Rebirth of Twice Grace

Reincarnated with heavy grace in the sky

Who wants to end the meaning of people leaving

(Tale of Kieu)

When we knew that these two verses had been composed by poet Nguyen Du, it really surprised us! Such a statement should have come from the position of a monk, how could a poet like him speaking on behalf of lay Buddhists or monastics?

In fact, these two verses of Nguyen Du are related to the life of Buddhists. Therefore, we also would like to venture to explain for Buddhists to understand. First, I would like to explain the two words "Reincarnation". This is a really cool and unique way to use words.

The word “duplicate” (重) means “repeated”, “again”; “Birth” (生) is the life that is born. "Reincarnation" is being born again in a human life. What does "being born twice in one life" mean? When reading The Tale of Kieu, we see that Thuy Kieu was born twice, the first time Thuy Kieu was born by her parents, the second time Thuy Kieu was born when she was lucky to meet Monk Giac Duyen to save her, letting her live the monastic life in the pagoda and getting rid of being a prostitute. The second time Thuy Kieu lived a monastic life in a pagoda, Nguyen Du, the poet, called it "reincarnation". These two words contain many profound morals about filial piety as well as about the meaning of teachers and students.

Human beings were born thanks to the grace of their parents, who gave them their shapes and raised them to grow up, which is the first time they were born in their lives. Later, Buddhists had the good fortune to meet a monk who guided them to understand and practice the righteous Dharma, gave them refuge in the Three Jewels or left home for renunciation, and gave them "the precepts of body and life". On the day of refuge or renunciation, the master gives himself a new dharma name (the name of the religion), so from an ordinary person who does not know the Buddha,  does not know anything about waking life, does not know how to live in the pagoda, now we have lived, know the cause and effect of good and evil, have a name in the religion, as well as get to know many more fellow practitioners. That day is considered the day we were born for the second time - "reincarnation" . Parents have given our body of the four great material things, and the master "born us in the enlightened Dharma". Therefore, as a Buddhist, we must inscribe the principle of "Reincarnation of twice grace " which is difficult to repay.

In the famous book "Old White Clouds" written by Most Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, he used words "Rebirth of Twice Grace" to name the 56th chapter - about the bandit general Angulimala (Uong-quat-ma) ordained as a disciple of the Buddha. That shows us that the artistic and moral value of Nguyen Du's poetry is very high. That's why the Most Venerable borrowed words from Nguyen Du's poetry to name a chapter for the book "White Clouds Ancient Road" like that.

The book says:

“One day Venerable Ahimsaka (No Brain) returned from his alms round to the monastery with a limp and his face was covered in blood.

Svastika (Cat Tuong) saw it and ran to help the Venerable. Venerable Ahimsaka asked to bring him to meet the Buddha.)

On that day while going for alms in the city, he was recognized by a group of people as Angulimala in the past. They came around and attacked the venerable. The Venerable put his hands together into a lotus bud, absolutely did not fight back, to let them beat him freely. So, the group of people beat him, twisted his legs and bleeded his mouth and nose.

Seeing Ahimsaka in that situation, the Buddha immediately went out to help him. He told Ananda to get a basin of water and a towel in order to wipe the blood for Ahimsaka , and he told Svastika to pick mulberry leaves to apply to the wounds on Ahimsaka’s body.

 Venerable Ahimsaka did not groan, even though he was in great pain. Buddha said:

– Try to endure it, Ahimsaka! The sufferings of today can wash away the sufferings of yesterday. Enduring suffering in love and in awareness is a miraculous pure water that can erase all enmity for a lifetime.

 Buddha said:

- Ahimsaka, your robe has been torn to shreds, where is your bowl?

- Dear World-Honored One, they have broken my bowl into hundreds of pieces.

Buddha said:

- Well, let me ask Ananda to find you another sanghati robe and another bowl.

While applying mulberry medicine to Ahimsaka's wounds, Svastika saw that this was a perfect example of nonviolence. Master Ahimsaka told Svastika that one day when he was on his alms round, he met a poor woman in labor under a tree in the forest. She was in great pain but still could not give birth. The Venerable exclaimed, “ Suffering! Too bad! “. Then, he quickly reported to the Buddha. Buddha said:

- Go immediately to the young woman and pray for her. You should advise her, “Miss, from the day I was born until now, I have never intentionally violated the life of any species. I pray that thanks to that truth, you give birth in peace.”

