Spring flowers

Hoa ơi! Ấp ủ vì ai?/ Mùa Đông khép kín hình hài chờ mong/ Sang xuân nở những nụ hồng/ Khoe tươi màu nắng cho lòng người say!

Warm sun-rays travel through hovering mist. Normally, flowers are fully covered with dew in early morning. When spring has come, swallows fly while humans are filled with endless passion. There comes a promising spring:

Spring flowers embellish fresh sight

Mind flowers brighten wonderful body.

(Thich Chan Tinh)

The breeze gently flaps the spring fragrance up and away, having spring deliver these words: time color has been faded; there have come and gone with springs:

Spring leaves and returns

Six insensible paths of samsara have been traveled through

Death and Birth have taken turns for incarnations

This spring enlightenment leads to the Golden Lotus.

(Thich Chan Tinh)

In order to make swirling sea wave quiet, insensible humans enlightened, it takes a large amount of efforts to cultivate persistently and diligently, to attain escape from the root of the mind like a fresh stream flowing in a new soul in the hope of reaching the shore of everlasting happiness.

Spring has come! We keep contemplating and recalling the dawn of the human history; our peoples have undergone several thousands of fighting against catastrophes, invaders, feudal dominance and so on to gloriously survive, build and protect the country up to day.

We keep recalling Vietnamese farmers’ real life associated with bamboo trees, bamboo roofs, banian trees, village wells, temple yards, etc., which have engraved in the history, legends, fairy tales and lyrical and graceful folks.

In their vibrant and bountiful spiritual life, commoners depict their love for the country and its peoples passionately and uniquely as following:

‘Dong Dang has Ky Lua Street

Ms. To Thi, and Tam Thanh Pagoda’

‘On tortuous road up to Lang land

It has grand mountains and rivers making a perfect picture.’

Spring comes together with nostalgia for sweet sonorities of a Hue ditty named Mai Nhi, as depicted in To Huu’s verses:

‘Where is the singing to be longed fondly for?

Mai Nhi melody adrifts in the Huong river

Ah ah, mommy’s lullabies are so soft

How bitter their pain is!’

Exactly like what Nguyen Trung Thu commented, ‘Sweetness from To Huu’s poetry is peoples’ breath. Many of his verses are inspired by the source of folks.’ Che Lan Vien also claimed that To Huu’s poetry holds the atmosphere of Thuy Kieu, Chinh Phu Ngam and skillfully combines peoples’ breath and modern colors.

Poet Hoang Cam contributed a sad tone to the poetry collections. That tone sometimes contains memories, laments and sorrows. His poetry leads us to bridges, temples, pagodas, eyes and ditties with love, Huong, Thien Tru, Huong Tich and Tien Son Pagodas, etc. Those are the smells of Kinh Bac, sweet and tranquil, tender and ancient, fully expressed by the skilled hand of artist Hoang Cam.

Quite frequent in nostalgia of many people   are mommy’s lullabies echoing forever. The image of storks triggers in Vietnamese minds traditional emotions which are shabbiness and miser of Vietnamese wives and moms contriving well to support their husbands in the following folk:

‘A stork took pain by the river bank

Taking care of her husband with lamentable cry.’

The stork in the following   verses neither takes pain nor laments anymore, but it flies swiftly, evoking an unbearable extreme pain.

Here is a sorrowful image to the extremity of the devastating war:

‘Not Having sold a penny

Old mom kept on carrying a peddle ware

Up and down steps by high bamboo trees up high

There’s flying fast a white stork

Where was it flying as passing Luong River?

Mom got hungry and sad

The road was slippery, the rain cold, the hair gray.’

That is the shore of endless love of the world. Therefore,

Filial piety in mind and virtue is priority

So keep in mind the Buddha’s teaching.

(Thich Chan Tinh)

Nowadays, modern life is still associated with the traditional spring of the nation when the Tet holiday comes. Welcoming spring at Hoang Phap pagoda is very impressive and profound with a collection of poems “Spring Gifts” and the beautiful scenery blowing in our souls with the Buddhists teachings and dharma in the whole life of the Venerable Abbot, which reminds us of this S-shaped narrow strip of land making us so proud of history and people of our country which beautiful and rich. It is proud of the voice of Vietnamese people, the culture and Vietnamese civilization because it was born and has developed in the process of labor, struggle and creativity of the people, because it bears the impression of golden long history, 4000 years of civilization of our country, how hardship and glory it forms! The voice of our nation is the sharp sword, the warm melody in our passionate love of the country. Though in the distant land or foreign country, we always remember where we were born, always head origin, native land, or ancestral land and can’t forget the place   where we are attached, share happiness and sadness in life and direct spirits towards:

 What a majestic Hoang Phap pagoda!

 Its curved roof, red tiles contains the love of homeland,

 Its vesper bell is early lilt with wooden bell

Its Sutras, dharma sound shows cultivating way. 

(Thich Chan Tinh)

Spring flowers - beginning for a good new year with expected things. Spring is a great time to pursue hopeful dreams, passions, and it is also crucial to keep mindfulness, wakefully taking a look to recognize the truth, remaining and developing national cultural identity in order to live honorably and nobly. That is cultural foundation, which brings happiness for people, and benefit for society.

 “Welcoming spring means greeting smiles

Enjoying spring relates to covering the whole sky of love.”

Translated by Thuy Tien and Thuy Oanh