Pink Diamond

I remember a game I once was fairly addicted to, a candy crush game.

There's a magic wand that once you earn it and you strike a pink diamond, all pink diamonds on the whole map disappear. I was so very fascinated with that.

I remember too this story I had in my past, about non-committal relationship. When I broke up with my former partner and moved to a new land, for some years I was in my cocoon. There was always denial of relationship as social encounters would threaten my space.

Then I met some boys through a course of the next 8 years. One after another, romantic relationship sparked off, all of which with intense suffering from the fact that they either were holding on to their past break-up or current relationship. And I was living in extreme guilt and fear of wrong doing, grievances of being taken advantage of, heart pain of ambiguity, and constant confusion in the desire to be certain that I was loved.

In my last stretch of guilt-ridden relationship, I was so depressed that I was brought to some exorcist to help me sleep better. I figure however that my wish to correct the situation, and to live without guilt brought me to the grace of meditation, and subsequently ACIM, shortly after.

It took me some months of non-judgmental awareness and self-inquiry into my relationship and behavior pattern with 3-meditator’s job process. And one day out of nowhere an understanding came, that all these relationships came from my self-worthlessness view. Unworthy to be loved, unworthy to have committed relationship, unworthy to have the life I regarded as normal. Although the conscious mind was often proud of "my" capability and good academic track record, deeper down was an opposite thought hence the resistance to be seen, respected and honored, and the projection of being treated such. Factually it was a lot more convoluted than just that, but it all tied back to the same string of view and perception of myself.

That knowing came like a bolt of lightning, and the mind was light and bright for days after. I knew something was undone. And after a series of happenings, finally, I said goodbye to the last no-strings-attached encounter, deleted the old memories, and was blessed with a much more loving and fulfilling relationship. All those faces of the painful past magically disappeared from my consciousness too.

Although the whole story of guilt-ridden attachment didn’t vanish entirely as there were other bits of wrong views associated with those encounters, I was setting myself off to be set free. When more wrong views were undone, today, if I ever look back, those distant memories come without any trace of emotional charge, and I am able to see them with lovingness and a gentle smile. And I know now that I was never unseen, disrespected, nor dishonored, in those entanglements.

Once you strike dead a wrong view, whatever that wrong view does to your life and your relationships and your mind are struck dead together, be it physical, mental or emotional. It's like the pink diamonds being wiped off past present and future map of your existence.

I no longer play computer games, and no longer find certain things so addictive. But the pink diamond, a simplistic representation of how holographic the mind is, was still stuck in my head. It is never a linear process of undoing, and that itself is a grace.

In grace,
TP Linh
07 December 2021