[My Mind and Body] 11. Ma-Eum Su-Ryun

Let’s lighten the mind with the practice of subtraction.

After having been born into this world, we are educated, meet all kinds of people and encounter a variety of experiences. In the midst of that, we form our very selves. This is the process of socialization, defined by social science.

At Ma-Eum Su-Ryun, Joong Ang-Dong Center, meditation is practiced in a comfortable environment and is guided by a helper, not an instructor.

It is the meditation method of throwing away one’s mind through a 7 level method, after which one eventually gains the original mind. The method takes out the emotions attached to one’s own memories as well as the self-suffocating elements and emotions that cause stress.

I always thought success is happiness. However, I was able to get rid of anxieties after emptying my mind.

First, what is in the mind is not everything. The mind can’t contain the boundless universe. Even if it could, only just a part of it can be revealed outward. On many occasions, one can’t be sure whether what he has stored in the realm of his mind through the senses is true or not. It is as they say, ‘a mental collapse’.

It is the same for stubbornness, lust and straying minds. One tends to be obstinate with what he has experienced from his prejudiced viewpoint, claiming it to be true. But he ignores the present moment which is reality.

Therefore one is enslaved by the past and the future and lives inside a delusional place. This is how one lives, always plagued by impatience and anxiety, unable to be satisfied at every moment. How can one come out of this erroneous reality? Let’s visit a Ma-Eum Su-Ryun meditation center to find the solution.

A meditation practice that subtracts the mind

I visited the Joong Ang-Dong Center located in Busan-Si, Joong-Gu. As I exit the Joong Ang metro-station, the meditation sign jumps out at me. Once I enter, the center is neat and looks comfortable. There are several people sitting comfortably on the cushions deep in meditation. It is a kind of silence which makes me hesitate to click the shutter of my camera. People who guide the meditation at the center are called ‘helpers’. In the beginning, they were called instructors but the name was changed very early on since people thought it was a meditation done by one’s self. Also, the title’s connotation of ‘teaching something’ didn’t fit the meditation’s concept.

A helper, Park Hee Won, explains that one subtracts his mind. It makes me curious since that’s not how other meditation institutions usually explain meditation as they use expressions like ‘calming one’s mind’. What is the difference?

In order to see what the difference is, we need to know what the mind is. Like a camera, a human-being also stores his experiences of what he has seen and heard into his brain. The difference between a camera and a human-being is that the pictures stored inside the brain have emotions. For example, happy memories bring joy and feelings of security but some other memories might bring pain even just thinking about them. In Ma-Eum Su-Ryun, the mind is defined as pictures stored inside the brain.

One has to discard the false that is stored inside his brain.

People’s minds are different from each other because all of their lives are different. It is because the filter over the camera lens, which is the mind, is different. What makes this important is that the pictures in the brain are different from reality and they are actually false. One’s memory is made up of images like that taken by a camera except distorted and edited by the brain.

The problem starts here. Since one has false pictures, it is difficult to change current thoughts and behaviors. Those emotions and concepts attached to one’s memory of life, which are false, constrict the person. Unless one discards these pictures that were taken in the past and stored inside the brain, it is impossible to get rid of conflicts that occurred in his mind as well as his stress. This is why one needs to do meditation, empty his mind to find his original mind. What is meant by ‘throw away the mind’ is empty the mind, or aka, discard the mind.

Then, how can one discard his mind? A helper, Park, explains the basic method, introducing this concept of the meditation by asking people to bring up a situational image in which an elephant eats an apple so that the apple disappears. By using this kind of method, one strengthens his understanding that the mind is used to erase the pictures stored inside his brain. This program of ‘emptying one’s false mind’ consists of a total of 7 levels in which one throws away the remembered thoughts, throws away the images of myself and images of human relationships and etc.,. As each student progresses, he goes up the levels.

I had tears out of shame and feeling sorry.

Lee Sang Seok (63 years old) who started Ma-Eum Su-Ryun meditation in 2002, looked back on his life. While working in public office, he always worried about how he would live after retirement. For years, he had been working meticulously. Likewise his pride was great, and his worries must have been even bigger. However once he started Ma-Eum Su-Ryun meditation, he discovered all his meticulous behaviors might not be the only way. He then realized his attitude provoked the suffering of his spouse, parents, colleagues and people around him. He cried out of shame and feeling sorry to those people. Now he acknowledges the diversity of people, living his life with a generous attitude.

An elementary school teacher, Choi Myong Eun (39) met Ma-Eum Su-Ryun meditation by chance. She wanted to pull herself together as she was always anxious. When she was in one situation, she would think of another situation. She always regretted what had happened in the past and also got impatient with what she imagined would happen in the future. She said those distracting thoughts have disappeared ever since she discarded those minds through meditation and that she found her concentration on the current work got stronger.

Yoon Jeong Je (42), a Korean Medicine Doctor lived his life thinking success is one’s happiness. He spent years thinking that accumulating things was the primary goal of his life. One day, he found he was overloaded. The more he added, rather than feeling satisfied, he felt anxious. Right when he needed a breakthrough, he met Ma-Eum Su-Ryun meditation through his senior doctor’s recommendation. He said that once he threw away his mind, he gained the composure of his mind. He started to look at not only his patients’ physical bodies, but also their minds. Practitioners can arrange their meditation appointments according to their schedules. Also, meditation runs from a minimum of 30 minutes to a maximum of 3 hours, depending on the students’ situations. Since the Joong Ang-Dong meditation center is located near many office buildings, there are quite a number of practitioners who meditate during lunch time. In Busan, there are 14 meditation centers.  Tel. 051-467-7245

Reported by Lee Jun Yong gapi@busan.com

Source: http://news20.busan.com/controller/newsController.jsp?newsId=20180812000087

Source: www.meditationlife.org