Not Out of Hate. Ma Ma Lay

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СКАЧАТЬ goal of Nirvana, there is the Eightfold Noble Path, which consists of the eight rules of right conduct. These eight rules can carry you clear of the suffering of wrong living. They can reduce greed, anger, delusion, and other such defilements to nothing.

      The Eightfold Noble Path consists of:

      Right Understanding (Comprehension)

      Right Resolution (Aims, Intention)

      Right Speech

      Right Action

      Right Livelihood

      Right Energy (Effort)

      Right Mindfulness (Minding what is right)

      Right Concentration (Meditation)

      These eight rules of the Way are related to this world and the other world, whether you are concerned with the way you are living in this world or whether you are trying to attain Nirvana.

      In short, daughter, of these eight the most important is Right Understanding. It is important, daughter, to be able to see things as they truly are, since it is only in this way that we become virtuous.

      My daughter, once you have the right understanding, you will then have right intentions, you will say the right words, you will perform the right actions, you will live rightly. You will put forth the effort to be diligent in the right, you will be heedful of the right, and your mind will be fixed on what is true.

      If you do not understand things rightly, your viewpoint will be wrong, your views will be falsified and will lead you to wrong action. You will live wrongly, your efforts will be for the wrong, and you will constantly be fixed in falsehood.

      Not everyone can at all times hold to the right understanding of the Way. At times they will see rightly and at times wrongly, but the right views are always of the highest importance. In the other world, however, the right view or Truth will always prevail. It is steadfast and indestructible.

      Dear daughter, your mother feels bound to write this exhortation to you. It comes with a special love so that you may be able to keep in your heart the Eightfold Path, which contains precepts for our lives in this world. As I wrote in my October letter, keep in mind and practice charity, duty, knowledge (knowing right things from wrong), almsgiving, wisdom, and purity of conscience.

      Those who are alert and mindful are able to do more meritorious deeds than those who are negligent and unmindful. Only those who have a sense of shame and fear can be virtuous, while those who are brazen and shameless cannot have good morals. Therefore, I urge you to cultivate the seven rules of virtue.

      Do not worry about me. I am meditating and practicing the Law so as to be free from the bonds of rebirth in the 37 planes of existence.

      Thila Sari

      Red Cave Stream

      Sagaing Hills

      Way Way’s voice trembled towards the end of the letter, as she read it aloud. U Po Thein, reclining on the armchair, was listening intently, his legs extended on the wooden arms.

      As soon as Way Way finished reading, Daw Thet sputtered sarcastically, “Oh sure, now she’s a holy person devoted to the service of religion, without the cares and entanglements of existence, at ease and at peace …. Then, as though deep in thought, she pressed down with her thumb on the ashes of her unlighted, partially smoked cheroot and gazed into space.

      Way Way controlled her welling tears from flowing onto the letter she held in her hand. U Po Thein coughed, cleared his throat, and sat up to spit. From where she sat, Way Way could see clearly the blood that streaked his spittle in the cuspidor. Her face filled with alarm as she bent her head to avoid looking at it. Her tears flowed down and blurred the words of the letter.

      U Po Thein said, “When you reply, daughter, don’t say anything about my not being well. Let your mother meditate with a calm and peaceful mind.”

      Way Way remained quiet, her head bowed. Her mother’s face as it had looked before she became a nun entered Way Way’s mind. Her mother had been a beautiful woman, as beautiful and gentle in person as she was in thought and disposition. Since Way Way had lived close to her mother till the age of twelve, she was able to recall in detail her every mannerism—the way she combed her hair, the way she dressed, the way she spoke, the way she walked. She remembered how her mother would go to the Sagaing hills during the Buddhist Lenten season each year.¹⁵ She remembered how her mother had hated to travel alone, so her father had to take her there and leave her for a month or so. Before her meditation period was over she would write her husband to come and escort her back home to the Irrawaddy delta.

      Way Way remembered that some years when the trip did not work out, her mother was unhappy and restless, lamenting the fact with murmurings and complaints. She changed so much that, two years before she donned the habit, it was apparent to everyone in the household that she would eventually do so. She talked less. She spent time each day on a multiplicity of religious observances. She constantly worked the beads of her rosary, which never left her hands. When she sat at prayer, she sat so long that she was unconscious of time and seemed to be in a trance. She read the scriptures until midnight. She always spoke in terms of religious parallels, so that Way Way was exposed to the Buddhist view of existence when she was but a child. Her mother did not seem to enjoy her food or take any pleasure in her apparel. She removed all her jewelry. She even took off her earrings, which every Buddhist Burmese woman wears from young girlhood, and gave them to Daw Thet saying, “Sister, you wear these from now on.” She lost interest in the family business and was not aware that she had stopped participating in it. Indeed, she was not aware at all that she had cut herself off from her family.

      When U Po Thein had said teasingly, “You may as well leave the society of man and become a nun in Sagaing,” she replied gently, “Just give me leave to do so. I am ready.”

      When U Po Thein had mumbled and grumbled about this withdrawal from the world, Daw Thet’s refractory answer was, “Then it might just as well be withdrawal to the hills of Sagaing.” She too had meant it as a joke.

      Then one year, when Way Way was in the seventh standard, her mother went to Sagaing to meditate and never returned. She wrote telling U Po Thein that she had become a nun, asked for his acceptance of the fact, and gave her permission for him to be free to marry again if he so desired. Way Way cried her heart out when she was told that her mother had become a nun. U Po Thein had loved his wife so much that he had always acquiesced to her wishes and therefore Daw Thet censured him, saying, “It’s really you who is responsible for this, you know. You have always given in to her, and you have only yourself to blame.”

      U Po Thein was heartsick and could not understand or accept what happened. It took him a long time to get over it, but he tried to explain his wife to Way Way and the others saying, “For the kind of person she was, the religious life is really best.” When he was alone, however, he would grieve and sink into depression.

      Daw Thet’s heart went out in pity for her brother and her small niece, and she felt bitter towards her sister-in-law and thought, How could she be so cruel!

      When Way Way finished her seventh standard exams and school closed for the hot weather, she cried and fretted about, wanting to see her mother. U Po Thein sent her off with Daw Thet as he himself could not bear to see his wife. After this, Way Way went once a year to see her mother. It had now been five years. Way Way’s brother, Ko Nay U, and her sister Hta Hta, who lived far away, were at first quite upset about their mother; then they rationalized СКАЧАТЬ