Today I Began: A Small Gift Could Ripple Big

Two days ago, I witnessed the magic of random kindness when I was having dinner with a friend who's involved with ServiceSpace. We gave a bracelet to the waitress with a message on it: "I am a sacred, worthy, luminous being. I am love and my love is for giving." The bracelet was a gift from Dr. Tom Pinkson, who shared his wisdom at the first Sacred Leadership Summit we'd just attended. To our surprise, the waitress was very happy and told us how sad she was the previous night and she prayed. The bracelet made her day! At the end of our dinner, she insisted offering us free coconut ice-cream. We were just thinking about getting coconut ice-cream after dinner! Wow, a small gift could ripple big. You just never know. In this case, it was sweet synchronicity. 

Last night, I watched the interview of Nipun Mehta by Charles Eisenstein who authored Sacred Economics. For the first time, I realized that I'd missed the point about giving. Not only I didn't see the big effect of giving, but I tended to associate most giving with some degree of condescending gesture. After hearing Nipun's simple yet profound description about giving, it dawned on me: We give outside, while receiving inside. It doesn't matter how small the effect would be outside. For example, the homeless to whom we feed one meal might be starved to death a week later. What matters is the interconnectedness and stillness we experience inside when we give. When the person who receives is inspired to pay it forward, he or she will experience that inner transformation as well. That's what it is about. "All life is practice."  

This morning, I felt very uplifted to practice generosity. I brought several Smile cards and a gift card with me as I rode my bike to my next thing. On the way, I greeted strangers with "good morning" and a smile; they all mirrored me. I saw a weary old man, who seemed a borderline homeless, lying on the bench in a bus waiting booth; I stopped. I wanted to put a Smile card and the gift card next to him. Trying not to wake him up, I reached my hand from the bottom of the booth to put the cards on the bench next to his head, but my arm was not long enough and I still woke him up. Embarrassingly, I offered him the cards with two hands, but he looked away and said, "No, thanks." I apologized and then left.

Giving is a life practice. Look deeply and then act deeply, as Thich Nhat Hanh would put it. It was my first conscious attempt and I wouldn't say I failed, because in my heart I knew, next time if I pay more attention, I'll know better what another person might need and then give that to him or her in a more skillful way. :)

"We've all been given a gift, a gift of life. What we do with our lives is our gift back."  -- Edo

"It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving." -- Mother Teresa


More about the writer: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net

A Spontaneous Journey Home

A couple of months ago, I went back to China to see my mother who underwent a small surgery on her stomach. Before Mother's hospitalization, Shaoli, my best friend in high school, also a doctor in that hospital, messaged me "not to worry" and that she would be there for my mother. True. My sleepless nights on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean could contribute little goodness. And I definitely wasn't planning to fly over half of the globe to visit Mother; the following two weeks on my Google Calendar had already been filled up with my normal busy-ness. On the following day of her surgery, Mother shared over the phone that she held Shaoli's hand tightly in hers during the procedure.

I sensed that the hand Mother wanted to hold was mine, but the Pacific is wide. Suddenly, an urge to be by Mother's side stirred inside of me. For a moment, I felt torn between Mother and Google calendar. 

My flight to China was supposed to transfer in Taipei to Shanghai, but due to bad weather, it landed in Osaka in Japan, where we were stranded for 10 hours. During the long hours at the airport, I received from a ServiceSpace friend the recording of my sharing at the Wednesday Awakin Circle the night before my China trip. What a sweet surprise. I again chewed on all the heartwarming wishes that I received from many in the circle that evening. This trip felt right.

Mother's Story
As the eldest daughter in her family, Mother was asked to quit school to help the family when she was in the second grade at age 11. She started school late, but she loved it. One day her teacher lost her voice and asked Mother to help teach the class. Standing in front of the class, Mother knew what she wanted to do when she grew up—a teacher like her father. When my grandfather asked her not to go to school the next day, she begged in vain. She stayed in bed the next day, then the next, and the next. She heard her teacher talking to her parents in another room, but her father would not compromise. Her pillow was wet with her tears. On the fourth day, she got up, swept the floor, fed the pigs, and then carried two water barrels to the river. She never went back to school again.

When I was little, Mother said, “The only thing in the whole world you need to worry about is studying. I will do anything to support you going to school, even if I had to climb the mountain that’s sharp as a knife, or jump into the sea that’s full of fire!” She worked in the polluted fertilizer factory, while taking care of the crops in our small family field. During droughts, many nights she waited by the field for water to come through the irrigation pipe. I saw her cry. When I was in the sixth grade, my father lost his job and later became sick. Mother has become the single breadwinner in our family ever since. She farmed, scavenged, worked in polluted factories and later on scaffolding in construction, sold vegetables and eggs on the street, and even sold her own blood. Her hands were covered with calluses and cuts.

