How can a drop of water never dry up?
let it flow into the sea.
When I first saw this film seventeen or eighteen years ago, the eroticism spread at the same time as thinking about some issues. After three years of retreat, the 25-year-old young monk Tashi returned to the monastery. He was weak and crouched on the back of a horse and caught a glimpse of the words on a stone: How can a drop of water never dry up?
After returning to the secular life, Tashi, who was a monk for the second time, parted with his wife on the way back to the monastery. After crying bitterly, he saw the stone again. This time he turned over and saw the other side of the word: Let Tai into the sea.
I like this kind of concept that echoes the finishing touch. It seems that the character's experience is the shell, and this sentence is the center, which is quite meaningful, but at that time, the knowledge reserve and experience were not enough to explain it in my own words, I just remembered it, and later on different Talk to different people over time.
path to maturity
Several young lamas were Tashi from childhood: they were reluctantly sent to the monastery by their parents to be ordained as a monk. They grew up under the care and education of a master who is also a teacher and a father. They occasionally played in front of the master, watched seniors retreat, and determined to become a monk. Excellent monks preach the four truths like a Buddha and are respected by people. However, they do not understand what the four truths are, or even the first of the four: suffering.
According to the tradition of monastic education, Tashi not only passed the study of knowledge, but also retreated alone for three years (the real retreat is very different from the movie). , the three-year retreat is to a certain extent a lonely imprisonment. He stood in front of the Buddha statue, and the conversation with the master Apu was the question that he still had because of his lust: after strictly observing the monk's precepts, where is the freedom promised to me? We are committed to abstinence, but where is the promised satisfaction? Just like the reason why some people saw this movie was to find Ang Lee's movie of the same name, Tashi is just a man on the path of cultivation, not a god.
On the one hand, the love does not know where it started, and it goes deep. The 25-year-old Tashi is full of vitality. The world outside the temple has soft skin, bright eyes and delicate lips. Master said that the woman outside is a tiger, but the tiger has entered my heart.
On the other hand, the lack of freedom and satisfaction in retreat led him to doubt the spiritual path of the world. Because he has no real feelings about the worldly life, he was very young when he became a monk, so he didn't follow this path with all his heart. Is the worldly life really like what Master said? Sang can tell the story of Prince Siddhartha to the young lama who has just had his ordination. Didn't the wealthy second-generation prince also go out to the city to witness the hardships before he became a monk? Tashi felt that he seemed to be missing this link. Experiential education is particularly important. Tashi reminded his son not to go out when it is cold outside. Pema said let him go by himself. When his son who couldn’t stand the cold took the initiative to throw himself into his mother’s arms, Pema proudly looked at Tashi and said, you know, it is cold outside.
The power of a drop of water
After returning to secular life, Tashi lived smoothly. He married his sweetheart, had children, farmed the land, exposed the means of profiteers, and did his best to help villagers trade fairly and obtain higher value. Cutting off people's wealth is like killing one's parents. The merchant threatened him with the interests of the whole village. Tashi didn't want to stir up trouble, but he still attracted the revenge that the harvest was burned. The businessman burned the highland barley and falsely accused the neighbors of doing it. Tashi, who was once shy, shy and polite, was extremely angry, and he fought with the businessman when he knew the power disparity, and his face was scarred by the fight. There is a lot of intrigue between the real and the fake, and it is all in it. It turns out that life is not all fun.
The businessman used dirty means in pursuit of more money. When he first saw Pema, he did not think that there would be a second Pema. However, Zhaxi himself was also coveting more beauty. At first, he tried his best to resist by persuading his wife to fire the worker. Later, lust prevailed again. On the one hand, he betrayed his wife because of his affair with the female worker, and on the other hand, the female worker seduced Tashi knowing that he was about to get married, making Tashi a prey. Tashi didn't know if there would be a third or fourth Pema, he couldn't control himself. Involuntarily, he became a slave of desire, experienced vicissitudes of life, freedom and satisfaction? Apu asked him: which is more important to satisfy a thousand desires or to conquer one? At this time, Tashi had a real understanding of the "suffering" in the four truths.
