I grew up in an Asian-American family with delicious food, unconditional love, sometimes corporal punishment, and an emphasis on education.
I was an academic high achiever throughout school, including college and graduate school (PhD in Neuroscience) at Stanford. Some of the challenges I faced in graduate school included working with older men who groomed me and working in the sharply competitive world of academic research. An additional challenge was that I had been doing experiments with animals, forcing them into pain and death, having justified this as leading to the larger human good of medicine and gaining knowledge about reality. In my view, animal experiments are somewhat justified, but I for my part refuse to do them any more. This is an ethical dilemma that remains in my subconscious brain even these days, as I feed my dog free-range, organic chicken.
The main wisdom I gained in grad school is to not depend on ego gratification to feel satisfactoriness. Several of my papers were rejected before they were later accepted by different journals, and my ego, conditioned by the hypercompetitive world of academics, perceived these rejections as failures. Dukkha, suffering, arises due to our attachments to self, among other attachments. The ego is an attachment to self, and this attachment to self caused me much suffering.
Also during grad school, I drank alcohol excessively, and this continued for a decade after grad school due to attachment to sense pleasures (another cause of suffering). When I finally brought awareness to the fact that I am loved, in 2016, I quit drinking. Love is the most powerful energy in the universe, if only we would bring our attention to it more often.
About a month after I quit drinking, I started practicing mindfulness meditation with the help of an app. Now having practiced mindfulness meditation for 8 years and taught for 3 years, I am much happier and fulfilled than at other time of my life.
May you be safe and protected. May you be happy and peaceful. May you be healthy and strong. May you live with ease.
