THE LAND OF DREAMS
Long ago, before I could turn back and take refuge in the Triple Gem, life was turbulent and chaotic; my heart was undulant with alternative sorrow and joy. Especially during the years 1995 to 1997, I bore the mourning cloths around my head three times. Outwardly, I tried to be strong and unyielding, yet at night my tears fell silently. Whenever I encountered something painful, even the smallest bits of gossip or unkindness, I used to break into tears, aching with the solitude. In those days, the only place I could return for peace was the cemetery. Oh! The cemetery, with its cool green lawns, rows of black gravestones lying close against the grass, their inscriptions faded and pale; baskets of bluish, reddish fresh flowers or bougainvillea; clusters of colorful balloons fluttering lightly. Quiet. Peaceful. And my mind, too, would easily settle into stillness. No more gossip. No more striving for anything. At last, everyone comes back here and RIP, Rest in Peace.
Back then, I felt that the cemeteries lining the roads, right in the heart of the hectic city, when passing by, one would glimpse green lawns, tall trees casting shade, flowers laid here and there, were calm, quiet and sounded deeply appropriate in reminding people of interesting stuffs.
After drifting away for a long while, it is only now, looking back, I realize that I forgot the graveyard and that I no longer went there. It was possible from the time I’ve committed myself to mind practice, I stopped seeking solace or consolation, no longer grieving my orphaned heart. And so, such place quietly faded from my life.
Now, this Patriarchal land is my own private realm, complete in itself, with nothing more to seek elsewhere. For the past two years, I have stayed right here but never once felt bored. The same old pepper trees, the same soil and stones, the same mountain rabbits, the same tawny squirrels darting back and forth. Day follows day. Cool mornings, then warm sunlight and evening comes all too quickly. Spring gives way to summer, summer to autumn; then flowers bloom, and spring returns again. Life flows on gently and ceaselessly.
Back to years ago, I once wished that living to sixty, not much than that, would be enough. Without good health, a longer life seems unmeaningful anyway. But sixty years slipped by in a breath. Then I thought, well, seventy would be fine too with so much blessing that I wouldn’t need to ask for more. Yet seventy has quietly passed. Perhaps the Buddha granted me a little more time to continue the Path, to ripen the practice by one more step forward. Just until eighty, I told myself. But who would have known that when I was at seventy-nine, the central pillar of our Sunyata Patriarchal Monastery departed. So, I found myself needing to hold things up a while longer.
Even the Buddha of old, endowed with such strength and such spiritual powers, declared, upon reaching the age of eighty, in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta:
“Ānanda, I am now old, a venerable elder, having reached the final stage of life. I am eighty years of age. Ānanda, just as a worn-out cart that can move only by being held together with straps, so is the body of the Tathāgata sustained only by such supports. Ānanda, only when the Tathāgata does not direct the mind toward any signs, and with the fading away of certain feelings, enters and abides in the signless concentration of mind, only then does the Tathāgata’s body find ease.”
Long time ago, when the Founding Master just appeared, stage players from everywhere gathered forming a whole “theater troupe.” The shows went on for more than twenty years, and then, the “impresario” disappeared, and the “ensemble” drifted away along with him. But look! Around 2,600 years ago, when the “greatest impresario of the grandest troupe” announced, “Three months from today, I shall enter the Parinibbāna.” So many of the “leading performers” chose to depart ahead of him. Among were Venerable Rahūla, Venerable Sariputta, Lady Yashodhara, and several hundred bhikkhunīs, every one of them an Arhat, free and at ease with life and death. When it was time to go, they simply entered meditative absorption and left quietly and gently like a falling leaf, like peach blossoms drifting down, touching the ground, but the leaves and the flowers remaining beautiful all the same.
The stream of life keeps people gathering together, singing their part for a while, then parting ways, meeting again, then separating once more…Life current is like rolling waves on the vast ocean which have ever stood still. Like clouds high in the sky which have ever not drifted with the wind. Like the air in our own chest which has ever stopped flowing in and out. How could those pepper branches and leaves stop swaying? Everything around us is always vivid, vibrant, brimming with life energy. To live is ceaselessly moving, changing, advancing, and transforming.
At this point in the writing, I lean back against the chair, close my eyes for a moment, and rest.
Serene. I open my eyes and look again. Why does everything sound unmoving? The pepper leaves are still. There is no wind. Even the wind itself stops blowing. As I write these lines, everything remains completely tranquil.Y’all. So strange! Everything keeps quiescent, utterly peaceful. No people. No animals. The potted plants are immobile. A patch of sunlight on the yard corner stands motionlessly.
Ah! Then a tiny sparrow suddenly darted past, and the scene returned to stillness. A few pepper leaves swayed so lightly. My mind was deep at peace. A dog barked faintly in the distance. Life was present here. Yet it felt as if life were somewhere far away, outside my own world, outside the gate of the Patriarchal temple, even though that gate is always closed but never locked. When closed, it keeps strangers out. Those who belong simply push it to enter.
The exit is the same. The monastery belongs to the practitioners who are free to come for the Dharma and free to leave if unnecessary to stay. The Gate of Zen, coming or going, is entirely by one’s own will and comfort. Those who arrive are welcomed in. Those who leave are seen off with joined palms. To Zen practitioners, coming, no joy and going, no sorrow. The Patriarchal ground remains green, calm and pacific.
The Patriarch Bodhidharma taught: “The Path is wordless.” There are no words at the Patriarchal Temple. Only wind and clouds, high open sky, rows of green pines, a few ancient pepper trees, pots of leafy greens, violet flowers. All are perfectly still, revealing the “ utmost speechless scripture.”
The Scripture of the Development School teaches: “ The Buddha Śākyamuni is still expounding the Dharma on the Vulture Peak.” Indeed, that is so. The Buddha’s Dharma voice is still resounding, reaching all the way to the Sunyata Patriarchal Monastery, never for a moment falling silent. Having heard it, where else would you need to search, don’t you think, my friends? Each time when you open your eyes and see flowers and leaves, grasses and trees, lush or withered, in rain fall or warm sunlight, in moonlight glowing or mist drifting, your eyes behold the Buddha, and your ears hear the Buddha lecturing the Dharma. You’re living within the vast energy and illumination of wisdom and compassion, what else would you seek, my friends? Stop right here. Let the mind be still. Don’t chase the Dharma outside. Don’t go looking for a teacher. Don’t keep limping onward with a walking stick. The more the restless mind roams, the farther it wanders away from home.
We’re human. Believe it. Stand up straight. Move forward on our own two feet.
We have eyes. Open them and look straight. Flowers and leaves have no names; they are utterly empty. You must see this clearly. Open your ears and listen. Do flowers and leaves say anything? Absolutely no. They are immobile. Only when we ourselves are unmoving can we see and hear what is motionless. Stillness cannot be spoken. It is simply Suchness or Just So.
There it is! The dreamlike land! My place of peace is this Patriarchal Temple, and it is also the whole world. How could there truly be coming or going and life or death? Wherever we go, it is still within this mundane life. Whether alive or dead, all of it is merely circling within this dreamland.
Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Triệt Như
Sunyata Monastery, Nov 05, 2021
English version by Ngọc Huyền
Link to Vietnamese article: https://tanhkhong.org/a2856/triet-nhu-snhp035-xu-mong
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