineage. She describes it as East meeting West, and health and wellness meeting beauty.
Kim feels very close to San Diego. She’s traveled around the world but there’s no other place she’d rather be. She sees the book as a part of her legacy.
“One day maybe no one will remember my name, no one will remember my face, but I wish to leave this Earth having left something good behind,” she said.
“Myung Sung: the Korean Art of Living Meditation” is available for purchase at warwicks.com/event/kim-2022.
