My teacher, my Kalyana Mitra

Five years has gone by, the fig tree at the front yard is still blooming. I am standing next to it and am thinking about you. You used to look for figs from this tree. You told me you had a great feast of figs somewhere in Turkey while you did your morning walk.

You just don’t know how much I have missed you. I cannot find someone to discuss my love within. I remembered I told you I love all sorts of pebbles and stones. You didn’t say a word but showed me you have lot of stones in your pocket. We could spend hours talking about stones (thunder eggs and geodes), travelling, Buddhism, books, music, religions in general and anything that happen during the day.  Now I am into Hetian pebble and who I can discuss with about this?

Life is different without you. I have no longer to have someone listens to my whinge and swear, to have someone to challenge me to think deeper and wider, to have someone to tell me off when I am mischief. I remembered there was one occasion that we discussed the topic of the first precept ‘Not to kill’. You told me something that you had done and I said you had no compassion. You didn’t rebuttal back but few months later, I went to India. You asked me how I spent my first night in India. I told you I committed into killing. I killed more than fifty mosquitoes inside my hotel room. You asked me under what circumstances did I commit the killing. I said to prevent my son to get sick. You then brought up the first precept and the compassion concept. You made sure I understood the first precept and the correlation between compassion and wisdom. I apologised to have said you ‘lacked compassion’ and you laughed. You then challenged me to reveal my killing to the world, especially to all the monks who lived in my state.

Today is the day you said farewell to all of us five years ago. Thay TP said in 10 years’ time he can start looking for a young boy who needs accommodation or his help in Dharma. To tell you the truth, I don’t want to see you in this samsara, but I will never know whether you might come back and continue your preaching job.

At the suffering deep and wide sea you preach

Beyond preferences we ought to see

Here and now is where we dwell

Inside ourselves happiness and joy we should seek

No enlightenment button that we can press to be free

Yin-Yang, the symbol of balance and harmony should be indwell

Alive is the biggest of our achievement we should reach

Not a super-monk you keep retell

Around you go to give the wake up speech.

20/04/2013