I appreciated Mother’s support of me going to school, but I never wanted her to come to my school in town because I didn’t want my classmates to see her, a peasant with a weather-stricken face. Even during one of my visits from college, when Mother grabbed my hand in a crowded local store, I instantly pulled my hand away. Standing next to her in public made me feel ashamed, not to say, holding hands. As I grew older, my shame of Mother began to diminish slowly. Now, she is one Pacific Ocean away; the long distance has brought us close.

As a lifelong servant, Mother not only supported her two children, my brother and me, going to college, but also served her parents, her younger siblings, her husband, and now, her grandson.

Arriving Home
48 hours after my departure from the Bay Area, I arrived at my childhood home. It was already the 6th day after Mother's surgery. I didn't tell her that I was coming home. As I was walking toward the open yard where my old home used to stand, I saw Mother checking on the vegetables in the yard. "Ma!" I called. She looked up and, for a moment, stood there looking at me as if I were someone from Mars before she ran to give me a joyful hug. Her energy was still low, but her heart survived another surprise visit of mine.  

My father was in the kitchen and smiled with the half of his face that was not paralyzed. Besides paralyzed facial expression, he has suffered from the Parkinson’s Disease for over 15 years, but he manages to take care of himself most of the time. In the past, he cooked while Mother hustled on the streets selling vegetables for their kids' tuition. It was lunch time. I devoured the rice and the eggplants and tofu dish, and drank up the soup in front of me. My parents sat there watching me, almost forgetting to eat their own meals. Mother was still on liquid diet.

One noticeable addition was big red trash bins placed at intervals along the road. No wonder I saw little trash on the riverbank or in the river this time. Many factories lined in the near distance, and one of the factory names was related to wind energy. My old home was located in the rural area bordering the edge of the town; now the farmland is the breeding ground for new factories. 

The Unexpected Flood

It rained all day the next day and night. Mother was glad that we could just chill at home and talk. In the evening, watching TV in a tiny room with my parents was our quality family time. The TV episodes were usually about the anti-Japanese war in the 1930s and 1940s, not so much on the battles between the Communist Party and the Nationalist Party as some years back. Sometimes we watched the Chinese version of Britain’s Got Talent. 

                                     

When the rain stopped the following day, the road in front of the house was submerged by rainwater and became part of the river. In the morning, I ventured out with my point-and-shoot camera. I stepped into the almost knee-deep water and trudged to the higher main road, which mostly stayed out of water. People gathered here and there talking about this unusual flood and comparing it to the last flood in 1991. A couple of men were fishing in the overflowing river. Many electric scooters parked outside were half under the water. To their owners’ dismay, some of the engines refused to start. 

I walked to the fertilizer factory, where I took the bus to school from the first to the ninth grade and where Mother had worked as a temporary worker for ten years. The factory prospered back then, brand new concrete road leading to the factory gate from a mile away outside, new apartments for the employees, and freshly painted red pavilion in the middle of a pond with clear water and orange fish. The factory was originally state-run before it was privatized. All the formal workers enjoyed much higher social status than us. I often wished my parents were official factory workers, not peasants. Now decades later, the concrete road was uneven and cracked, the apartments looked old and weary, the national flag waving above the factory gate was torn into two pieces, the red paint on the pavilion had faded long ago, and the water in the pond was murky and overflowing the edges. A dog with one wounded ear crippled around the factory yard, looking for food. In fact , the factory was bankrupt, I heard. Over the years, several explosions happened in the factory due to the obsolete equipment and inadequate safety control. Many workers died. The green-striped school bus I wished to see had retired some years back. I had many sweet memories about that bus, on which a group of us first and second graders took turns to share stories with one another. 

 A new painting on the factory wall: "Life is precious.
                      Development should not depend on the sacrifice of human lives,
          which should be regarded as an untrespassable red line."
-- Xi Jinping 

Due to the poor quality of water, I bought two bottled water in the dim convenient store on the fertilizer factory compound. The friendly woman who worked there asked me many questions, such as how old I was, what I did for a living, where I lived, and if I was married with any kid. I grabbed the chance to leave when another person came to talk to her. 

On my way back, more people were fishing.

