COMING FOR LEAVING
This morning, when opening the email, I found a German translation article, the “In the Foggy Area”. The translator, a Śūnyatā practitioner, informed it is the new-updated version if compared with the old one uploaded in the website. This might be long ago that I cannot remember what was written in the piece which makes the guy still reading over for editing. With curiosity, I looked for the article which might be in the series of “Singing admist the Sky”. Ah! Here it is! It is the 35th. Reading it again. Oh! Inside the hazy region is the zone of fairies. Then, I took a quick look at the 33rd one, “The Spring”. Well! What did I write there under a too short title? Reading to the last words, feeling emotional, I remembered our Master. The right bottom of the laptop showed March 13. It’s our Master’s birthday.
In Spring 1929, we cheered our Master’s coming into life. In Spring 1982, we celebrated the glory of our Master’s Recognition of the Path. In Winter 2019, he left us.
Spring has come back. Mai flowers, Ochna integerrima, and Sakura, Cherry flowers, are in their early blooming. We know the nature is moving to the Spring. Anything could be more beautiful than such budding flowers! The light pink petals are so soft, fragile, and translucent via the sunlight. Who could touch them without the fear of hurting them? Their fragrance is slightly spreading. The growing flowers just half-open the pinky, the crystalline and the crimson colors while reaching out into the blue sky to welcome the light of the day.
The warm sunlight appears. The cold wind turns into cool breezes. When the sunny spring is back, the chilly winter is over. The winter must go for the spring arriving. The flowers are abloom, then fade for the returning winter. Daffodils are flourishing in the winter wind. Then they are paling and dying next to the cherry branches shining with pinkish and whitish buds. But are the flowers this year the same ones last year? And this Spring sunshine is similar to the previous one?
Has the time passed ever come back? Life keeps flowing. Everything keeps moving forward and forward. Have them ever stopped? Have them ever turned back to the primary status? It is the very natural operation. The streetcar of life keeps going and going towards the infinite. So are we. We are alike white bubbles at the seashore. Sea waves innocently tap the sand and generate the bubbles that alternate with continuously appearing and disappearing. Our life is similar to bubbles, existing and quickly vanished. The Buddha has said “Human life is the same as a water bubble, a late sunset light, a banana tree trunk, a lightning, a dream and a magical game.”
Knowing that, do not be moody, sad and cheerful alternatively. Why are we happy at the gathering and unhappy at leaving? Seeing each other, we should know the parting time will definitely come. When something born, we should know it will be gone one day. Flowers are in blossom, then they must be fading. With that we are appreciative of the moment when we enjoy flowers and treasure our life and other sentient beings’.
But with those, this morning, under warm sunlight, while relishing the spring flowers, how come it seems someone’s eyes are full in tear.
Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Triệt Như
Śūnyatā Monastery, March 13, 2024
English version by Ngọc Huyền
Seclusion of Non-Word, Early Spring, 2024
Link to Vietnamese article: https://tanhkhong.org/p105a4101/triet-nhu-tieng-hat-giua-troi-bai-47
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