I Feel Like I Am Reborn
Bless Happy King / Federal Way, Settle, WA
My youth was a quite wild and troubled one. I was a prodigal daughter. During those days, I was full of the false confidence of youth. Since I was the only daughter, I expected everybody to treat me like a princess.
I was allowed to have my own way all of the time. Once, I got into gambling. But, no matter what I did, I felt shiny on the outside but hollow like a shell on the inside. I basically wasted my youth trying to fill my emptiness by seeking meaningless pleasures. On top of that, life threw near death experiences at me not just once, but 8 times.
I was exposed to carbon monoxide while sleeping at night and ended up in the emergency room and I was also involved in a shooting rampage as an eye witness. Eventually those multiple near death experiences led me to think deeply about life and death.
Of all the experiences, the most life altering event was waiting for me the year I turned 50. I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It was as if the universe was telling me that I deserved to have cancer after all of those years of troubled living. I hit rock bottom. But, in the midst of desperation and hopelessness, once again the universe held out merciful hands to me for the 9th time. I had surgery, which left me less than half a stomach to live with for the rest of my life.
Thanks to the extensive treatments from the hospital and my husband’s devoted care, I was able to survive. Although I was miraculously given a 9th chance to live, my mind was constantly visited by waves of emptiness. My body and mind were exhausted after chemotherapy and the tight economic situation was pulling me into a dark hole. Consequently, I started to ask myself a question: “What is the reason to live?” I thought that perhaps I would be better off dead.
One day my husband brought me a pamphlet that contained the information about a seminar conducted by the founder of this meditation, Woo Myung. The title of this meditation caught my attention and I decided to attend the seminar. So, this is how I began this meditation.
Not long after I started this meditation I began to have a glimpse of my false state of mind which had been blackened and rotting with layers of accumulated memories. I also realized that my pleasure seeking behavior when I was young was subconsciously done to obscure the mess in my mind. Back then I had no way of knowing how to erase my false mind.
Furthermore, I found myself blaming and ill-treating my husband whenever he didn’t act upon my wishes. I spent days and nights with tears of repentance and regret. I had become the king of my own mind world, created by myself and filled with attachments and greed. On top of it all, I have come to the realization that suffering cancer was not an accident.
Rather, it was created by my own mind. This realization sent chills up my spine. Through this meditation, little by little, I began to dismantle my own illusionary mind world.
As my mind was being emptied, rather than adding to the false mind as I had been doing my whole life, I started to see my husband and the world as they are. My hollow mind started to fill with True Mind. My relationship with my husband has naturally improved and he even told me that he would marry me again in his next life. Even though our economic situation has gotten comparably tighter, my mind feels free and happy at all times. I no longer wish for anything.
The first and foremost thing in the world is to live. What else could be more important than that? Money and fame have no value to the dead. I mistakenly thought I was alive before I started this meditation.
Now I know that before this meditation my physical body was mobile, but my mind was dead. I was dead in my own illusionary world created by my false mind. In my illusionary world I was seeking wealth and happiness and when things went against me I blamed the world. I was a fool.
Fortunately, I was able to escape from my own prison. I feel like I am reborn. Currently I am living in the true world. I am no longer driven by money or fame.
It is not difficult for me to imagine that there must be some people on this planet who are currently going through a similar situation as mine. To them, I recommend this meditation with full confidence. For anyone floating aimlessly in the sea of agony, I hope wholeheartedly that they will be saved by the ship that is this mediation.
Source : Woo Myung – The Great Master