Reconnecting to the Land

After the water retreated, earthworms were ended up on the dirt road and the concrete paths everywhere. Many of them were killed by cars, motorcycles, scooters, or hurried human feet. Watching them frenetically trying to go somewhere safe without being able to see the big picture, I felt propelled to help them relocate. But any snake-shaped moving thing makes my body tense. As I stood in the middle of moving earthworms, each pore in my body screamed with irrational fear. I picked up a small twig and began to transport earthworms to the vegetable field by the roadside. A truck honked behind me and I jumped aside. After the truck passed, more earthworms died silently under the truck wheels, and one leapt in the air and landed on the ground twisting its body. One earthworm was still trying to move with half of its body crushed to the ground. My heart twitched. I unstuck its crushed half and dropped it to the field. After a dozen of earthworms were relocated to safety, I looked at the road, discouraged; there were so many of them. Then the story came to me again: Hundreds of fish were stranded on the beach gasping for water. A boy began to threw back the fish to the ocean, one at a time. Someone passed by and said, “It doesn’t matter. There are so many of them dying.” The boy picked up one fish and said, “It matters to this one.” Then he picked up another one and said, “And this one!” I bent down again to relocate more earthworms to “safety zone.”  

As I am writing this, I searched online about what earthworms do exactly. On the website of Earthworm Society of Britain, it says that earthworms enjoy the title of “ecosystem engineers.” These humble creatures do incredible engineering and decomposition work for the Mother Earth, while needing so little to sustain themselves.

I walked westward on the dirt road in front of my old home with my camera again. Through the camera lens, everything in front of me was surprisingly beautiful, the flowers Mother grew, the river with reflections of trees and houses, the trees and houses themselves, the little dog, the mother cat breastfeeding her kitten, and the run-down narrow bridge. 

The narrow cement bridge that I'd walked on for numerous times as a child

As I stood on the bridge which I’d walked numerous times as a child, something shifted in me. In the past decade, I felt distanced from this land that had sustained my life. I felt frustrated, angered, and disgusted by the polluted river, the trash, and the funny smell in the air. I found the land repellent, even though the land didn’t do anything wrong—we did it. But that day when I stood on that run-down cement bridge looking at the shimmering surface of the river, I felt grateful for the first time, for everything that this land has offered. Though I still sink into the sorrow of not being able to stop the train whose brake seems to be out of order, I would never stop appreciating this land for her endurance, resilience, and sacrifices. 

I walked back home. My parents were cooking in the kitchen. Every day, Mother came up with a new dish that she wanted to make for me. She used to freeze all the special food that I’d missed, such as soy beans from spring, shrimps from summer, water chestnuts from fall, and the dumplings from the previous New Year’s dinner. She said if I ate them, it would be like I never left home. But I said that I preferred eating fresh, not aged frozen food. She stopped doing that. That day Mother made zongzi, reed leaves wrapped sticky rice with red beans.

I thought this trip was my heroic journey home to help my parents, but apparently, they were still more capable of taking care of me than I was taking care of them. I quietly observed them through the kitchen window. These two humble human beings brought me into this world and raised me from an infant, and supported me until I was able to explore this life on my own.I think of the poem by Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree. The tree is happy to give everything to the boy, her fruits, her branches, and her trunk. At the end, when she has only a stump left, she is happy to offer a seat to the boy who now has grown old and tired. As children of Mothers, when can we learn to give back? As children of the Earth, when shall we stop taking so much? 

Visiting Grandma

After their old residences were bulldozed and the land was handed over to the local government to build factories, the farmers were moved into boxed apartments. I visited my grandma who now lives in the farmers apartment complex close to my parents’ place. The elders wander around in the complex, meeting with some neighbors to gossip about other neighbors; the younger ones work in factories, near or afar. I spent the night with Grandma, who lives with my younger uncle who's never married. After Grandpa passed away two years ago, nights could be too quiet for her. She still keeps the old habit of watching Xinwen Lianbo, the CCTV (China Central Television) news at 7 pm every evening. That was Grandpa’s daily routine for many decades. In the living room, two relatively new posters were on the wall: one was President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang shaking hands, below which were the small portraits of all 7 members of the Politburo Standing Committee; the other was Xi and his wife Ms. Peng Liyuan. After breakfast, Grandma and I took a walk in the complex. She told every neighbor we met, “This is my granddaughter, my eldest daughter’s, just came back from America!”

The Posters of President Xi in Grandma's Living-room

What I Need to Learn From Mother

After the flood retreated, Mother drove her electric tricycle to town with me sitting in the back. She was much better than me navigating the traffic in China. We ran some errands before we went to see the new apartment that my parents will receive next year from the government. The apartment is still under construction, and Mother has been going there photographing its progress. I didn’t mention earlier that the house I grew up in were bulldozed. Mother built two simple huts on the land as temporary living space.  

