True Life Experience Of
Virtues Of Dhamma
BY
Cho Cho Win
Staff Nurse (01-512190)
I am suffering from multiple life-threatening diseases such as heart, hypertension, diabetes and arthritis. I am always under constant medical treatment and care.
One day
in November 2009 while I was on night duty rounds in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the General Hospital, I suddenly
collapsed. My attending doctors and fellow nurses gave me emergency treatment
and admitted me to ICU for observation and treatment. I was suffering terribly
and felt that I was about to die. My sister who came to attend me advised that
I should seek spiritual guidance in my religion (Buddhism) to help ease anxiety
about my illness.
Not long
after, my sister invited the most venerable Sayadaw U Ottamasara to my bedside.
I respectfully paid my obeisance to Sayadaw. At that moment of time I was
strapped with oxygen mask. Blood transfusion syringe was attached to my wrists.
I was under a 24 hour watch due to the seriousness of my illness.
Sayadaw
saw my condition and with unbounded compassion delivered sermons of Lord Buddha
for contemplation to ease my anxiety.
In fact that was the first time that I had learned about the essence of
Dhamma teachings. I had also understood Sayadaw’s metta and his wisdom to bless
me.
Let me
truthfully confess to my readers about my feelings before I met Sayadaw. In the course of my duties as a staff nurse
for 14 years, I had come across many patients with all kinds of diseases. With
the will to cling to life to the last moment, they had endured the pains of the
diseases, with true faith in their destiny. Eventually some recovered, and many
died.
The attending doctors and nurses tried their best to save lives and ease
suffering. In the end they could not combat against death. Now I realized that
I had become a patient awaiting death
and had come to contemplate the evil effects of greed (lobha), anger (dosa), delusion (moha), attachment (tanha), anxiety(soka), and the final end such
evil can lead me.
Sayadaw’s
teachings and guidance had eased my anxieties to a large extent. I owed my
gratitude to Sayadaw for teaching me the basic principles of universal truth,
and liberation from all attachments. He guided me, in that short moment to the
true path of salvation.
His discourses on Dhamma and meditation (vipassana) are very simple and easy
to understand. He did not use Pali words, but spoke in simple
Myanmar language. I feel that Sayadaw was saving us from evil desires and
attachment and worries over our disease and sufferings.
ThaBarWa
Center is truly a sanctuary for old, invalid and chronically ill persons like
us. No other centre can accept such persons as Sayadaw is doing now in Thanlyin.
He gives us food, clothes and shelter free of charge. Many volunteers
attend to our needs.
In addition he guides us to the most essential Dhamma and
practical meditation with metta, sympathy and compassion. Thus
I enjoy peace of mind and become more confident to face life after death. I am
writing this true experience to share with my readers how much Sayadaw’s metta and Dhamma has given me
peace of mind and ease my sufferings.
I pray
that the ThaBarwa Centre may develop to help hopeless, helpless and abandoned
poor people. I also pray that Sayadaw may be blessed with health and wisdom to
guide people in the teachings of Lord Buddha and practical meditation.
The author of this true life essay, Daw Cho Cho Win is a staff nurse employed by the Health Department of the Ministry of Health.
Translated
by Ba Than (Mahavijja)