In Search of My Lost Self
34. 잃어버린 나를 찾아서
34. In Search of My Lost Self
One day, I was helping clean up after a regular Sunday dharma meeting at the Won-Buddhist temple in Philadelphia. But when I went to get my small cross-body bag to head home, I couldn’t find it anywhere. My wallet, ID, check card, and cash, even my iPad Mini, which hadn’t been paid off—all of it was gone.
I was a poor international student, and it felt like my world had come crashing down. I didn’t know what to do. I spent all of lunchtime asking the other Won-Buddhists about it. I looked all over the temple grounds, to no avail.
I quickly contacted the bank and had them deactivate my card, and reported the theft to the Glenside police, who asked a few basic questions before heading on their way.
Just then, a thought occurred to me. I went to my room, opened up my laptop, pulled up the iCloud website, and selected the “find my iPhone” icon. A satellite image came up with a blinking red dot. It was in a restaurant not far away. I had to make a decision: should I try to track the thief down before the tablet’s battery ran out, or should I just give up?
I talked to my roommates Dathane and Won, and we decided to give chase. Any fear that the thief might have had a gun was overwhelmed by my indignation over having my belongings stolen and my giddiness at the thought that something exciting might go down. Borrowing a navy blue Elantra from our graduate school’s dean, we drove off, tracking the items’ location in real time.
The red dot kept moving to the southeast. Still unaware where the final destination might be, we drove for some time before we saw the dot stop in the parking lot outside of a hotel. He headed straight for it, crossing over the state line from Pennsylvania into New Jersey.
But when we reached our destination and I checked the website again, I saw that the red dot was already on the move again. I called up the local police and explained the situation, but they seemed indifferent. It was hardly some big event, just an electronic device gone missing in Atlantic City, an East Coast gambling city where terrible things happen every day.
But their scoffing only stoked our pride, and the three of us “musketeers” sped after the red dot toward the Atlantic Ocean, focused solely on catching the thief. Finally, we were almost upon it. By then, the evening twilight was already bathing the landscape in red as dark approached.
But as we stopped the car in front of the enormous parking garage of a majestic 15-story building, a flashing hot pink neon-swathed structure right next to a glittering casino, my mind went blank and my jaw dropped.
I remained in a daze for some time, before finally deciding to give up the chase. As we drove home, all three of us were lost for words. A serene silence had arrived in the wake of the storm, filled with bafflement, worry, anger, nervousness, anxiety, excitement, desolation, disappointment, and resignation.
Having spent the whole day chasing after these tangled emotions, I was both physically and mentally exhausted. My possessions weren’t the only things I had lost. Gripped by attachment throughout the whole day, I had forgotten the “me” that lives in the moment.
Ironically, it was only when I felt that small realization beneath the gaudy lights of the casino—when I turned my gaze from outside back inward—that I understood the principle behind the words, “If there is the slightest bit of dust in your eyes, flowers in the sky will fall profusely.” I had found my lost self.
The dog chases after the tossed clod of dirt, but the lion bites the one who threw it.
—Transmission of the Lamp
