NEAR AWAKENING and The Value of Life

It’s called awakening because we live in the opposite: a dream. Another more common term is enlightenment. Or nirvana, or nibbana, to use the Buddha’s language. It is the goal of the spiritual path which begins when we want out of the dream. In the beginning of my path, I considered myself a truth-seeker. I had what is aptly described as a realization of the existential dilemma. I knew I wasn’t happy, and I had a gnawing feeling that the happiness that I wished for could not be found in what I considered the ‘snares of society.’ That is all I knew. I did not know the way out. This is where my story begins; it takes me to far-off remote corners of the world, but more importantly to near awakening. In one of our conversations, I told him that I had thought that I would be happy after I ordained, but I still hadn’t attained that anticipated happiness. He said happiness doesn’t come from where you live but is a result of experience in meditation. One must overcome the defilements and that takes time. In another conversation we had, I said that I thought I was leaving the world behind when I came to live in the monastery, but I found that there is a world within the monastery that one must face. He agreed with what I said and seemed happy with my little realization. He said that you can ordain your body, but the heart doesn’t ordain with it. To ordain the heart, one must practice. He said that practicing the Dhamma is like swimming upstream. One must fight against the current of the defilements in the mind. The Buddha said that the defilements are like clouds covering the moon. The mind is naturally bright and pure but defilements cloud over it. Don’t attach to the clouds as who you are but see the mind—pure and bright. It was like there was a fire in my heart and it never went away. It was there when I woke up, and it was there until I couldn’t stay awake anymore and fell asleep. It was like the bright sun was shining in front of my face, all day, all night. Inescapable suffering which kept saying to me. ”You’re not good enough, you’re a bad nun for having defilements.” Something had to change; something had to be done. I couldn’t live this way anymore, suffering over my mind all day. It was like this for about three days before something changed. There was nothing wrong with my mindfulness, and nothing wrong with my virtue, so perhaps I needed to apply wisdom. When I finished filling all the flasks, I got up to go have a shower. Before going to have a shower, I went to sit in one of my friend’s rooms to sort my mind out. The walk from the boiler room to my friend’s room felt surreal, as if I was gliding. Then when I sat down, I simply made up my mind—I was going to sort out this fire in my heart; it was time.