Letters to Heaven (Drug Rehabilitation)

Letters to Heaven (Drug Rehabilitation)

In our training program, there is a lady who comes to teach us once a month. She has fair skin, and it seems she adheres to Red Indian (Native American) beliefs—at least, that is my impression. She is likely around 70 years old and typically wears coarse cotton shirts and colorful beaded bracelets on her arms. She teaches Yoga and mindfulness exercises.

Sometimes, during occasions like Christmas, we have an activity where we hand-stitch little stockings using fabric of our choice and place them under the Christmas tree at the center.

Yoga and breathing exercises are already familiar to us Burmese, so I won't go into detail about those. However, there is one activity we do once a month called "Sending Letters to Heaven." It is about writing letters to our loved ones who are no longer in this world. She distributes light blue sheets of paper to all of us. Then, we close our eyes for about 15 minutes to find inner peace. When we hear the gentle sound of a singing bowl ringing in the silence, we slowly open our eyes and write our letters to our loved ones, opening up our hearts. Although you can hear the sounds of some people crying or sniffing while writing, no one asks anyone else about it.

When we hear the bowl ring "dong" again, we all fold our little sheets of paper and gather around the fire pit outside the training hall. After a brief moment of sending loving-kindness (Metta), we toss our papers into the fire.

After that, we return to the hall, sit in our places, and practice slow, deep breathing for another 10 minutes to attain inner satisfaction. I am sharing this as a memorable exercise. In the photo, the place I have indicated with an arrow is the fire pit, and the circle next to it is the turtle pond.

Photo / AADAP, Inc. - Therapeutic Community (TC)