Echoing the lullaby forever

When I was young, I listened to my mother's lullaby many times while shaking hammock… ah… oh…

“The partridge is on the banyan tree,
Why don't you get married with someone near here?
Parents will be older, later
Who will do meals and tea preparation?
Oh… ah…oh…!”

When I grow up and enter into life, the lullaby follows me on the busy way like a memorial present my childhood gave me. In spite of being in the distance and in the brown rope, I never forget the good time I had with my family, the feeling I slept soundly and safely in my parents’ arms. Day by day, I lived in my parents’ endless love. But actually, I cannot repay this love to my parents and take care of them although I love and miss them so much. Whether the lullaby from childhood becomes true or not. I’m a man so I do not leave home and get married like a woman in the lullaby, but I leave home and follow Buddha’s step, becoming a homeless monk, far from my family. This is the truth which hurts my parents much but they try to smile and accept.

Dear my beloved parents, how do you do? This is the second time I’ve written up my feelings for you. Do you remember the first letter? This was the first time I left my hometown to live in Ho Chi Minh city. I was exactly eighteen years old, right? At the beginning of adult age, I was such an awkward, innocent and silly man from the countryside. At that time, I was lost and lonely in the busy city, and afraid of being apart from my family. Deeply in my heart, the love for my hometown has not changed. Thinking about the countryside, there were paddy fields, a bridge over a small channel, and in the afternoons I waited for my parents to come back home. Those were beloved memories of family bursting into tears.

Dear beloved parents, you may clearly know how many Ullambana seasons I have been apart from my parents to take care of you. Your child is a monk now, the time being with my family is not much. I can return home in a short time or rarely I can visit my parents whenever I go to Buddhism activities. I just called my parents. Whenever I phone my parents, they always say they are OK. But I notice that my parents do not make me worried.

Once I phoned my mom and she said my father was sick, after that I heard from the phone: “Why did you say that, he will worry about me?”, she replied: “You are sick and I just say the truth, anything wrong?”. I thought that my mom hoped that I could return home to see my father and that was the reason. Whenever I phoned my mother, she usually asked: “How are you? When can you go home?”. I promised to return home when I was free, but I always forget this promise. One time, I told my parents that: “I intend to go to the North and take responsibility for a temple there, how do you think?”. Her voice sounded upset: “It’s up to you, we are OK”. But I knew that she retained her feelings and kept her tears deeply in her heart. And she said: “When you stay here, maybe you do not return home once a year. If you go to the North, maybe I or your father would pass away, you can return home. I wonder if I can see you at last or not.” That sounds so peaceful but it’s like a knife cutting deeply in my heart. I wonder why I always make my parents sad. Then, I encouraged: “I just ask your opinion, I’m still here with my master, please do not worry!”

It is said that there is a subtraction whenever we meet each other. As time is limited, we do not know how many times left we can meet each other. There are some sudden farewells, no smiles, no apology, no love to each other, no beloved words from the bottom of our heart but we have to be apart. We do not know that may be the last time to say goodbye. Therefore, I’m so afraid of the impermanence . I do not know after the phone call or my return home, what happened next, and how many times I can see my parents in this life.

The last time I returned home was when I saw my parents become older: limbs became weaker, knees became tired, their back also became painful. How time flies! My parents’s youth is over. Or they sacrificed their whole life for their children. This life is so struggling, right? Whenever I remember difficulties in the past, they say: “Bad moments should be forgotten”. But how can I forget those hard days? They were exposed to the sun for a long day in the paddy fields. My mother worked even on rainy days for money. Whenever I remind myself of those memories, I lament those hard days my parents had to overcome.

Recently, during the Lunar New Year, there have been some straw houses decorated so beautifully in Hoang Phap monastery. I sent some photos to my mother, she joked: “I’m so haunted by these straw house images”. I smiled and understood. My parents’ life overcame a shaking column and leaking ceiling. She held her children in her arms on rainy days. So, those bad memories haunted my parents. At that straw house, I was born and lived with my parents, spent happy moments with my siblings, shared sweets and food, and cuddled in an old moldy blanket. Until now, sometimes I remember the sound of droplets on the roof, the smell of wick lightened at midnight. On the summer breeze days, my father laid on the hummock and lulled his children with a sweet traditional song. In the dim paraffin lamp, on the shaking hammock, the traditional song: “I don’t return home this Lunar New Year” made me touched. I wonder if the song is my father’s confession when he joined the army and he could not return home, or this may be the prediction for us. I do not know that I could memorize the lyrics, until now I return home in the Lunar New Year less. I start to realize that: I’m afraid: “I return home, but where are my parents?”. If it happened, no matter how beautiful and happy the spring is, everything is nonsense to me. As the most beautiful spring in my heart disappeared.

