THE SAND BUBBLER CRABS
In my childhood, my parents often gave various rewards to their kids, my siblings and me, for their good jobs in schooling. At the Lunar New Year, we got money gifts. Som changes, but enough for us to play the dicing game of “gourds, crabs, fishes and tigers” in the first three days of the new year. Growing up a little later, we wrote letters to Santa Claus for gifts. Very early morning on Christmas days, we woke up, and dashed into the living room to grab his gifts. We did not know when the Old Man dropped by our house. A little bit older, every summer when the school year just ended, we went with the whole family to VungTau Beach. Along the white shore, close to the water, innumerable itty-bitty sand pellets piled up. The tiny sand bubbler crabs excitingly scuttled everywhere. They look like crabs with the little greyish carapaces like our little finger nails. They continued pelletizing the tiny sand balls and left them on the shore. When the tide rose up, the waves rushed into, pulled out and crusted those pellets. The day after, again, we saw countless itsy-bitsy ones.
There is a saying among our folks:
The sand bubbler crabs pelletize sand on the East Seashore,
Strenuous efforts but, in vain.
How time flies! Embarking on the long journey of mind practice, I have accompanied our Great Master flying everywhere. Looking down from the air, nothing could be seen but the countless patches of white cloud hovering under the planes. When the height was lower, it was “the world” with seas, rivers, and mountains. When closer to landing, in the birds’ view were the straightforward freeways full of slowly moving vehicles like tiny blackish bugs. A little bit lower, houses huddled around. From afar, they looked like tiny toy boxes neatly arranged in lines. But each of those boxes included the living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens. With those, folks are itty-bitty like the ants and the sand bubbler crabs among the vast seas. With that, how come you guys are still in struggles and competions to get the consequences of sadness, resentment, blaming and sufferings?
A tsunami can wash away a city. A wildfire can burn down all properties. A volcano eruption can engulf an entire village. An earthquake can violently shake up the whole city. A pandemic can whirl up and down everywhere in the world. But how come folks do not wake up so that the Pacific Ocean could turn back into the ocean pacifying all sorrows; and humans can be proud of their noblest and wisest species in the universe and return to the life worthy of their loftiest and most spiritual qualities in the world?
Reviewing human life, it is full of constant hardship, diligent work, staying up late but early waking up, doing variety of businesses, alternating pleasure and sadness in worries and plannings. What for? Not beyond the goals of wealth, materials, fame, eating and sleeping. In another word, it is honor, money and love. Only three, but they interrelate to each other very closely. High social positions, power and reputation always result in money and love. Being wealthy easily leads to renown, authority and romance affairs.
Yet, why do the masses not conceive everyone has to check out with their empty hands? And who could take along with them wealth, academic diplomas, social titles or even beloved and sweethearts to the next life?
Then, those who are awaken must know that renown, money and love are not different from the magics we have assumed real but merely the games. Our enchanted eyes have been charmed by talented sorcerers. When the velvet curtains drop down the stage, the drama ends, and we are empty-handed to go out of this existence.
In thoughtfully pondering, when folks spend their whole hectic life in hunting dignities, affection, riches and luxuries, and outputting various sorrows for themselves and others, they are really similar to the sand bubbler crabs and their diligent but pointless tasks.
That is the truth fronting us. Everyone probably sees it excluding little innocent kids. However, at eight or nine years old, they might see the aged and the sick. When at twenty or thirty, they are grown-ups, but so excited to walk-in life with beautiful dreams along the open road of warmly welcome, flowers and melodies, hopes and happiness. We can share the youth’s experience. We did the same when young. That age is still the one of “eagerly eating but not feeling full and unfully caring for anything either”, implying youngsters’ immaturity.
The canons told the stories of the Dharma Wheel-Turning Monachs in the ancient time when folks could live up to thousand years. Those kings ordered their barbers to inform them when they could see a single grey hair on their heads. When the latters pulled it out and put it on the kings’ hands, they knew they were aged. The eldest princes would enthrone and the formers left their authority to move to the Snow Mountains for their secluded mind practice. The succeeding kings kept doing the similar pattern and formed a beautiful tradition.
Reviewing old stories to understand what is happening now. What is the current human lifespan? Two thousand years ago, the Buddha could only live up to the age of eighty. The ancient people also said “ Being in the seventies is rare and dear in humankind.” We know the aging process begins at the age of fifty. Actually, in medical viewpoint, between twenty and thirty, many functions in our bodies starts the cease of development. We get aged slowly at the time. Then, the sixties and seventies of age are the chains of declining and ending days for us. Our hair is no more shining. Our lips are no longer rosy. Our past is heavily burdened and no light for the future. Ironically, we do keep moving on that dead-end road without exit.
That dead-end road is the human life path. That of fame, money and love. That of desires, cravings and strong affection. Then, our fragile life is just for the service of those trios. And when the time comes, we end up in loneliness without any accompanying. All look like the sand bubbler crabs on the shoreline of the East Sea. All are similar to the naive silkworms, making the pretty cocoons to sneak into and rest. They never know just because of those cute protecting shells, one day, they would be fatally boiled.
Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Triệt Như
Written at the Sunyata Monastery, June 25, 2021
English version by Ngọc Huyền
Link to Vietnamese article: https://tanhkhong.org/a2472/triet-nhu-snhp011-con-da-trang
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