Kim Hyun Dae / KBS Reporting Headquarters Team Leader
As a result of my father’s failed attempt at running a business when I was young, our family was lacking somewhat financially, but due to the natural diligence of my mother, our life was not too difficult. I graduated from a respectable university in Seoul. Immediately upon graduating from college, I landed a job at a much sought after broadcasting station. I also married a good woman who gave birth to a healthy son and daughter. It was a life I had lived thus far without needing to be envious of anyone. But even to someone like me, hardship came my way.
I couldn’t find the meaning of life after the sudden passing of my mother
It was 2001 with the lunar new year just around the corner, and my mother was admitted to the hospital with abdominal pain. Not even 4 days into her hospitalization, she suddenly passed away. Although her body was typically on the weaker side, she did not have any specific illness. At the time, I was working in Gunsan, Northern Jeolla Province. In order to spend time for the new year holiday, I was already in the middle of making my way down to my wife’s family, and so I wasn’t even able to be at my mother’s deathbed. Is this what the meaning of the phrase, “My world came crashing down” is referring to?
After the grueling task of raising 5 boys, I thought my mother was finally getting a chance to take it easy and live, only to end up going to heaven above. All I could do was lament. After my mother passed away, the meaning of my life disappeared. I was not in the mood to work, and after getting off work, if I were to have some drinks, I would end up at the noraebang (private singing booth) and drown myself in tears.
In the midst of carrying on like that, by happenstance, I came across an article in the newspaper about this meditation. The sentence, ‘You can discover human’s original nature’ jumped out at me. I did think about it from time to time, about where people come from and where they go afterwards, but especially after the sudden death of my mother, I needed a mental escape route. During the summer of that year, I boldly put in my request for a 2-week vacation and went to the main meditation center.
I think the first 2 or 3 days was difficult. The doubt that I would ever really be able to enlighten my original mind as well as the fact that I had to sit there without saying a word and continuously follow the guidance of my helper to discard ‘me’ was not an easy thing to do. But after about the 4th day passed, after having discarded one by one the life that I had lived, my head started to feel refreshed and I felt that there was more room inside my chest.
Upon enlightening the origin of us all, sorrow and pain disappeared
Me who boasted to my friends when I was a kid that I was good at running; me who thought to myself that I was a dutiful son when I would help run errands for my mother when she used to sell vegetables in the marketplace; me who did well in high school and would internally scoff at my classmates who did not do well; me who complained and was dissatisfied with my father who did not have financial acumen; me, who had lousy writing abilities and had a huge inferiority complex about it and was thus fearful every time during exams in college; me who was self-conscious that someone might look at me while I was studying in the library and so I would wander around in search of corner areas only to study; me who was so shy all I could do was stare off into space while breathing exasperated sighs while on group blind dates to meet girls; me who possessed social phobia and when attending company after work dinners was nervous that my hand might start shaking when holding out my shot glass to receive a drink; after getting married, me who would compare my wife to my mother and snub her; me who bemoaned the world about why other people had the fortune of being born to good parents or come from good lineage and didn’t have to work so hard and were able to just eat and live comfortably without any hindrances….
In the countless reflections, there was ‘me.’ The world just exists as it is, but for me, as I lived my life until now, it seemed as if I had stored all kinds of things in my head, and I lived tangled up in it. Over a 2 week period, this meditation gave me an abundant opportunity to thoroughly reflect on myself by looking back at my past and the life I lived; during that time, how selfish I had been and what a foolish kind of lifestyle I had.
Especially as I continuously discarded the images of my late mother, as some point, even though I brought up the image of my mother, there was no sorrow or pain. Like that, I shed endless tears as I discarded again and again and then I was able to regain my true self. Although I came into this world with a physical body named Kim Hyun Dae, I had clearly enlightened that the origin of us all is the universe. I also came to realize what true happiness and freedom really is.
Now, I know that the desire to portray myself to be better than others, to be smarter than others, to try possessing more than others has no meaning whatsoever, and in turn, I am able to enjoy the life I live. After throwing away the countless kinds of ‘me,’ my cluttered thoughts have largely disappeared and so my level of concentration has increased. Whatever I’m doing is enjoyable. And even when dealing with people, I am able to do so without preconceived notions and just see them as they are, and so my interpersonal relationships have become easygoing. After all of this, my wife and children got to do this meditation. The precious gift left behind by my late mother was this very meditation.
Source: www.meditationlife.org