Maybe my mother does not know that I unexpectedly heard the story she told to the neighbors. This story haunted me a lot, and it is the biggest fear in my mind. She said her destiny was so bad. Some fortune books told that she was alone till death. She would pass away on rainy days in the tomb, her husband and children wearing mourning clothes in the gloomy and deserted ambience. It makes me goose–flesh! When she gets sick on sunny days, it is ok. But she is sick on rainy days, I remember this story, I’m afraid that she will leave me alone. Then, during that rainy season, she was sick for a while. I was so worried. Fortunately, she could recover and stay with our family. That made me so happy. From then on, I comfort myself that she would not be sick anymore, she would stay healthy with her family. And the story would be forgotten.

In the past, my parents were farmers, they grew plants and vegetables for living. On the harvest day, she brought vegetables to the market to sell. I will never forget the time I went to the dawn market with my mother. She woke me up. While my eyes were half–closed and I yawned, I held the torch to light the way, and she held the heavy products in the morning.

She is thin and emaciated,

Stumbling in the countryside.

This is as slippery as the rain.

She tries to walk for living

She sacrificed for my childhood.

The stall was all of her love.

At a very young and naïve age, I cannot feel how hard she had to overcome. After the market, she bought us some corn, sweet potatoes. All difficulties just to exchange our fullness and happiness. We felt sorry for our parents. My parents spent their whole life caring for us: food, clothes, and our marriage. They completely cared for each of us. In contrast, we did not do anything to thank our parents. All of us have our own reasons as living life is not easy. They have some children, but they have to be lonely when they become older and tired of waiting for them to return back. I just remember the Ullambana’s sutra I recite every night:

“As the owed money

Or our family, our children

We forget our parents, relatives

We forget our hometown to return…”

…

“Woman love their parents

They show their gratitude

All the housework

They can do better than men

But when they get married

They care for husband’s family

They sometimes return home

Then they are too busy to go back”.

It is said that water always flows downhill naturally. Parents spend their whole life caring for their children, but they hardly live with their children when they become older. If time could turn back, I would go to the past: the poor cottage where we lived happily together with a peaceful neighborhood.

The boucal’s sound is heard for high and low tides. Winter passes, springs come. Time flies so fast. I bear in mind the time I told my parents that I would leave home to be a monk. The farewell moment was so sorrowful. My parents cried so much and complained that our family members were apart. She groaned: “In the past, our family was poor. So I unhappily let you go to the city to live. Now I have to be apart from you. I want nothing but can you stay here with us?”. I love you so much, I feel sorrowfully sad, too. But I cannot obey my parents, I have my own mission. I have to be a monk. Please forgive me…

Dear mother, I have an incomplete wish: I would like to give a flower crown to my mother in the Ullambana season. Seeing the senior’s parents being given the flower crown, I feel self – pity, and I miss my mother so much. I wonder when I could do this precious moment. Maybe it is not so far. But I did not complete my wish this year. I will warm up my heart to fulfill the lonely space in my parents’, the numerous love. Please promise to wait for me!
Dear my beloved parents, my flow of emotion will follow the time, but my gratitude to my parents will not change. In the future, no matter who I become, maybe the master or the abbot or the monk going everywhere, or the rustic monk in a small temple, my parents are the big trees with wide branches protecting my life. July comes, rains drop, bell rings to the Ullambana’s sutra slowly, I miss my parents from a far – away place so much as I cannot take care of you in the face of climate change. I would like to be thankful to my parents for giving me this complete body. Thanks for nurturing and educating me. From a distant place, I bow my hands and expect the Three Jewels protect my parents. No matter how far I go, and how time flies, I always bear in mind that if my parents still stay here, life will be beautiful and spring’s leaves are immortal.

I wish that everyone will be peaceful in this Ullambana season with red – rose pinned on their shirts and shining the minds of grateful children. This Ullambana season, a yellow – rose will be pinned on my rope, but I still keep the original red – rose filling my parents’ love. For I will be proud to show everyone that: “I am so lucky to have my parents in my life, the two alive Buddha”. The lullaby echoes in the Ullambana season. Some words are sent to my hometown. I love you and miss you so much!

 

Thích Tâm Vượng
Translated into English by Nguyen Hoang Thoai