My Journey to Pure Awareness and Awakening
A personal story of the road to enlightenment
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In January 2014, I was completely lost. I was a teacher in Jeju-do, South Korea living alone. I had been abandoned by my boyfriend due to a disagreement I didn’t understand, and I felt as though I’d been thrown away. I felt worthless. I was at the lowest point I’d ever been. I spent a couple of weeks that way, barely able to function.
One day, I am not sure exactly why, but I decided to start meditating for extended periods of time every day. I had always been drawn to the spiritual side of life, and I had a friend who was attending weekly gatherings at a local Won Buddhist center.
There was a very clear certainty that some other consciousness was beyond the ‘shell’ of ‘me’. ‘My’ thoughts and sense of self were always being held together by an attachment that was an illusion.
Sudden awakening
I knew from my studies of Buddhism that my goal was going to be the elimination of the self, and non-attachment to anything — even thoughts. And, after several days of this kind of disciplined meditation, I reached a higher state of being. It simply washed over me all of a sudden.
I didn’t tell a lot of people at the time. Part of its effect was that I wasn’t attached to discussing what was going on within me. (Or should I say, “Emily”. I don’t want to use the word ‘I’ because what was doing this experiencing was something beyond ‘me’.) Emily was merely an observer of life, journeying through moments and experiencing thoughts that were arising and falling around her, as well as ‘external’ experiences.
Meaning in everything
Experiences were rich and beautiful. There was a very clear certainty that some other consciousness was beyond the ‘shell’ of ‘me’. ‘My’ thoughts and sense of self were always being held together by an attachment that was an illusion.
Once I got beyond that illusion, I was in a complete state of bliss. Life was truly fun. Love, acceptance, and compassion pervaded all things. As experiences came into and out of…
