fairgirl99
Nov 14, 2010
Essays / An example of an epiphany [5]
Epiphany is discussion of awareness that changes your life or your view of the surrounding.
Here is an example of an epiphany of my English 5 teacher:
As a young man, I had the opportunity to join a Buddhist retreat in the wilderness of Death Valley in California. It was rigorous. We got up and began meditating well before dawn in the freezing cold and practiced silent mindfulness throughout the day's blazing heat, as we walked, ate, and worked together. At night we sat in meditation again for a couple of hours beneath the stars, finally going to our tents and crawling into our sleeping bags in the shivery cold again, sometimes with light snowfall dancing in the beams of our flashlights.
After many days of practice, my perception started to loosen, to shift from the habitual, and I became susceptible to teaching from the ancient land. The moment came one evening as primitive stone tool found on the desert floor made its round from hand to hand.
When it came to me I held it, feeling how it nestled familiarly in my palm, and the hand that had once carefully fashioned it upon the shore of a lake vanished long ago in geological time reached over the centuries to touch me.
With a sudden vertigo, I saw the constellations in the sky of my mind wheeling backward, beyond 1492 into the time depths of this continent. Suddenly wrenched free of the European time-line, I understood that my country, the United States of America, which my school textbooks had hammered into me was the most significant thing to ever happen to the Northern hemisphere, was a flash in the pan compared to the ancient cultures that inhabit it as their own.
That day, I believe I became the first of my ancestors to actually set foot in the New World, with the seed of an indigenous, native person planted within.
Later, I found a quote of the poet Gary Snyder's that described the nature of my epiphany: "For the non-Native American to become at home on this continent, he or she must be born again in this hemisphere, on this continent, properly called Turtle Island."
I believe that day I was born again. I got "indigenized," as a Native American friend calls it.
This is my own epiphany:
Six years ago, I was just a little girl who loved to enjoy the company of other kids who were born in Vietnam, and spoken the same language which I grew so familiar with. Until my parents surprised me one day when they told me, "we are going to America!" For a short moment, I thought it was a worse thing ever, because I was going to some country that I did not know of. But it was even worst when I found out my parents decided to leave me in America to stay with my aunt, whom I just met for the first time in thirteen years.
When I first entered school in America, I found school had become a challenge. The language was unfamiliar, and I could not understand most of the words spoken by the teachers nor the materials covered in classes. I kept on failing all of my classes which had never happened to me before when I was in Vietnam. I felt so ashamed as I looked at my first report card. I tried to convince myself the reason I fail was because I could not understand English. I soon realized that it was not because I could not understand English that had gotten me the bad grades, but it was me who did not want to try harder due to the sudden change of my surrounding environment.
As I kept on asking myself questions "how could my parents leave me here alone?" or "how come everything has become so difficult?" it came to my conscious that everything was not placed out for me to choose. Sometimes things could happen unexpectedly, and I should learn how to adapt to changing situations.
Soon, I decided to give my best effort to struggle with learning English, and tried to work twice as hard as other kids who already knew English better than me. Maybe changes were not as bad as I imagined. Often time, I looked back into my past and I always thanked my parents for leaving me in America. Maybe it would be better for me to live without my parents at a young age, because I could learn to be independent. Not only that, I even learned English faster than other kids in Vietnam, while it came with no cost.
Hope that will help :)
Epiphany is discussion of awareness that changes your life or your view of the surrounding.
Here is an example of an epiphany of my English 5 teacher:
As a young man, I had the opportunity to join a Buddhist retreat in the wilderness of Death Valley in California. It was rigorous. We got up and began meditating well before dawn in the freezing cold and practiced silent mindfulness throughout the day's blazing heat, as we walked, ate, and worked together. At night we sat in meditation again for a couple of hours beneath the stars, finally going to our tents and crawling into our sleeping bags in the shivery cold again, sometimes with light snowfall dancing in the beams of our flashlights.
After many days of practice, my perception started to loosen, to shift from the habitual, and I became susceptible to teaching from the ancient land. The moment came one evening as primitive stone tool found on the desert floor made its round from hand to hand.
When it came to me I held it, feeling how it nestled familiarly in my palm, and the hand that had once carefully fashioned it upon the shore of a lake vanished long ago in geological time reached over the centuries to touch me.
With a sudden vertigo, I saw the constellations in the sky of my mind wheeling backward, beyond 1492 into the time depths of this continent. Suddenly wrenched free of the European time-line, I understood that my country, the United States of America, which my school textbooks had hammered into me was the most significant thing to ever happen to the Northern hemisphere, was a flash in the pan compared to the ancient cultures that inhabit it as their own.
That day, I believe I became the first of my ancestors to actually set foot in the New World, with the seed of an indigenous, native person planted within.
Later, I found a quote of the poet Gary Snyder's that described the nature of my epiphany: "For the non-Native American to become at home on this continent, he or she must be born again in this hemisphere, on this continent, properly called Turtle Island."
I believe that day I was born again. I got "indigenized," as a Native American friend calls it.
This is my own epiphany:
Six years ago, I was just a little girl who loved to enjoy the company of other kids who were born in Vietnam, and spoken the same language which I grew so familiar with. Until my parents surprised me one day when they told me, "we are going to America!" For a short moment, I thought it was a worse thing ever, because I was going to some country that I did not know of. But it was even worst when I found out my parents decided to leave me in America to stay with my aunt, whom I just met for the first time in thirteen years.
When I first entered school in America, I found school had become a challenge. The language was unfamiliar, and I could not understand most of the words spoken by the teachers nor the materials covered in classes. I kept on failing all of my classes which had never happened to me before when I was in Vietnam. I felt so ashamed as I looked at my first report card. I tried to convince myself the reason I fail was because I could not understand English. I soon realized that it was not because I could not understand English that had gotten me the bad grades, but it was me who did not want to try harder due to the sudden change of my surrounding environment.
As I kept on asking myself questions "how could my parents leave me here alone?" or "how come everything has become so difficult?" it came to my conscious that everything was not placed out for me to choose. Sometimes things could happen unexpectedly, and I should learn how to adapt to changing situations.
Soon, I decided to give my best effort to struggle with learning English, and tried to work twice as hard as other kids who already knew English better than me. Maybe changes were not as bad as I imagined. Often time, I looked back into my past and I always thanked my parents for leaving me in America. Maybe it would be better for me to live without my parents at a young age, because I could learn to be independent. Not only that, I even learned English faster than other kids in Vietnam, while it came with no cost.
Hope that will help :)