Many strangers greeted her on the street, in a bank, or at a store. Was my Mother popular in town? Those were mostly her former customers. Mother had sold vegetables and eggs next to the same market for a decade. She often offered her customers small gifts such as green onions and garlic when they passed by, regardless if they wanted to buy anything from her or not that day. Mother has retired from selling vegetables since she assumed the task of taking care of her grandson. She misses interacting with people at the market.

Mother walked ahead of me, approaching the new apartment complex’s construction site. “Hey stop! Do not go in!” A man yelled. Mother said something and kept going, but I hesitated to follow. A few other men were lolling around and Mother interacted with them. Then the man who just yelled also joined in and they all laughed together about something. I walked closer to them. Mother pointed to one of the buildings and said she would be moving to the sixth floor next year. On the way home, she said that people were often rude to her in the beginning, but soon they would hold her arm and laugh with her. Mother has been yelled at by strangers all her life. She once said that she didn’t understand why people were rude to her without her doing anything wrong. “Is it because I am ugly?” She asked. Now Mother has somehow come out of that old shame and fear. That’s something I need to learn from her. I am afraid of hearing “no” and confronting anyone even when it is necessary. I alway hide behind the “being gentle and nice” mask to avoid conflict. I submit out of fear, or sometimes rebel out of fear. But when Mother decides to go to the local government to make a request about something, she not only faces “No” from the people in the office, but also from my relatives. Yet, she sticks to her mission. If Mother can be so, why can’t I? I am her daughter after all. Another thing to deeply ponder: fearless compassion.

Departure Again
When I told Mother my departure date, her lips pouted in disappointment, but only for a second. When I was resting in my room, she quietly went to the local store and came back to make new dishes for me to taste. In the morning, she got up very early to cook more breakfast than what I could eat for three meals. On my departure day, my father suggested he give me a ride to the bus station. Mother said she would. Later, my father wanted to come along, but there was no room on Mother's electric tricycle. As we were about to ride away, I heard “Hey!” from behind. My father was standing by the kitchen window waving his hand. I smiled and waved back, holding back my tears. My father does not express his feelings much, but whenever he does, he hits hard on my soft spot.

I asked myself: from this point on, am I willing to fully accept this life and be thankful for everything that's been offered? How can I contribute to the big pool? Am I capable of surrendering to my insignificant existence and loving more?

More about the writer: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net

"The Moon Appears When the Water is Still"

Four days ago, I came back from a 10-day silent Vipassana course as taught by S.N. Goenka, feeling refreshed and empowered. But as “normal” sleeping schedule resumes, my old behavior pattern lurks near the surface, waiting to have a comeback any time. “Don’t go back to sleep.” It’s time to sit down and reflect with a quiet mind. 

Rocks Are Not Role Models for Enlightenment 

“Our job is not to eradicate thoughts

But to desist from reacting to them.

If the non-arising of thoughts is our goal

Then rocks are enlightened.” 

I sat on my assigned cushion along with over 100 other old and new students, male and female separate, in the dim meditation hall. I closed my eyes as Goenkaji’s chanting entered my ears. But once my eyes were shut, my mind transported me to a different world, longings and unsatisfied desires enticing me to get on a wild ride. The imaginary scenes played like a movie, on and on. Once in a while, if I was not wandering in my Lalaland, I caught myself dozing off. 

I also set my mind on cleaning out my stuff. Still too much stuff in my life after so many times of cleaning. What do I really need? Something to sleep on close to the floor (so that I feel more grounded), books, a desk and a chair, a lamp, clothes… So many clothes that I don’t wear but still keep, for what? A memory? An emotional attachment? A rare occasion? But the first thing I’ll do when I go back is to get rid of that queen size memory foam mattress. I began to re-arrange my room in my head, over and over. It became exhausting. Very exhausting. Out of a need to alleviate my mental exhaustion, I began to observe my breath, for real.

We practiced Anapana in the first three days, observing natural breath coming in and going out. It took me three days just to quiet my mind enough to observe the sensations in the area below the nostrils and above the upper lip. Am I still in Vipassana Pre-K? Was the first 10-day course I took two years ago mostly wasted on me? 

“Work diligently and ardently. Patiently and persistently. You are bound to be successful. You are bound to be successful.” Goenkaji repeated in the audio.

My Body Knows

”Sitting still gives us the opportunity

To witness the revealing of the truth.

