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Born in the Far East to German parents, I was exposed to many different cultures, ethnicities, and points of views from early on. I believe my experience of growing up amidst cultural differences helps me see the common humanity shared by all, as I came to see that the needs of all human beings are fundamentally the same across the world.
In the late 1990s, during a period of intense desparation and unhappiness, a pivotal statement entered my mind, a statement that would change everything: "There must be another way." This was soon followed by the realization - not by an epiphany, but by an observation deduced rather logically like one would solve a mathematical problem - that some people were happier than others, and more often so. "Those people," I surmised, "must have either done or chosen something different than those whose lives are not filled with joy." From that moment on I set out to find that which would diminish suffering and bring peace of mind.
It was a few years after the initial realization, in the early 2000s, that I came across the practice of qigong (calisthenics, breathwork, and energy development) that allowed me to experience a greater sense of vitality and aliveness. However, my heart's longing still had not been answered, that is, not until I had had a healing session with a qigong healer in 2001. During this session, for the first time in my adult years, my heart opened and I felt a tangible ocean of love welling up from inside the heart as the thin, yet impenetrable layer of hate that had been covering this vast ocean was lifted. That ocean was as boundless as it was self-sustaining, completely independent in its existence, yet life-giving beyond measure.
The experience passed, as all experiences do, but I was left with a clear impression - a blueprint on cellular memory if you will - of what can be. Similar experiences of varying intensities occurred in the months and years that followed, most notably once, during an exercise, when energy started to well up from inside the lower abdomen and moved into the heart on its own accord, opening the heart with a realization that completely bypassed all rational thought: "Life is suffering. Therefore we must work together." The experience of feeling mankind's timeless, collective suffering cannot possibly be described in words: everyone else's pain and my own were one. The protective walls surrounding the heart that create the sense of separateness had vanished, if only for an instant. |