Original Lyrics in Vietnamese by Nguyen The My
 

A rose for you
A rose for me
A rose for those
Who still have a mother
Still have a mother, thus to be more joyful.

In case one day mother passes away
Then we’d be like a flower without the sun
Like children without smiles
Like not being wiser as we grow
Like the sky without the night stars.

Mother, mother is a gentle flowing creek
Mother, mother is an angel song
Is a cool shade up high
Is the bright shining moon
Is the torch in the lost night.

Mother, mother is a sweet sugarcane
Mother, mother is a bunch of bananas, of betel nuts
Is the sound of crickets,
Is the warm sunny strawberry field
Is the asset of love in life.

Then one evening day
I come back to gaze at my loving mother for a while
Then said to her
“Mum, oh mum, do you know…”
“Know what my dear?”
“… Know that I love you so”

A red rose has just been pinned on your shirt
A red rose has just pinned on my shirt
Then I ask you
Together be happy with me
Together be happy with me.

That was the title of a speech by Wendy Kier, a fellow Toastmaster* of mine last Wednesday. Her speech was poignant for me, particularly as it resonated with my practice of Mindfulness.

Wendy pointed out that we usually related success to our ambitions that could take us years to achieve. She offered a different approach to success by looking at our goals in smaller ways. Here is Wendy’s tip on success:

1. Stop
2. Take five minutes out of your time
3. Brainstorm your successes of the week
4. Pick one success
5. Celebrate it

We can judge our success in many ways. Usually we judge it by how much money we make, what title we have, how much other recognize our achievements. For me, success is to live fully and deeply in the present moment.

In my daily mindful living, I often stop and come back to myself so that I can be present. I appreciate myself and life around me. I find joy and happiness in the little things that may be considered small and insignificant or taken for granted by many people. I offer my love and support to others and bring them joy.

With a day like that, I consider I have succeeded in my work and life. I celebrate it now, not tomorrow or someday in the future. Life only exists in the present moment; the past has gone and the future has not come yet.

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) American Essayist & Poet

—–

(* I belong to a local Toastmaster Club - the Brighton & Hove Speakers Club. We meet twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesdays.)

I just got back from the funeral of a great aunt of mine in Paris.

I had a chance to look at her face for the last time before they closed the coffin. She looked very peaceful in her forever sleep. Her eyes closed tightly. They did not move. Neither did her lips.

The event reinforced my passion for life. I can still open my eyes and see all forms and colours. I can still breathe. Oh, how beautiful life is! What a miracle to be alive!

Here’s to you – a song by Sister Chan Duc.

Breath, You Are Alive

Breathe and you know that you are alive.
Breathe and you know that all is helping you.
Breathe and you know that you are the world.
Breathe and you know that the flower is breathing too.
Breathe for yourself and breathe for the world.
Breathe in compassion and breathe out the joy.

Breathe and be one with the air that you breathe.
Breathe and be one with the river that flows.
Breathe and be one with the earth that you tread.
Breathe and be one with the fire that glows.
Breathe and you break the thought of birth and death.
Breathe and you see impermanence is life.

Breathe for your joy to be steady and calm.
Breathe for your sorrow to flow away.
Breathe to renew every cell in your blood,.
Breathe to renew the depths of consciousness.
Breathe and you dwell in the here and now.
Breathe and all you touch is new and real.

With my practice of mindfulness, my day is usually full of joy and happiness. It is very easy for me to find the reasons to smile and be happy about. However, the past few days my peace has been disturbed after I encountered a distressing incident. I was thrown out of my own property as the person I had a conversation with disagreed with me about some business issues. She exploded with anger using strong language to throw me out of my place. I did not say anything further, stayed cool and calm and then I left. Although I was not angry with her unreasonable attitude and behaviour, I was nevertheless very upset.

From then on, for a couple of days, my mind kept going back to the incident and chattered about it. And, of course, the associated negative emotions came with that as well. However, through mindfulness practice, I was able to accept my pain, breathe into my thoughts and detach myself from them instead of being caught up in them. With conscious breathing, I came back to the present moment and concentrated on what I was doing.