The moon appears only when the water is still."

We practiced Vipassana meditation from the fourth day on. As I followed Goenkaji’s instruction to scan my entire body to observe sensations, I experienced how much truth my body holds! It is me who is oblivious to the truth, which is always there. Why can’t I feel any sensations on the back of my head? The blind areas on my body told me how ignorant I am in those areas and how dull my mind is. The severe unpleasant sensations revealed to me how much aversion I harbor towards my own life. How agitated I am sometimes, definitely more than I am willing to admit. 

“Just observe. Do not react to any sensations, no matter it’s pleasant or unpleasant. They all share the same characteristics, arising and passing away, arising and passing away. Don’t crave for any particular sensations. Just observe, with a quiet and equanimous mind.” 

Finally, I sat still. 

“Itching is not eternal.” I no longer bothered scratching any itch on my body while walking, eating, or lying down, if I caught myself before my hands reacted. Sensations on my body arose and passed away like everything else in the universe. 

“Anicca. Anicca. Anicca.” 

My body knows it, but my mind lags behind, unwilling or unable to accept it.  

The Seventh Day

“Do not throw away your suffering;

It is the fertile soil which grows the flowers of truth.

Pain is the teaching,

release is the graduation.”

It was the seventh day again, my emotional melt-down day during my first 10-day course two years ago. The tragic death of my Auntie Two, which had haunted me for more than 15 years, hit me the hardest than ever on the seventh day two years ago. This time, would it hit me again? In the early morning, as I walked towards the meditation hall under the stars, my heart felt a little heavy.

Before I turned six, Auntie Two, Mother’s younger sister, babysat me at my grandparents’. She didn’t learn to walk until she was twelve. Everyone called her “retarded Boyu” (Boyu was her name). My earliest memory of her was her squatting down to feed me, with a bowl of short noodles in one hand, a spoon in the other. I ran around the table, ignoring her. “If you don’t eat it, toads will come to eat it.” When I finally opened my mouth, she put the noodles in my mouth and smiled with her big yellow teeth. I had been her confidante since age four, maybe even before I could remember. “Your uncle hit me again with the cooking spade.” She showed me the bruises on her forearm. That uncle was her stuttered younger brother. 

When I turned six, my parents took me home and sent me to the best elementary school in town, and Auntie Two married a hunchbacked waste-picker, who was much older than her and scrambled for a living by scavenging through waste piles for things to sell. They lived in the single mud house on high ground half mile away from the other villagers, who all lived in similar farmhouses next to each other lining a small river. 

Whenever I visited my grandparents, my favorite thing to do was to go see Auntie Two. I would run on the narrow footpaths between green rice paddy fields all the way to her house, my heart filled with joy. In her small thatched home, she pressed her lower left belly. “He beats me every day. It hurts here,” she said. My mind froze. Then I thought to myself, when I grew up, I would protect Auntie Two. I would take her out of that place. I would wash her, clothe her, and make her delicious fried rice. I even thought about possible transportation. Would she be afraid to sit on the back of my bike? For many years, I was so obsessed with that thought that I couldn’t stop imagining the day when I took her away with me, until when I got the news. 

Auntie Two died of eating poisonous wild mushrooms, which she thought were delicacies for her malnourished body. The hunchback said he didn’t feel well that day, so he didn’t eat much. When Auntie Two died, I was in the last week of preparing for the National College Entrance Exam in the best boarding high school in town. When I heard the news, she had already been buried under the dirt, a no-name earth lump. I went to her house. The blood she threw up was still there, on her bed and on the floor. She cried “pain” for three days before she died, the hunchback said, wiping off his tears.

“From darkness to darkness.” That was Auntie Two’s life. Was her suffering really caused by what she did in her past life? How could I accept that such a gentle soul could have intentionally harmed anyone?  

On the seventh day two years ago, with my closed eyes, I saw myself sitting on Auntie Two’s bed, legs crossed, holding her right hand with my left hand, breathing in, breathing out. From the top of my head to the tip of her toes; from the tip of her toes to the top of my head. Auntie Two, please let me feel your pain! Please let me share your pain! Unbearable sadness gripped me. I mourned with silent tears for three days on the cushion. On the tenth day, after the silence was lifted, I didn't want to talk. I walked to my regular walking path in the woods, standing on a rock, facing the sun with eyes closed. I didn't want to lose my deep connection with Auntie Two and that purity in my heart.  