When Tashi's son was born, the grandmother said that the extraordinary soul had been reincarnated, possibly a soul boy. When Apu passed away, it was said that he would reincarnate and meet again. In the Buddhist view of life, after the current body decays and dies, life does not end, and the consciousness (soul in common) will form a new body according to karma. This is reincarnation, and also the original meaning of the English name samsara in this article. Suffering does not end with the death of this life, there is a new round.
The journey of reincarnation is full of five flavors. For one-fifth of the sweetness, do you want to eat the other four flavors at the same time? For mundane life, is this pessimism or cool objectivity? Going a step further, is pessimism just wrong? If you are really in the dark, why can't you boldly admit it? Find the light even in the dark. If it's five-fifths sweet, go all out. Prince Siddhartha left the palace in the dead of night, and he became a monk to seek enlightenment, and he found it.
Winter and summer are harvested, year after year, life is fleeting, this life is like grass and trees and autumn, the middle-aged Tashi is wandering in desire, has not found his eternal destination, he will continue to die like a son , was born again, chased, endlessly, just like the joke about raising sheep and selling money for his wife to have children and raising sheep, so he decided to leave his wife and children to become a monk like Prince Siddhartha, like the target is the branches of the sea, even if there are Obstruction, it will not stop there. When he just returned to the monastery after the retreat, the leaves in Tashi's hands were green, but this time he walked through the woods, and scattered yellow leaves began to fall. How can he still be that young man when he has gone through a thousand sails?
where is the sea
A drop of water is small, but the sea is boundless. A drop of water dries up, but the sea does not. A drop of water is just a drop of water, and the sea contains hundreds of rivers.
But where is the sea?
The sea water and a drop of water are both water in essence, but their status is worlds apart, because a drop of water does not know its own nature, and its energy is vast and boundless. Zen says: Mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are indistinguishable; sentient beings and Buddhas are essentially the same, but they lose themselves. What is a mind, what is a Buddha, and what is a sentient being? Even though "Buddha" has become a hot search keyword in the past two years, not many can roughly explain these three words.
How can a drop of water penetrate one's own destiny? Not only need to participate, but also need to listen, think and repair in sequence. As Tashi said, only by letting go of prejudices can you truly learn, understand and realize the truth of life, the origin of all things, and know yourself as the sea of freedom, eternity, and infinity.
Home and Abroad
The dialogue between Pema and Tashi at the gate of the monastery was very touching. It was a reluctance to part with a lover and a motherly feeling of sacrificing oneself for a child. It also aroused different opinions from the audience, and more people seemed to agree with Pema. When I was young, I thought that Pema was a real warrior who faced life, while Tashi avoided family responsibilities, and was an irresponsible and passive escape from the world. There is a saying that life is a real practice.
If the practice here is Buddhist practice, then why did Prince Siddhartha, the head of Buddhism, become a monk? After all, as a sect leader, his ordination has a certain demonstration. To take a step back, in Buddhist circles, being a monk is at least not the escape that the world thinks.
If the real practice is life, then Prince Siddhartha can use his status as a king to benefit the country and the people through political, economic and cultural methods, so why does he have to become a monk? In fact, after six years of asceticism, he realized the truth of the world, and preached for 49 years, allowing more lives to embark on the road of enlightenment. His wife, Yasodhara, said by Pema, his son also became a monk. The reason is very simple. Practice is the practice of life and Buddhism. The two practices have the same meaning, but there are more differences. The latter is an independent system, and the former is a misunderstanding. He has said that you should not hear what I say, unless you understand where I stand.
Both of them have reasons for their choices. However, as Tashi, who has married a wife and is a father, his half-way transformation hurt Pema and his son, and he cannot escape the real guilt in his heart. He said to Pema: I will go back with you, where I belong. Having owned it, I have experienced the taste of it, and when I let it go, it is not a sentence in my imagination, there are thousands of emotions in the world, but three words: reluctant. Bema read Apu's letter to Tashi before his death, and knew that Tashi would leave eventually, so she turned around and left alone, like sending Tashi out to sell food for the last time, giving him a rice bowl and rosary for the last time, and this time it was a farewell.
The second ordination here is more symbolic, symbolizing re-choosing the path of cultivation and getting out of the suffering of samsara.
Good luck to those who see it!
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