Woo: Our Main Teacher at Our New Queens Branch

One way in which you can create your life is through will power. You have a vision of what you think happiness is and then you push your way forward trying to make that happen, trying to arrange everything so that you’ll be happy.

I myself had all those “things” I thought would make me happy, all the things New Yorkers strive for – a successful career, a house upstate, a relationship… Yet in the span of about three months, all those things disappeared. My ordinary life literally collapsed around me. These kinds of experiences really show you how illusory and ephemeral things are…they can go away so suddenly. I felt totally broken as a person, and physically I was also a mess, not eating or sleeping well at all. I went to a refuge retreat at the Kadampa Temple upstate. It seemed like a beautiful way of giving up pushing, of finally letting go, and surrendering. I felt like I’d checked into a spiritual hospital.

This was the beginning of my healing journey. Retreats became something I would commit to regularly. Looking back I can see that as all my external refuges were collapsing, the Dharma helped me find internal refuge. I started to feel healed, soothed, and protected by it. I continued to deepen my experience of Dharma by asking myself the question, do I really believe that happiness comes from inner peace? Do I believe that a peaceful mind is my real refuge? I would use breathing meditation to connect to a peaceful heart and stay there and experience what that means. What I found is that when you have a peaceful mind you have an accepting mind, a loving mind, a kind mind. As Geshe-la explains, patient acceptance, love, compassion, and all the virtuous states of mind are expressions of a peaceful heart. They are the actual causes of deep joy, lightness and happiness.

In the last few years I’ve put emphasis on teaching as a way of deepening my experience and knowledge of Dharma. Dharma has been instrumental in helping me transform my suffering and discover the real source of happiness. I think once you really deeply appreciate the power of Dharma and how beautiful and transformative it is you want to share it with others. You want to help people find it and flourish from within.