Đến cửa chùa rũ bỏ trần duyên tính xấu
Vào điện Phật giữ gìn mối đạo tâm lành.
My mother returns to the ocean
Update: 11/08/2021
When I was a junior, I received a phone call from my sister: “Mum said she could not wait for you to come back”. Hearing that, I decided to book an airplane ticket to return home at once.
When my mother was young, the children had dreams, desires and ambition. We drew a number of ways to reach the goals. However, I thought that the moment my mother was terribly sick, the expensive things became nonsense. Time flies fast with the flow of thoughts in my mind. I landed in Tan Son Nhat airport after hours from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh city.
Because my home was not in HCMC, I caught a night bus to Ca Mau province. To my hometown, I remembered there were some friends on Facebook who messaged me: “Where is your hometown?”. The way to ask questions was so friendly that I replied with two lines of funny poetry: “My hometown is at the end of Vietnam, it’s called the prow Ca Mau”. At that time, I might get to the bus station at approximately 4 or t a.m.
Waiting a few minutes, my brother picked me up and took me right to the hospital. My mother had kidney disease. Despite half of a treatment year, the disease still became worse. Fortunately, I came home in time and took care of her just a week before she passed away.
Obviously, everyone is in pain when their beloved people passed away. My mother left at the fatal noon when she was sixty–five which I thought she was still young. As I wish that she could have a long–living life. At that time, she was in pain, but she still knew many things. She died in a temple as she hoped and her funeral was held in the temple, too. May it be her merit?
I felt sad when she was dead, but I felt glad as the funeral was complete. There was no noise of funeral instrumental songs, just the sound of Buddha chanting. The funeral was not mournful anymore. The living people felt tranquil, the dead felt peaceful in a new world.
On the third morning of the funeral, her coffin was brought to a Cambodian temple, the only temple that had an incinerator in that province. To this temple, she really had the merits because all the monks chanted a sutra by Pali texts, Mahayana monks chanted with melodious sounds. At that time, everyone thought that my mother could surely be reborn.
As usual, not many people choose to incinerate the dead, they prefer to bury them, the skin and bones are kept and disintegrated. My mother was open–minded when she was alive, so she chose to be incinerated – to be environment – friendly and save a slot.
Ms.Trang, my sister’s close friend, worked in rental buses. The day my mother passed away, she also went to the funeral and donated some buses to pick up the guests. About 2:00 PM that day, my sibling went to the temple and took my mother’s ashes back. Ms. Trang and my family members got in two cars to a sea destination point, Silver Rock, a provincial tourist attraction. It was not so outstanding, but there were so many unique silver rocks. We came here just for a reason: letting my mom back to the ocean, the big and wide ocean.
We, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews and some relatives, chose a low steep path near the sea surface. We whispered some vowing words and then spread her ashes. The sea was silent. Her voice was silent in the air and disappeared, back to the ocean – the color of silvery clouds and sky loomed everywhere.
In the tranquil ambience and wide ocean, I felt so perfect. Everyone together took a picture on silver steep, very shining and peaceful.
The following day, the guests posted her photos in order to share the sadness to us and remember her. We, her children, posted the photos in the silver rock. I commented in the post: “She was dead, but alive in our heart”. She returned… to the wide ocean.
(P.s: for the first memorial celebration (Feb 25th, Year of the Rooster)
Tâm Khương Translated into English by Nguyen Hoang Thoai