"I walked back to my grandparents' between the rice fields. As I was walking, I wondered if Auntie Two was still there watching me. I looked back. There she was, standing in front of her thatched home! I walked again and then turned again. She was still there, but looked smaller. I kept on walking and turning until she looked so tiny. I must look tiny to her too. I stopped. Auntie Two and I were standing there, tiny face to tiny face, as if we were the only two people living on that land, bathed in soft spring breeze and warm sunlight."

This time, it surprised me that sadness didn’t come. Instead I saw the hunchback and the big wrinkles on his forehead. How much suffering had he borne in this life? It was the first time I thought of him without anger. “More compassion for the aggressor. So ignorant, harming oneself and harming others,” Goenkaji said in one of the taped evening discourses. 

Keep opening my heart. It’s the only way out.

Three -Hour Sit Challenge

“By meditating

We are like the candle

Which says to the darkness

‘I beg to differ’”

To honor Auntie Two, I decided to sit three hours straight twice a day on the eighth and ninth day. Auntie Two endured three days of unbearable pain after having lived such a harsh life; she showed me the suffering of life in such a visceral way. Compared to what Auntie Two had gone through, sitting for three hours without moving should be much easier.  

I sat through the group sitting, the break, and then another sitting. In the beginning, I sat with ease. But then severe pain arose and persisted in my hips, thighs, knees, and lower back. This pain is unbearable! Why is it not going away! Does it forget to follow law of nature? Waves of agitation heated my body, making me more agitated. I felt the urge to move, but changing posture could only cause more mental pain—disappointment. I wanted to cry, but no tears came out to indulge me. How much pain did Auntie Two have to endure in her last three days? I would sit, no matter what. Pain, over which I have no control; my reaction, over which I do have control. Then slowly, peace came to my aid.  

I admit that I did change my posture a couple of times during those four long sits. I didn't experience a full-body freeflow, and didn't crave for it either.

On the tenth day after the noble silence was lifted, to my surprise, a fellow meditator said to me, “You were totally in a different land in the last two days. You sat like a Buddha!”  

The Ant Tribes

Many ant tribes reside in the Vipassana center. I often saw ants carry things twice or more of their sizes and march along or across the road as I walked to the dining-hall, to my room, to the meditation hall, or to my walking path. Their aliveness attracted me, or, maybe I should say, distracted me (during my 10-day course). 

One day, the crowded entrance to one of their communal homes caught my attention. Ants hurried in and out as if they were organizing an important community event. The route that the ant hunter-gatherers set out stretched long and far. I was curious to know how far they went, so I followed their path and walked off the dirt road a little and still couldn’t see where it ended. The route went under the dry leaves and twigs. Then one ant came on the scene, carrying a large white shell of some grain, crawling up and down over twigs and leaves. I looked up. Not only the destination was far from where I stood, given the size of an ant, but also it was a bumpy journey home without a flat and solid ground. Under the hot sun, that ant just kept on going without resting for a second. Up and down. Up and down. I was so rooting for that ant! I followed along and finally home was close! But there were no ants waiting by both sides of the entrance applauding for such admirable endeavor. It was just a common task carried out by an ordinary ant on a normal day. As that ant entered, I looked back. Other ants were carrying large shells or grains, approaching home one after another. 

Just like that. They do their best to contribute to the good of the whole without expecting congratulatory applause. They need nobody to cheer them on.      

   

I stood there for a long time. Slowly, I came to terms with this statement: I am worthy; yet, I am not special. 

How Ungrateful

In the morning of the last day, after the mettā meditation, the 10-day course was coming to an end. As the chanting of Goenkaji and Mataji was gradually diminishing, my tears finally came. But this time, it wasn’t sadness. It was the realization of how ungrateful I have been in my life.  

Born a peasant’s daughter in China, I grew up ashamed of my mother, who raised me and supported my education with every penny hard-earned. How ungrateful!

With everything I am gifted, I need nothing else to be happy. But I don’t respect my own gift, merits and power, feeling ashamed and inadequate. How ungrateful!

Each and every day, I am provided with a roof over my head, clothes on my body, meals nurturing my body, books broadening my mind, friendships nourishing my soul, and more. But I still want more. How ungrateful!

All fellow beings, I have been so disconnected, my heart not yet open wide to you. How ungrateful!

The Earth. The wind. The rivers. The mountains... I take you all for granted. How ungrateful! 

…

Tears continued to roll down my cheeks as others were putting away cushions.

Out of the meditation hall, I felt humbled in the early morning of a new day. 

Going Forward

“Mindfulness is easy on the cushion, difficult on the street.”