Ahimsaka shouted:

- If I say that, I will be a lier! The truth is that I have intentionally harmed the lives of many people since I was born.

 Buddha said:

Then you should say, "Miss, since the day I was born in the enlightened Dharma, I have never intentionally violated the life of any species. I pray that thanks to that fact, you will give birth in peace."

Ahimsaka immediately ran back to the forest and spoke to the young woman exactly as the Buddha instructed. Just a few minutes later, the young woman delivered the baby safely.

Two sentences "Twice Rebirth of lofty gratitude/ Whose mind ends the love of departing people?" is the moment that Thuy Kieu left Monk Giac Duyen. She was brought home by her father and Kim Trong. In fact, at this time, Thuy Kieu was no longer attached to life, she told her father and Kim Trong that:

“The smell of meditation has both attachment

The color of the meditation dress was mixed with dark brown.

Life has been extinguished from the love heart.

What's the point of squeezing in the dust of life?

What's wrong with unfinished life,

Once you've cultivated, then it's over!"

But when she heard his father's argument, Kieu was convinced and said goodbye to monk Giac Duyen and followed them out:

Her dad said: - "It depends on certain situations,

Sometimes to cultivate or get married.

We must pray to the Buddha,

Love, filial piety, who does this?

Merit of rebirth is really great,

Set up a small house and take you living with you."

She accepted her dad’s advice

Saying goodbye to the monk. 

We see that Nguyen Du was a writer and poet, but he had  a deep understanding and composition of poems about people in Buddhism. I think when a person has such beautiful, correct and profound poems about Buddhism, he must be a person with a real, objective life experience or in the role of a proper monk. Although poet Nguyen Du lived in the XVIII-XIX centuries, he surpassed some scholars today. Some people consider themselves intellectuals while making judgmental statements about Buddhism in a very shallow and careless way. There are people who have bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees, but have many misleading statements and assessments about our Buddhism. Some people, when evaluating Buddhism, only use their knowledge learnt by heart, or like "the blind man touches the elephant", or discuss and evaluate Buddhism like those who tell gossip when "tea in free time"; When they see the pictures of a few shamans or fake monks somewhere on the internet, they immediately attribute it to "Buddhist monks are all the same". They are quick to make false criticisms like a blind man who touches an elephant's leg and says that the elephant is like a pillar, touches the tail of an elephant and says that the elephant is like a broom, etc., without having an overview of reality. If they work in an educational environment, they can ruin the knowledge of the young generation studying with them. Therefore, writer Thu Giang - a famous Vietnamese scholar in the twentieth century, he had advice for everyone that: 

We can only properly judge what we know. Therefore, according to their area of expertise, everyone is sure of their own judgment. That is natural. But when we leave our area of expertise to criticize other issues, it's really harmful. Even more dangerous is when we are out of our own territory, and still trust in our own judgment within our professional area. Do we see some scholars who are often seriously mistaken as ignorant people? We can see many writers thinking that every educated person must make a better career than the ignorant, but they are not familiar with the business, so they have to suffer a painful defeat. Cautious judges, for fear of misjudgment, often delegate matters which are out of law to experts to make decisions. On the contrary, in life, there are few people who do not know anything, but they are willing to criticize every matter such as politics, war, economy, education... as they discuss problems of their profession. we should stay away from those people..." Mr. Thu Giang's advice is really a great lesson for us when we want to evaluate or criticize any problem in life.

Through the verses of the great poet Nguyen Du, we realize many things related to the human morality of the Buddhist. Ethics is in respecting the birth grace of parents, as well as in gratitude to the teacher who gave birth to us in the enlightenment and liberation. There are also lessons on how to correctly judge and identify problems in life by understanding through true experiences in life. If we want to criticize something, we need to have a multi-dimensional and comprehensive understanding in order to avoid regrettable wrong judgments later.

Tâm Thi

Translated into English by Huynh Thi Khanh Phung