Min-Kyu Park / PhD in Plant Production Science / Researcher, Unversity of Georgia
I’d always had questions like, “How can humans see the world and think creatively?” When I see the people around me, they seem to live happily without these kinds of heavy thoughts. I felt all alone, trapped in my thoughts – and I could not escape!
I Had Anxiety About Not Fitting in Socially
I had so many questions that I could not find the answers to and I developed a fear of not being able to relate with others. This kind of thinking created a wall between me and others, socially. It was like water and oil. As a result, I was often very uncomfortable meeting new people. I only had a few friends who really understood me. My lack of social skills as a child was one of my parents’ biggest concerns.
But, once I began to meditate, my life began to change. The first change that I experienced was getting the answers to the questions about the world that I had always had in my mind. I couldn’t believe how many questions, especially the difficult ones written in books, were made clear at the moment I enlightened. All of my long-standing worries were resolved; this understanding about the world has become my opportunity to change my self-centered thoughts and life pattern. And I started to want to live the life of serving others after meditating. I started to look around at people a little more. My burdens of feeling anxious when meeting new people melted away through this meditation and I was able to get rid of those feelings. Gradually, I became excited to meet new people, and I loved traveling to new places.
The More I Cleaned My Mind, The More I Understood The Value of Others
As I cleaned my mind, I learned the importance of people. In fact, the feeling of ‘me’ disappearing gave me the opportunity to understand others more deeply. It gave me the realization of the origin of human beings and it made me feel that each and every person is very precious. So, even though it may seem like a small thing, I was able to yield to others, and I could help others without expecting anything in return. This meditation also changed my life while attending graduate school.
The basic research I did in graduate school was to uncover new facts by trying something that has not been done before. However, it is common for research to fail in nine out of ten experiments. During those nine failures, many people become stressed and often, their health will suffer. I was able to find a new way to calmly adjust to the failures that I faced right away without anxiety. My newfound calmness was passed on to my peers, and they too could experiment without much anxiety.
As I practiced meditating, I suddenly thought of the rides at an amusement park. I usually liked the rides falling from high places, but when this ride climbed to the top, I had all kinds of thoughts. Whether the safety device was trustworthy, or what if the machine broke down and there was an accident. The tension of the unknowns in this environment high above the ground would scare me. When the ride begins to fall, I would hold the handles and my breath to endure the fear that is transmitted throughout my body and regret about getting on the ride in the first place.
The World is Not Anxious; It’s a Comfortable Place
Then, at one point, I comprehended. The amusement park rides are safer than my worries. The weightlessness gives me great pleasure if I let go and just enjoy the ride. Freedom from gravity, which has never been experienced on earth, gave me great joy and comfort – almost as if I’m flying in the sky.
The world I enlightened to through meditation was the comfort of this weightless state. Through meditation, I learned that the world is not a place of anxiety or danger, but a place of supreme comfort. When I give up myself comfortably to any situation, I realize that the moment becomes the happiest and most precious time. I can’t say everything that I’ve gained through meditation, but the most important thing is understanding human life, death and the world and the natural awareness of how to live. Everyone has a fundamental “self” that can be expressed as perfection.
However, just as a caterpillar cannot become a butterfly unless it goes through the process of becoming a chrysalis, it has been discovered that a person cannot find their true self unless they discard the original ego I call “me” and I realized through my meditation that finding this inner perfection is not so difficult at all.