I don’t want to go back to sleep again. Areas I want to explore deeper are:
- Self-compassion without attachment to I, me, and mine.
- Compassion for other beings without guilt, shame, or stress.
- Facing today's wounded world without anger, frustration, and self-righteousness, but with gratitude, good intention and right effort.

From the top of my head to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. From the top of your head to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of your head. From the top of Mount Everest to the tip of my toes; from the tip of my toes to the top of Mount Everest…

“Remain perfect equanimity. Perfect equanimity.”   

(All the dhamma poem quotes are from The Moon Appears When the Water is Still by Ian McCrorie, purchased at the Vipassana book store in North Fork CA)

More about the writer

Little Flame

"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things." 

---Wild Geese by Mary Oliver  

Following my gege, older brother, and climbing over the tall berm that separated the busy road and the brown ocean of winter grass, I was ready for any mischievous acts. Partially shielded from the big wind by the berm, I hovered over to add another layer of protection as Gege struck a match. "Ssshhhkkk!" A little orange flame was born. It trembled vehemently before the big wind swept it away. My heart sank. Gege struck another match. Another little flame was born and swept away. Then another one. It was a game between the little flame and the big wind. Finally, a little flame took hold, with which Gege gleefully set fire to the grass. Instantly, the little flame came alive dancing with the wind, spreading its orange joy-- just for a moment, but long enough for seven-year-old me to jump and clap.

***

Life went unnoticeably fast while I was riding high with accepted achievements and low with missed goals, and feeling a perpetual shame of inadequacy. I ignored my heart that longed to dance, yet held deep in the ribcage. 
Across the Pacific Ocean from China, I landed my expected dream job at a firm that had offices in 114 countries. After three months, each morning, it became harder and harder to drag myself out of bed and put on a proper outfit, in which I could hardly stretch my arms to embrace life fully. In front of the mirror in my San Francisco apartment, I said to myself, "Cherish what I have." But heaviness hooked around my heart. "Disperse, you heaviness!" I cried, lying on the couch every evening after a long day work, lonely and powerless.

***

I stood on the busy road facing where the tall berm used to be in my hometown. It had been made flat by bulldozers for building more factories and the long gone winter grass had forever lost its chance for another spring. But I remembered the little flame that strived to dance with the wind, again and again. My heart called out from the deep cage, "Keep dancing, until you dance me out!"

More about the writer at: http://www.xiaojuanshu.net/
     

Little Green (Fiction)

Locust Tree Hutong had been a serene neighborhood in Beijing. Every morning, the residents woke up to birds chirping on the locust trees. Chess lovers played Chinese chess in the hutong--the narrow alley between the courtyard houses--with several bystanders observing. Five years ago, the neighborhood changed when a new business complex was erected one block outside Locust Tree Hutong. More suits and ties appeared in the neighborhood. Some families rented out rooms to the young professionals; some turned their courtyard houses into hotels; some set up food stands in the hutong to sell soy milk and buns in the morning. You would rarely see onlookers surrounding two chess players now. Everyone here was talking about one thing: Locust Tree Hutong would be demolished soon for the developing of new Beijing.

It was a summer morning. The red door of a courtyard house was pushed opened from the inside. Out walked an old man, carrying an empty birdcage. The neighbors called him Old Lin. He wore a straw hat, his back slightly hunched and his gray hair combed to the back. Age had carved two deep lines on his forehead. His white short sleeve shirt hung loose over his navy blue polyester pants. No wind. Cicadas shouted “too hot” up in the locust trees. Lin looked between the courtyard houses, behind the food stands, and up in the locust trees. Once in a while, he called loudly, “Little Green! Come home!” 

Little Green was a parrot, who had been Lin’s best companion after his wife, Yue, died ten years ago. When Lin first saw Little Green at the bird market, he was instantly stunned by her beauty. Her body was covered with bright green feathers. Her curved red beak matched the red circle around her eyes. In a high-pitched sweet voice, Little Green greeted Lin “Ni hao!” (Hello!). Right then right there, Lin made the biggest purchase decision in his life. He left and soon came back with 6,000 yuan, his three-month stipend, and took Little Green home. 

Little Green didn’t like cold weather, so Lin stayed home with her by the stove in winter. He taught Little Green many new words, such as: “hao” (good),” “bu hao” (not good), “leng” (cold), “e le” (hungry), and “zao shang hao” (good morning). 

