THE EPHEMERA’S LIFESPAN
Our monastery sits in the rural hilly location where the wilderness still remains with caves, cliffs, and a great deal of various trees and vegetations. Many a little mountain rabbit are in grayish and brownish fur but not so cute as the house ones in the snow-white coats; and the tiny squirrels have yellowish brown hair with long bushy tails. Both of them are little-bitty. But they have some different features. The hare is long-eared but short-tailed. The latter is short-eared with long tails wagging all the time, scutter around, crane their necks and timidly eat the leaves of the trees planted in the pots every morning.
Summer is now. Hot and sunny! Sometimes up to 90F degrees at noon time! It is time for flies, mosquitos and moths to appear. They would try to fly into our houses when we carelessly walk in or out in spite of the mesh screen at the door. They are not seen in the spacious office. But every night, when I get in my lighted bedroom for just a moment, they start buzzing. It is easy to move them out. We turn on the big lights in the hall and off the lamps inside the room, then open the door widely. The mosquitos instantly chase after the luminance and fly out. Sometimes we do not know some ephemerons fly in the house. The latter is different from the former. They own the bigger wings, and their flying sound vary from the mosquitos’ buzz. When discovering some mayflies launching themselves into the lights, we should turn off immediately or else they die on the spot when bumping the hot bulbs. Simultaneously, the lights outside should be on so they can see the way to get out. The mosquito is smarter. They ambush around to attack us. They do not dash into the lamps where they might know there is no blood.
When being allured by the illumination, the mayflies fling themselves straightly into it; hitting the hot bulbs, they fall down and die immediately. Thus, we name them the “self-burning” insects, the ephemerons. We do not know their real instinct, what they expect from the light. Seeing their congeners of the same species killed in such a way, but how come the others keep fatally dashing?
Oh, guys! Upon self-reflecting, it seems we might be more or less similar to the ephemerids. Yet, we are still alive. It means we are awake, and not so foolish that rushing into deaths like the above poor insects.
Remembering one day from an unknown source, I read an innermost letter for the lovers on the way to tie the knot. The letter assumed to be long and full of advice, but it consists only three words as keen as a blade “Don’t get married.” It is the very sharp Prajna sword, the saber of wisdom. Fabulous and wonderful!
The younger generation are seemingly very cautious in identifying their other half. Many of them, male and female, are confident and able to live independently. They do not think marriage is necessary.
The above viewpoint is quite different from that of the previous generations in which when the children just reached their adulthood, their parents started looking around for their spouses. The marriages at that time were seen as a tradition of the society. If they did not comply with it, they would be criticized or ridiculed, and it strongly raised their parents’ concerns.
People at that time were stricter and created many tragic situations. Their children were pushed and forced to marry to those their parents liked and chose. Well, I do not want to say more. So is life!
In one of my prior pieces of writing, I ended it as follows: The highest danger in human life is to pick an inappropriate spouse. It has brought sufferings for three generations: our parents, ourselves, and our children. Now, to make that conclusion stronger, I add the quotation from the above heartfelt letter “Don’t get married.”
Our marriages, if one day turning into a type of hell, we are definitely the life sentenced prisoners whose existence is non-sense.
Throughout the wedlock, in case both still love each other as wished in the wedding ceremonies, is it good or not? Anyway, we have also been confined behind bars of the Love prison, this and next life if “the love could last for thousand years.”
With reconsidering, we learn that how we feel pity for the mayflies, then, all the Buddhas and the Patriarchs have loved humankind much more than that.
From life to life, people keep darting to death, repeating and updating their thirst, desires, and hunger that, after a long time, change into their subconscious leaking infatuation and addiction, then their instinct. What they have been doing is out of their judgement and consideration. That makes the Buddha says, “the oceans formed by human tear, the earth and mountains by human bones from innumerous human lifetimes.”
The Lord also says that across the immensity of human lifespans, everyone could be the members of our families, nuclear and extended, that is, our parents, grandparents, children, siblings and descendants. That is why the virtue of pure living is the very celibacy with which we can cut off the ties of affection and the whirling, vigorous flow of reincarnation.
The pitiful mayfly has set up a lesson for us, the lesson of self-emancipation.
Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Triệt Như
Sunyata Monastery, July 01, 2021
English version by Ngọc Huyền
Link to Vietnamese article: https://www.tanhkhong.org/a2536/triet-nhu-snhp014-kiep-thieu-than
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