Santa Clara Meditation The Meaning of Life – An important meditation that taught me what it means to live for others
Jason Miller / Los Gatos, California
I’ve never met the founder Woo Myung, but in this meditation practice, I have heard that he is truly someone who lives for others. He first founded this practice more than 20 years ago, and since then, he folded his own business and began traveling all over his native Korea to help people. He continued to help others by coming to the United States to open meditation seminars and hold seminars and now does this while traveling worldwide.
When I first heard about this, I contemplated about whether I would ever be capable of doing as such.
Before I started to do this meditation, I always thought it would be an honorable thing to live altruistically. However, that was impossible to do since I was very self-centered and I was very aware of that fact. Thoughts of what I would like to have for dinner was among one of my top daily thoughts. Even when I tried to be selfless and giving, I would have thoughts later on about my good deeds and how nice and giving I was. No matter what I did, “me” was always taking up so much space in my mind.
So, the idea of living for others was on the back burner. Although I majored in Social Welfare in college, I eventually ended up working for a big name company as one of its many, many employees.
Then one day, I was introduced to this meditation by a friend of mine and decided to do it.
After completing my meditation sessions, there is a poem called “Coexist” that I always read. It starts off as “I, who does not possess, am beautiful,” which got me thinking more so about how I could live for others. However, the more I meditated, the more I felt that an altruistic life could never be achieved unless I completely gave up my self-centered mind.
From that epiphany, I could feel that my meditation had shifted gears; there came to be more depth in my meditation. This was not about “me” achieving something but rather about “me” being discarded. I never missed a single day of going to the center, even if it meant that on my busy days, that day’s session would be a short one.
To discard “me” means to discard all the kinds of minds I had built up inside over the years. Of course, at first, I didn’t know what it meant by “discarding me,” but the more I listened to the lectures and did the meditation, the more clear it all became over time.
I had spent my entire life trying to improve myself. But what I came to realize through this meditation is that the self I kept trying to improve is a false, illusionary self, which is constructed of nothing more than of a lifetime of mental pictures and habits housed inside of a dead shell that was constantly seeking validation from others as well as my own self.
I’ve heard a lot about meditation and I’ve been interested in meditation in general, but this method is very accurate. When you find your original mind by throwing away all of your fake mind rather than trying to pursue the comfort of some passing moment, your true mind – truth – is revealed.
This feeling of comfort and happiness is unconditional. It does not wax and wane over time. In other words, it means that you are relaxed not only when you meditate, but you are always free and comfortable no matter where you are in life. And in the place that was once filled with chatter and racing thoughts that were interrupted by occasional moments of “spacing out” is now filled with peace and boundless wisdom.
It has been only 4 months since I began this this practice, but I can see that I have changed so much. I can also see what there is left to be done. There is a clear way to abandon one’s mind, and the dedicated helpers will guide you with the method that actually works, so that anyone who has never practiced meditation can do it.
In fact, there is even a middle school student at my meditation center. He is very diligent about doing his meditation and often comments on how much more easy his school work has become since he is able to focus more easily and that he feels much less irritable than before. It is fascinating to see all the different types of people my center all change from the inside out.
This may be a small gesture of gratitude for what the founder and this meditation have done for me, but I hope that even one person will be encouraged after reading about my experience to get started doing this meditation and do it until the end. Thank you.