In summer, for the past ten years, Lin carried Little Green in a birdcage to the bird market to meet his bird-loving friends every morning. On the way to the market, Little Green greeted every passerby “Zao shang hao!” The market was swamped with bird lovers. Some of them were first timers; some were experienced and willing to give a lecture to the newcomers at any minute. A variety of birds were chirping from birdcages hung on both sides of the alley. With his friends surrounding him, Lin let Little Green stand on his straw hat. Little Green greeted the crowd, “Dajia Hao!” (“Hello everyone!”) One time, Little Green suddenly shouted, “Da bizi! Da bizi!” (“Big nose! Big nose!”) Everyone turned and saw a European-looking man nearby. Everyone laughed, including that foreigner, who understood Chinese. A man in the crowd offered Lin 20,000 yuan for Little Green. Lin said, “Little Green is not for sale.”  

“Little Green! Come home!” Old Lin’s desperate voice echoed in the hutong. He couldn’t believe that Little Green was gone. Yesterday, Lin’s seven year old granddaughter, Xiao Yu, took Little Green to the courtyard to let her fly. She had read a story about a caged bird who longed to fly freely in the sky. Little Green had been let out before and had never flown away. But yesterday, the sudden loud noise from the construction site nearby scared her. She flew to the roof, and then after another loud noise, Little Green was nowhere to be seen. They all thought Little Green would return home before it was dark--but she didn’t. 
“Little Green! Come home!” Lin stopped where the hutong ended. The world outside the hutong made him dizzy. A wide bustling street was filled with cars, buses, electric scooters, tricycles, a few bicycles, and people. People were everywhere. The new subway station was on the left and the business complex was on the right. Two blocks down, a new shopping mall was under construction. Several cranes were busy transporting building materials to the scaffoldings. As the contemporary saying goes, the crane is China’s new “national bird.” Lin had an urge to cry.

In the past fifty years, nobody had ever seen Lin cry, not even when his parents died, nor when his wife died, nor when he received a notice informing him that he had to move to give room for new Beijing. He had a high tolerance towards life because he had survived the Japanese invasion, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution. In the past two decades, the economic miracle in China had made him proud. It was the beginning of the new millennium, China could finally have a say in the world again, but then the world moved too fast for him to grasp and nobody cared what he thought or how he felt. 

Across the street, a group of young people were gathering in the new park with their expensive bicycles. They wore helmets and tight cycling outfits. When did riding bikes become fashionable? He remembered when he was a math teacher in a local middle school,  he rode his old black bicycle to school alongside Yue, who was an English teacher, every day. In the narrow street outside Locust Tree Hutong, they joined hundreds of other bike riders. The “ding-ling-ling” sound of the bike bells was a collective composition of the morning symphony. Lin looked at Yue; her face looked beautiful in the golden sunlight, and her short black hair danced with the breeze. They first met in the street when everyone in Beijing was out celebrating the surrender of the Japanese army in August 1945. He was 20. She was 19. That day, she wore a green Qipao that fit her elegantly. 

“Little Green! Come home!” Lin turned back and walked home. It was almost noon. In front of his house, he sighed and pushed the red door open. It was a typical Siheyuan--a traditional courtyard house--in Beijing. Three families shared this courtyard. Lin’s house faced the red door--the south, and the other two families faced each other. A tall locust tree stood by Lin’s living room window. 

Lin’s family had lived in Locust Tree Hutong since the Qing Dynasty when his grandfather arrived with his starving family escaping from the famine in the North. Lin himself was now a grandfather with six grandchildren. When the grandchildren visited him, they were always busy texting or playing video games, except Xiao Yu, who loved to read books.  

Lin put the birdcage on the black wood table and sat down. The image of him with his head down reflected on the sunglasses by the birdcage. Lin stared at the empty birdcage for a long time. It was a redwood-colored bamboo birdcage. The handle on the top was real redwood carved with a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other. A week ago, in that birdcage, Little Green said “Happy birthday!” to Lin at his 75th birthday in front of his relatives and friends. Xiao Yu had taught her those words.  
Lin took off his straw hat. As his fingertips touched the claw marks that Little Green had left on the edge of the hat, tears rolled down his thin cheeks. He might never see Little Green again! The whole neighborhood would be demolished within a week. How could Little Green find her way home? He felt a pang in his heart as if it were being pinched from the inside.
Lin looked around and his eyes landed on Yue’s framed photo, which stood on the shrine table against the north wall. She was smiling. Lin walked towards her and began to sob like a child. All the tears he had held inside for the past fifty years were pouring out like water rushing through a broken dike.

The sun was gone now. The empty birdcage was waiting in the dark.

(First published in The Looking Glass Quarterly, p. 16, College of Marin, July 2014; republished in sPARKLE & bLINK, issue 64: april 2015). Reading @ Quiet Lightning in San Francisco.