The course Mindfulness – based Transformation (MT61 - 7, 8, 9 April 2018) was an unforgettable experience to me. I was occupied by the same feelings throughout the course – the feelings that had been long buried and were only realized at the end of the 3-day course.
3 days was too short of a time but I felt like I received a lot. I came to the realization that I had missed many things in my life, things that were seemingly familiar and so often taken for granted, things that I had never spent a second to appreciate. I got a chance to meet many people and listen to their stories, which enlightened me that every one of us had a story, a dark melancholy piece of memories we wanted to keep for ourselves. On turning out, I was not the only one to suffer. Your story became so trivial in the comparison of the vast variety of others’.
Photo: Lê Thị Lệ Quyên (first one from the left) was taking a photo with her fellows
In MT, you had the opportunity to move back in time to become a 6-year-old again, back to the purest and most beautiful memories of the good old days that you had unconsciously forgotten or buried somewhere as time went by, back to warm embraces, big high-fives, shoulder to shoulder in sing-alongs, back to laughter and tears, to the most emotional moments, to where you listened and were listened to, where you could truly be yourself without the fear of judgements.
Let’s imagine your life to be a picture puzzle made up by thousands of pieces. Some pieces are clean and shiny while some others are rough and edgy. Some are pink, some green and some black or gray. MT makes your game more fun and helps you acknowledge the importance of each piece even if they are dark or edgy because you would not be able to complete your picture without any of them. That is the way it is. Each piece may not be perfect, just like us humans are not flawless. But what makes MT so special is that it creates an environment that triggers your good inclination without any enforcement. In MT, you understand that life is not that complicated. Life is governed by a set of rules which perfectly simplifies how your life goes on, similar to how boats are lit by lighthouses regardless of storms or waves. In MT, you learn that “for we are humans, we are designed to connect with each other”. It turns out that love is not difficult and peace is so simple. You are the cause of everything happening to you. I do not want you to fantasize anything about MT though it truly made an incredible impression on me. MT taught me great values via ordinary means – a perfect contrast deeply engraved on my mind forever.
I want to express my sincerest thanks to the organization board, lecturers, teaching assistants and my fellows at MT61 for accompanying me during the course and my special thanks to Disability Research and Capacity Development (DRD) for the opportunity.
Lê Thị Lệ Quyên
Translator: Lê Liên
