“Time to eat!”
“Yes, Mom. Just a minute.”
I woke up this morning and found myself quietly staring at the wall in my room. I could see colorful masses of energy(qi) moving back and forth along the wall. As I simply followed their movements here and there, I suddenly realized that 30 minutes had flown by. Watching the multicolored energy appear and disappear repeatedly filled me with a sense of wonder.
“Why aren’t you getting up yet? Hurry up and eat breakfast!”
It wasn’t until I heard my mother calling me again that I reluctantly pushed myself out of bed, leaving my sense of longing behind. As I returned to reality, those beautiful, colorful droplets slowly faded from view.
Back then, no matter how much I told people what I had seen, no one believed me. They seemed to think it was just an optical illusion. But an event occurred that proved it wasn’t an optical illusion after all.
It was when I was living in a boarding house in Seoul. At the time, I was balancing spiritual practice with my studies, and whenever I finished my practice, I would always run my hand along the wall. Sometimes, I would even hug it affectionately, as if it were a dear friend. I think I did this especially on hot summer days—partly because I enjoyed the cool feel of the wall, and partly because I simply felt grateful for its presence. As time went on, something mysterious began to happen. A blue glow gradually started to emanate from the wall. The more attention I gave it day after day, the more vivid it seemed to become.
“Is this something only I can see?” In any case, whenever I gazed at that glow, I felt my mind grow calm.
Then one day, the older sister and younger siblings from the boarding house asked if we could have a meal together, so I invited them into my room. But as soon as they entered, they started staring at the wall strangely. They said the blue glow was coming only from the part of the wall that I had been stroking. I couldn’t help but be surprised. It was the moment I realized that what I had always thought was just an optical illusion of mine might actually be real. All three visitors could see the color and found it truly amazing. When I explained the whole story, they knew it didn’t make sense, but they had no choice but to believe me.
When I returned to that place some time after I had finished living there as a boarder, the wallpaper looked exactly as it had before, but the blue hue was no longer visible. Perhaps because the owner had changed, the wallpaper seemed to have lost its luster. Incidentally, they say that once wallpaper discolors, the color never returns. Furthermore, judging by the dark stains still visible on the wallpaper, it hadn’t been replaced either. The blue hue I mentioned earlier wasn’t the result of the wallpaper itself turning blue; rather, a sky-blue glow emanated from the wallpaper, filling the room with a mysterious aura.
Phoenix
