Đóng góp trong Lá Thư Tu Học tháng 3, 2008 của tăng thân Thuyền Từ vùng Hoa Thịnh Đốn
Khai Bút Xuân Mậu Tý:
Many things became clear as I sat quietly in the usual spot to welcome the first night of year 2008. It's now the Year of the Rat and I see that the rat is a quick and active animal especially when it is in the dark. To be mindful of the surrounding environment is what I need to practice for the rest of this year. Just as the rat is often surrounded by traps, I encounter countless temptations that life offers. We both utilize the same tools to avoid being caught. We rely on our own intuition, our own eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin to detect the disguised. I used to be quite cocky. I thought I was smarter than the little rat with tiny brain since I belong to the superior human race with intelligence. I repeatedly convinced myself that the special radar system that I built for myself would keep me on top of all traps. But in reality, I am often trapped just like my little mouse friend is. When it comes down to the issue of knowing where you are, I now concede that the rat is faster at accepting its situation than I am. Luckily in this lifetime, I was trapped in the state of denial for only about thirty plus something years :-) OK, it has been a long time but, I console myself, it's rather late than never. Today is the first day of the year, after a long time of continuously practicing "Happiness is here and now, I have dropped my worries…", I am optimistic and hopeful. I am looking forward to living each Rat day mindfully. My heart is now filled with gentleness and happiness when I think about the future.
I am glad that almost ten years ago, the pleasures from five senses lost their numbing effects on me. I started feeling the pain of being trapped so I wanted and needed a way out. I was finally convinced that the Five Mindfulness Trainings could help me so I took refuge in the Three Jewels. My luck didn't just stop there though. We moved back to where the Boat of Compassion (Thuyen Tu) and MPC sanghas are. At first, I thought Anh Huong and Thu (the Dharma teachers) would set me free from all the pains caused by the traps just like the trapper would physically remove the rat from the trap by going through with me all the Buddhist writings, vocabularies and the history behind each of Buddha's lectures. I imagined that they would send me out on a mission to un-trap other suffering souls. But none of that happened! Instead, they took time to teach me to stop fighting with the trap, i.e. the source of my sufferings. They told me that rushing is not always a good thing. I need to acquire the habit of doing everything slowly so I can take time to put my heart and mind into each thing, regardless how mundane each task can be. They provide an environment for me to rest so I can heal all the wounds created while I was being held in the trap of ignorance. As anything else, it takes two to tango. For my part, I make time to practice and build up the discipline to practice mindfulness diligently. Once I am well rested and become stronger both physically and mentally, they start sharing their insights and experiences so I can learn to look deeply into the reasons that attract me into the trap in the first place. This step is very important. My teachers constantly remind me that the traps and falling into them are part of a life-long experience. I can neither remove all traps nor deny my trapping conditions. They are just the impossible tasks or at least it's impossible for me to do those things alone because I know myself quite well by now. However, I am not worried because my teachers and friends offer me the sangha's eyes and wisdom to point out where the trap is and what the trap may look like. That is how I now keep myself away from troubles. The sangha's compassion also makes it easier for me to accept my trapping conditions and deal effectively with the consequences of my actions in the past. I don't have to deal with them alone anymore. I have a whole family and group of friends to support me in each step I take. It is safe to say that as long as I stay with the sangha and continue practicing mindfulness, I would manage mostly to stay away from the traps. As I walked along the road to work on a nice warm winter day, I felt the earth was my huge trap of compassion and beauty that I didn't mind to be in it as I had many happy and free moments walking along this path. I guessed this is the ultimate freedom that I can ask for. I am practicing "be free where I am".
My goal, if there is one, is to become cuter and more huggable as my little friend rat so I can fit nicely in any space of this universe. Once I am in the trap, I learn that the trap is much bigger than I thought. It does not contain just me and my friend rat. I found many people in there. I noticed that recently more and more people would come to the practice center. Many people have come when they are at the turning points of their life and need a place to embrace their feelings before making a major decision. For others, they just come out of curiosity and/or find this is a nice and noble thing to do. It is normal that people will come then leave the practice, but many people decide to stay even after they already figure the way out. They stay simply to help others un-trapped and continue receiving the same level of support. If we keep a count on how many people who has physically stopped by and spent time with MPC and Boat of Compassion sanghas, I am not surprised that it can go up to the thousands. The fruits and fragrance of our practice are not limited only to the total number of people being there physically. It goes to all human beings, animals and minerals affected by lifestyles of the practitioners. That is why my teachers recently said I need to be very mindful. It is not just only about me anymore. I am a mother of two teenagers, but on this path, I feel like I am on the road of becoming a teenager. This year I will be contemplating deeply about the responsibility of the words and actions I am about to say and do. But I didn't feel pressured though. Under the eyes of the Buddha and my teachers, I am always a little student. I never felt that I am judged by them for my mistakes. I am a mom at home while, in the sangha circle, I can be a child as I wish. Everything that may sound contradicted before, now seem to converge nicely. Sometimes, my teacher only said one word "breath" when she saw me working in the kitchen without mindful breaths while other times they just rung the bell and I knew exactly what the sound was for. There were also times they sat down and talked to me for a long time and they would even give a few hours Dharma talk if that was what I needed. They know what I like, what I am good at and give me chances to do these things, as long as I do them mindfully. It may appear to others that all we do is to sit, or be quite passive or reclusive, but the truth is that I have remained at the same level of engaging in life if not more than before, except that I learn to re-do all those things in a different way. I do things with fewer noises, more gently, and more efficiently. I found out that my teachers and the sangha already have all the projects that need my hands. There are many projects that I can choose to join which involve with helping children in Vietnam, aiding victims of nature disasters, supporting future monks and nuns and even protecting the environment. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. My mindful presence and open heart is the key to keep the wheel turning. I smile when I think of the motto "One stop for all" that I saw in one commercial many years ago. I now realize that life can be this simple. My teachers often encourage me to make more time for the practice. Recently she told me that it is not that the number of years one knows about the practice, since a person can go very far even that he or she only recently joins the practice. This depends on how the practice fits in into our life style. I would not go this far if I only take the fruit of practice as a plate of desert. Yes, most deserts taste good, but they are still optional dishes and each dish does not have to be nutritious all the times. It is nice to have a desert after a full meal but I can survive without one. Frankly I wasn't raised with a habit of having desert after each meal, I can skip it entirely. However once the practice becomes my main meals, things start to change rather quickly. I am now often asking myself if what I plan to do will compromise my practice. I would stop or delay if it does. This is how I minimize the negative impact of the surrounding environment on my practice. By the same token, I did not feel that I am selfish because my practice benefits not only me but also other people. Everything is taken as an opportunity to practice. For that, I and my rat friend are not afraid of the traps any more. So I have a wish, I wish each of us will find happiness and fulfillment in everything we do in each day in the Year of the Rat. The mindful breaths will help my wish come true. Happy New Year to all.
