Journey of Healing

For every heart that is equipped with sensitivity, it is very touching to see the tears of pain and suffering here and there. Do not talk about under developed countries, even the rich and well developed countries are marked by much suffering.

Embrace the Past

Borrowing Sigmund Freud, the beginning of our life as kids will determine whether or not a person is mentally healthy then. Unfortunately, the science of psychology is a relatively young discipline. In a country as advanced as the U.S, awareness of the importance of taking good care of children's emotional life emerged in the 1980s. So it is easily understandable, many older people committed dangerous mistakes to their children, a lot of people who filled their childhood with deep wounds. In some meditation classes, many students opened the secret that they were physically, verbally, sexually abused.

This explains why more than half of meditation participants are painful persons. From those who are ready to divorce until ones who want to commit suicide. Having deeply explored the stories of some students, to some extent Freud was right,  painful experience of childhood is important factor.

Borrowing Candace B. Pert, Ph.D  in her book titled Molecules of Emotion, in our body there are chemical interaction, which then sends the information to the mind. However, this information can be positive or negative to mental health, is highly dependent on how the mind digest the information. Healing is more likely to occur, if the mind can gently embrace any information that appears beyond positive and negative. And regarding the past, there is no better choice than embrace, focus on the lesson, not the person who harm. In the journey of deep meditation, disciples are suggested to accept pain as if one meets a holy Guru. When we see with the eyes of clarity, there is holy secret hidden behind suffering.

Being One with the Present

To be honest, no one of us who were born from perfect parent. Even U.S. President Barack Obama was born from a pair of parents who divorced. The difference with the ordinaries who are sick, a person who meet inner light transform suffering of the past into materials of growth.

In the old language of healing, it's not what happened that count, but how one responds to what happened. Suffering that comes from the past is like cow dung, as long as one able to put it under flower tree, as a matter of time, it will blossom into flowers. The past can send any bad information, meditation compassionately witness, till one day those bad information blossom into flower of peace,

Learning from this lessons, childhood which is full of sores do not always end up with grief. It can be transformed into flowers of serenity. This can happen when one learns to see and understand deeply that all of us (include our parents and those who created misery to us) suffer. When you see from the eyes of suffering, then energy of compassion arise. Under the light of compassion, it is easier to be at one with the present. This is one of important characteristics of an inner inquiry who has arrived home.

The Best Preparation of the Future

By embracing the past, the past ceased  to be toxic. Meditation then transform it into fertilizer of growth. This is the gate of healing. Put it simply, the chemical interaction within the body and also  the past  can send any information, meditative mind transform it into fertilizer. Finally, all those information blossom into flower of harmony. This is the gate of healing. And the main sign is  every present moment is a present.

As a result, every step of the present becomes the best preparation for the future. Through many research in neuroscience have been showed that when one becomes the good friend of life, brains produced fewer amygdala as the source of much tension. On the contrary, brain produces more dopamine which helps the process of healing. Meditation even deeper, to make the brain produce endorphin which can lead into spiritual attainment.

Heal yourself from the toxic of the past first, then being one with the present, among all preparations to the future this is the best preparation. As has been often heard in community of healing, by healing ourselves we heal the world. ***)

------------------------------------------

***) To share richer healing experience, in the deeper level everyone is actually unique. The personal experience can not be compared. But to inspire as many people as possible, let me share a brief story of my long journey of healing.

I myself was also deeply wounded by my childhood. I was born as the youngest in a family with 13 children. I was physically and verbally abused. It all created many dark rooms here inside. At the beginning, some dark rooms inside were dispelled by deep practice of meditation that is mostly originated from Tibet. Some other rooms were illuminated by psychotherapy that I learned especially from Carl G. Jung. Inspired by Joseph Campbell book on The Power of Myth, some myths that I heard in my childhood mean a lot.  Lightened by Freud's Interpretation of Dream, the dreams of some enlightened person like Jetsun Milarepa, some of my childhood dreams function as a good guide.

When I was in England, I learned psycholinguistic (the connection between studies of linguistic and psychology), later on I began to understand the deeper part of myself from my love letters that were kept by my wife at home for years. To make the story short, healing is a long and complicated journey. To the ordinaries, it is suggested to meet the appropriate Guru. To the potential Masters, it is suggested to follow J. Krishnamurti who explicitly declare that this healing journey should be mostly done alone.