Translator: Yuko Shirakawa Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
One morning when I was 18 years old,
I woke up to a severe headache,
and my ears were ringing like never before.
And as I opened my eyes, I felt nauseous.
The world was not exactly spinning but felt very weird.
And I couldn’t think straight.
A thought popped into my head,
"I'm not dead, I failed."
I had attempted suicide the night before
by swallowing up all the painkillers that I could find in my house.
Why? I was severely depressed and angry.
Angry at what life had to offer me.
I was also hallucinating,
seeing things like demons and hearing voices.
I was also paranoid and thought that someone was listening in on me -
and was plotting to kill me.
I was under the influence of crystal meth,
one of the most addictive drugs in the world.
I am a recovering drug addict
and a former religious cult member.
What motivated me into those
was my anger towards this world, dressed up in a desire for world peace.
And today, I want to talk about how conflict and anger
led me to finding inner peace,
hoping that this talk may be helpful to somebody.
As a kid, I was always frustrated
because it felt like the world was forcing me to be someone else.
And I was angry
because I didn't see the connection
between what this society expected me to do and happiness.
Nor did I see the point in doing anything,
because I thought that no matter what I did,
I was going to die anyway.
I rebelled.
I argued with my teachers and friends.
I got into a lot of fights.
And the more I learned,
the more I started to feel that this whole world was messed up.
School to me was prison,
where brainwashed people to become slaves to the people in power.
Again, I didn't see any connection between school and happiness.
So when I was 15, I quit school.
It was probably during this time when I tried my first drug.
I tried it because I wanted to do things that this society told me not to do.
Because I thought that in order to change the world,
rebellion was the way.
I went back to school after a year because my father convinced me to do so.
But I was still experimenting with different drugs
and eventually came across crystal meth -
and immediately got hooked.
I made money through stealing
and did crystal meth on a daily basis.
Now I would never make the choice
to steal or do crystal meth.
But back then,
looking for love, inner peace
and the right way to live.
The continual use of crystal meth really messed me up.
I ended up attempting suicide and encountered close calls with death.
I seriously thought that I would not live till 20.
But contrary to my expectations, I was able to quit before I turned 20.
The reason I was able to decide to quit was
because I started to feel like a loser and a slave to crystal meth.
My life was completely controlled by it.
It felt like the drug was forcing me to be someone else.
An addict.
I don’t like that.
I became very angry.
And this anger reminded me of when I was a kid,
when I first had a vision of world peace.
A world where everyone was living happily and peacefully together
despite their differences.
But ironically, this desire was based on my anger towards this world.
I decided to quit, but it wasn’t easy.
I started telling people that I quit crystal meth,
and I really meant it.
But the next day or week
or month or in a few months,
I would be doing crystal meth again.
And this cycle continued on for a while.
A lot of people lost trust in me.
Eventually some started criticizing me as a liar.
That really tore me apart.
I had already had enough of that
because I was constantly criticizing myself in my head.
My self-esteem hit rock bottom.
I lost trust in myself, and frankly,
that was one of the most painful parts of this whole drug experience.
Studies suggest that it is very difficult to stay clean for life
once you get addicted
because the addiction takes place at a neurobiological level.
The relapse rate is said to be as high as 88%
according to a particular study.
But to those of you out there
currently struggling to quit,
I want to let you know
that it is possible to get your life back.
How do you think I was eventually able to quit?
When I think back,
though I was very angry at that time,
I was also desperately looking for love and inner peace,
where I could just be myself,
where nobody and nothing was forcing me to do things.
And I was really tired of fighting against my own addiction.
And the terrible flashbacks ...
That was when my friend urged me to try his religion.
I started practicing their meditation on a daily basis.
And within two weeks, the flashbacks were gone,
and I immediately felt love and life force.
I thought "Wow!!"
This religion gave the answers
to all the questions that I had had since early childhood.
It claimed that it had proof that life would continue after death.
And if you practiced their religion,
you would be happy now and in your afterlife,
but if not, you would be unhappy now
and most likely go to hell in your afterlife.
And if everyone in the world believed in their religion,
we would have world peace,
but if not, the world would come to an end.
So I sighed.
"I finally found a way to really contribute to world peace."
In about four and a half years,
I had successfully recruited hundreds of people
and was leading a group of about a thousand members.
I was looked up by my fellow members
but hated and despised by pretty much everyone else who knew me
because the way I recruited people was forceful -
as I believed that that was the right thing to do.
However, I eventually learned that the group was a cult.
It took me several painful days to decide to leave the group,
and to go around apologizing to everyone,
only to be faced by the hatred
of not just the majority of the people who I had attempted recruiting,
but my former fellow cult members with the exception of only a few.
And several years later,
I left the last religious group which I had joined after I left the cult.
I got tired of faith
and the attitude of we are right and you are wrong,
we are the good guys and you are the bad guys.
The world of us versus them.
The world of conflict.
After that, I was constantly in conflict with myself.
I was criticizing myself,
and I hated myself for all the things that I had done.
It took me years to forgive, accept and love myself
and to be where I am right now.
That is the short version of my drug and cult story.
I currently don’t believe in any particular religion,
but I’ve come to believe through my experience
that a good religion helps a person find inner peace,
makes a person more compassionate, more loving and kinder,
and leads a person to freedom.
Now I want to change the tone a little bit
and introduce two of the things that I do every morning,
after I left the cult to live a peaceful life.
I write in my journal whatever comes to mind first thing in the morning.
I keep this totally private,
and not even my wife nor my son knows what I write in it -
I hope ...
It helps me let go and organize my thoughts.
After that, I practice some form of meditation,
usually mindfulness meditation
or loving-kindness meditation.
Mindfulness is a term we hear quite often today.
I personally define it
as the practice of freeing oneself and connecting with inner peace
by being aware of and kind to what is in the present moment
and learning its nature.
And I know that was a bit long.
Loving-kindness meditation
is a meditation where you recite phrases
that help you cultivate good will towards yourself and others.
I’ve been practicing both forms of meditation for about ten years now.
And I can literally say that they have saved my life.
Conflict and anger led me to finding inner peace.
I’ve come to believe
that inner peace is not necessarily the absence of conflict,
anger, guilt, remorse,
greed, sadness, uncertainty, suffering
or any of the so called “negative” stuff.
It is what’s found when you transcend words and concepts
and truly accept and love yourself
for who you are,
in each and every moment.
You don’t have to force yourself to be something other than who you are
to connect with inner peace.
Inner peace is always there for you.
One morning
when I was 37 years old,
I woke up to a slight brain fog,
and my ears were ringing as usual.
I got out of bed, did my morning routine and headed out to work.
A thought popped into my head,
"I am grateful to my past for teaching me what is important in life
and to all my friends, my teachers, my family and all beings.
I want to help people find inner peace.
World peace is something that starts from within."
May all beings be happy and peaceful.
(Japanese) 生きとし生きる物が 幸福で平和でありますように
Thank you.
Applause.