Although I was able to manage my pain well by not letting it affect me, I was not happy at the fact that those thoughts popped up quite often in my day and disturbed my peace. My general mindfulness along with my generosity, forgiveness and sympathy worked ok but not good enough for me to completely let go of those thoughts and unpleasant feelings. It was only when I sat down and meditated on the root causes of it and truly had compassion for her – in my heart, not just in my head – was I then able to restore my peace.

My mother always teaches me: “Human beings are not perfect. We all have the good and the bad. To have harmony and peace, just look at the good side of a person and forgive them for their shortcomings.” The Buddhist teaching goes even deeper than that. It teaches us to look deeply into the causes of suffering and look with the eyes of compassion at ourselves and at those we think are the causes of our suffering.

In my mindfulness meditation, I looked into my suffering. I saw that because I did not listen to my intuition in the first place, I brought her into my life and therefore I brought trouble to myself. However, I did not beat myself up on that and I forgave myself. “It happened. I have learnt the lesson. I should be more careful in the future but I should not lose my trust and generosity; I just need to be more diligent and wiser.”

Then I looked into the nature of her action and behaviour. I saw her good seeds – the love and compassion she had for people. I saw her good deeds – the help, the support, the charitable work. I saw the causes of her anger – the jealousy, the ambition to success, the fear to lose. And I saw her sufferings.

I concentrated on her sufferings and I had compassion for her. The moment the flame of love was ignited, all my ill feelings about her disappeared.

My peace is now fully restored. I am happy and smiley again.

It is six in the morning. It is snowing outside. I think of the market keeper who usually opens the market at this time. It is hard work and yet he constantly keeps up with his job. I feel lucky for being in doors writing this memoir in the warmth of my home.

I can hear the rain, or rather, snow dropping on my rooftop. Raindrop. It is used to be the source of my happiness – I loved listening to the rain dropping on a roof top whilst snugging myself cozily in bed reading. However, recently it has become the source of my worry. I had water leakage into my building. I have just only recently finished the renovation of this building after two years of hardship – the hardest experience in my life. A lot of internal structure had been rotten due to years of neglect by the previous owner. This project took a toll on me. At times, when it rained, I cried out loud: “I cannot face another problem!”.

Since I live on the roof extension, I can hear everything on my roof. At first it was great; then it became unpleasant. First of all, the seagulls, chirking and flapping about. They used to evoke the romantic feeling of a seaside town in me; now they have become a source of my annoyance. They land on my root, pecking and skipping about and their creaking sound wakes me up in the night. Then, the rain. Sometimes it rains for days and days. The raindrop which used to be the music to my ears has become a constant worry for fear of the leakage. The constantly dripping sound of the water can become so monotonous that it drives me mad.

The word “monotonous” reminds me of the image of a North Vietnamese soldier hugging himself in his raincoat forlornly watching the rain beating on the green wilderness of the vast jungle in the famous novel called The Sorrow Of War by Bao Ninh. He described the suffering of North Vietnamese soldiers living and fighting along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Vietnam war. But to other people, the jungle and the rain conjure up a happy and beautiful image of nature. A friend of mine emailed me a while ago telling me how much fun she and her boyfriend had when they spent a couple of days in the jungle. On many occasions, they played hide and seek, running naked in the rain.

Jungle, rain… happy, sad… Nature remains as it is but whether it is beautiful or plain depends on our feelings and perceptions. Our sensations, feelings and perceptions are interbeing. And most of the time our perceptions are not wholesome as they rely on our limited experience and knowledge. Letting go of our perceptions is the first step toward happiness. To do that, we first have to acknowledge our feelings – our sorrow, our pain. Then we look deeply into our suffering to understand its causes and transform it to peace and happiness.

The rain can be the source of my joy or the source of my worry. The birds can be the source of my love for the land I live in or the source of my annoyance. It is up to me to choose how I feel. And I choose to be happy. Instead of bemoaning about the seagulls, I have found ways to scare them away from my roof, nurtured my love for them and held their romantic symbol of Brighton in me. As to the rain, I have tackled the water leakage to protect the building and it does not worry me any more. I have felt and continue to feel happy and blessed for all the wonders that the universe gives me.