By Jung Won Oh, Meditation Guide at San Francisco Meditation
Finding the true meaning of life often feels like a miracle. It may be somewhere in this world, but it’s difficult to find. This is my story of discovering the meaning of life through meditation.
A Personal Meditation Journey
Childhood and Early Life
My childhood, up to age 9, was beautiful and happy. I was born on a small island with about 10 households, living with my parents and sisters. Everyone acted like family, and even without money or stores, the mountains and ocean provided for all of us. Despite having no 24-hour electricity, I had friends and nature to play with. It felt like a fairy tale.
At age 9, I was sent to the city to live with my grandmother. My life took a darker turn bullied at school, hungry, and struggling to survive. I wandered the streets alone, cried endlessly, and felt isolated.
There was no school on the island, so when I was 9, I was sent away without my parents and my friends to a city where my grandmother lived.
From that point, my dark and gloomy life began. Boys in the city were mean. They made fun of me and bullied me. Even though there were grocery stores, I was always hungry because I didn’t have enough money. I picked up empty bottles and sold them to buy snacks, carried concrete blocks to buy ice cream, and sometimes stole food from markets.
I spent a lot of time alone, being bored, wandering alone on the streets. I cried so much that I felt like I had no more tears to shed for the rest of my life.
My teenage years basically felt like going through a long, dark tunnel, and then finally, I entered college.
Searching for Meaning
I was an honor student, so I was provided with a full-tuition scholarship, room and board, and a stipend. I had money, and I got a girlfriend too. No one bothered me anymore, and there were many students on the campus. It was an ideal place to make as many friends as I wanted.
However, I felt like I was not part of the world; I felt like a drop of oil floating on the sea, and I was inside the drop of oil. I was still lonely, and even though I was living in an ideal environment, the feeling of emptiness in my heart got even bigger.
I had my goals in life, so I studied hard every day to achieve them. Nonetheless, when I reflected back at the end of the day, everything I did that day felt like a bubble; it was there, but it disappeared.
I started to question:
What is the meaning of all this?
Why do I live?
Where am I going?
These questions always lingered in the back of my mind. So I think I drank a lot because of that anguish.
The Turning Point – Meditation Retreat
When I was 22, my professor invited me to go to a meditation retreat that could help me overcome myself, and I agreed without any hesitation.
At the meditation retreat, for the first time in my life, I learned what the human mind exactly was. I also realized that I was not living in the world, but living inside my own mind world.
The meditation guides taught me how to discard and cleanse my mind. I stayed up all night and meditated diligently. As I reflected on my life and discarded my mind again and again, my perspective towards myself and the world changed. Simultaneously, many inner changes and enlightenment came.
The resentment towards my parents, the anger at the kids who bullied me, the pain of being rejected, the pretending to be not hurt, and the shame of my behaviors were released one by one.
I shed a lot of tears that had dried up for a long time. These were tears of repentance.
As many of my distressed minds disappeared and many of my life’s questions were resolved, I started to be happy again.
One day, I was reminded of the “Heart Sutra” that I had memorized while following Won Buddhism in college. The mantra I had repeated without knowing the meaning was completely understood with my heart.
The “Heart Sutra” was talking about the Truth that was within me.
Discovering the Truth Within
I thought that the Truth is something that only extraordinary people like priests or monks were able to find. However, as I discarded my human mind, the Truth, the universal mind, got revealed within me.
That truth was where we came from, our true nature, and our true selves.
All the questions like:
Who am I?
Where do I come from?
How should I live?
Where do I go when I die?
…were all answered clearly.
I found my true self, and I, who wandered in my mind, finally belonged to the world.
In the world of Truth, I live forever, and I am so happy and grateful that every day feels like a dream now.
Conclusion
This is how I found the meaning of life. The true meaning of life is to find the Truth, become the Truth, and live happily eternally. As all the holy scriptures say that Allah, God, and Buddha are within you, the Truth is within you. Because I was trapped in my mind world, the Truth was hidden.
If you are also interested in meditation to find the meaning of life, the video below will help you. Thank you.