Читать книгу Not Out of Hate - Ma Ma Lay - Страница 16

3

The 8th day of the waning moon in December.

Dear daughter,

I am replying to your letter. I am glad to hear that you will try to abide by the advice and precepts I wrote to you about in my last letter.

I would like to further explain the Four Noble Truths of the Most Excellent Law, to help your understanding as you meditate upon them.

The Law of Truth has four principles; they are the principle of pain and suffering, the principle of the origin of pain and suffering, the principle of the cessation of pain and suffering, and the principle of the Way. Of these, the principle of pain and suffering and the principle of their origin are of this world; the principle of their cessation and the principle of the Way go beyond this world.

The pain of being born, the pain of growing old, the pain of sickness, the pain of living with those we do not love, the pain of separation from those we do love, either in life or by death … such instances of the principle of pain afflict all living beings. Those who are afflicted by such suffering cannot be happy. Those who have themselves experienced it know the principle of pain to be a fact. Until suffering and unendurable pain comes one may, perhaps, live in contentment, but grief and mourning can consume the sufferer like a fire ablaze. If you examine the origin of the principle of pain and suffering, you will find that it lies in the tug of desire and the deceit of ignorance.

My daughter, the desire represented by sexual love leads to new life and the renewal of existence. If one is too attached to life in this plane of existence, this in itself is the principle of origination that brings pain into being, through desire and wanting.

This unworthy Law of Desire inevitably gives rise to suffering and misery. Each living person, each living creature, wishes to experience sensual pleasure but does not know or think that this will lead to pain and suffering.

The extinguishing of all suffering is Nirvana, which is freedom from greed and freedom from all defilements. The state of Nirvana is perfect calm and serenity, with no more death, change, or rebirth for mankind or celestial beings. The noble Law of Nirvana is the concern of the contemplative monk who is capable of winning the knowledge or wisdom of Nirvana … The capacity to see everything in a state of flux can be attained by ascetics through practicing for eons … a hundred thousand or hundreds of thousands of years.

To achieve this ultimate 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 what she had done by saying, “Well, it really is a meritorious action ….”

U Po Thein chose not to see his wife after she left, and never wrote to her. He still sent her support regularly, however, and tried to get on with his life as best he could. Way Way was aware that her mother had severed all feelings for her father but that her father still cared deeply. It made her unhappy every time she thought of it. Although her father did not read the letters that came from her mother, he would ask Way Way to read them aloud while he listened. All through those five years, Way Way’s mother never mentioned her father, and Way Way could not understand how her mother could do that. In the beginning, just after her mother had left home, Way Way, aware that her father was filled with longing and sadness, would write and tell her mother, but her mother never mentioned him in her letters. Remembering now in flashbacks her mother’s going from the world into the nunnery brought it all back afresh.

“She brought her karma into this life from her previous existence. That is the reason she could break off her ties so completely. I think she wanted to leave after Maung Ne U and Hta Hta married and left home, but she waited because Way Way was too small at the time,” Daw Thet said slowly, not looking at either Way Way or her father, as though her thoughts were way off somewhere in the past. Having started on this theme, she wanted to continue but was prevented from doing so by a spasm of coughing from U Po Thein. When he stopped, Way Way looked up and saw her father’s peaked and wan face. She was aghast.

“Have you taken your medicine yet?” asked Daw Thet. “Personally I don’t go along with those injections and things. I think Burmese medicine is better, myself.” She was truly upset about her brother’s condition.

Early that morning, on returning from the godown where the paddy was stored, U Po Thein had started coughing and there had been blood. The whole household was startled out of their wits. U Po Thein had never experienced such a thing before and was himself even more terrified. His face turned as white as a sheet and his feet and hands went cold. They ran at once for the doctor.

The doctor told them it was not tuberculosis, only an excess of blood, but they all thought he said that to reduce their fears and believed it was indeed tuberculosis. Way Way was extremely worried about her father and longed for her mother to be with them at this time.

“Is it time for my medicine?” asked U Po Thein.

Way Way looked down at her watch. “It’s one o’clock. You’d better take it,” she said as she went to fetch it for him. After taking the medicine, U Po Thein climbed slowly up the stairs to lie down for a nap.

“I worry about your father so,” groaned Daw Thet as she got up to leave.

Way Way walked across the room and sat at the desk in order to reply to her mother. She read her mother’s letter once more. She was tired of reading her religious exhortations. Sometimes she discerned their meaning, but most times she did not. She really never sat down to study their meaning deeply and had never really caught that feeling which led to religious ardor and understanding. She remembered some of the religious tenets like the Three Truths, the Eight-Fold Path, the Seven Rules of Living for an upright person, and so on, and she could recite them, but that was about it.

Dear Mother,

I am writing this in reply to your letter, which we were happy to receive. Since Ko Nay U’s eyes were troubling him, he went to have them checked at the Billimoria Clinic in Rangoon; he will be away for about ten days. Father sent along the bag of rice and tin of oil for you. We were very happy to hear from Hta Hta that they were being transferred to Maubin. It is so much closer to us. Daw Thet is in good health. She received that herbal medicine from Uncle Thaike, and she has made up the mixture and is using it.

The Abbot of Ywagalay sent us two religious relics for veneration as an aid to our meditation. I stitched up your velvet blanket and sent it to the abbot as an offering.

As for Daddy, just this morning ….

Way Way did not write any further and stopped to consider whether she should go on, especially after her father had requested her not to. But she wanted very much to write and tell her mother, and wanted her mother to be concerned for her father. She thought, No matter how apart much of their lives have been, it’s just not right to be indifferent in these circumstances. When she writes and Daddy hears me reading of her concern for him, she imagined, it’ll surely help him to get better. So she continued:

As for Daddy, just this morning he coughed blood, so all of us are extremely worried. We called the doctor and he gave him some injections. He seemed a bit better this evening. Daddy says not to tell you and to allow you to meditate with a peaceful mind, but I want you to know what has happened.

I will respectfully try to persevere in following out the precepts and instructions you sent me, Mother.

Way Way sat reading over what she had written when she heard a noise in front of the house and looked up. She saw U Saw Han striding toward the house, a cigarette tin in one hand and his hat clasped in the other. She was taken unawares and stared at him for a second.

“Is your father in?” U Saw Han asked, halting at the entrance. Her eyes looked at him but they hardly dared register what was in front of them. Way Way stood up and said, “Yes, he is. Please come in.”

Walking softly, U Saw Han approached the desk and said, “Is he sleeping? If he is, please, there is no need to wake him up.”

At a loss as to how to answer, Way Way said, “Daddy went upstairs earlier. I don’t know whether he is asleep. He wasn’t feeling well.”

U Saw Han was looking straight at Way Way. According to Burmese custom it was too direct a look. “Oh, is he not well? What happened? Then, certainly, don’t wake him.” While U Saw Han awaited her reply, it seemed that his features softened into a smile.

“He went to the godown this morning, and on his return he coughed up blood.”

Before Way Way finished telling him the rest, his face took on an expression of alarm and he asked, “Didn’t you call the doctor?”

“Yes, we did,” said Way Way quietly. “He was given some injections.”

He had a natural scowling expression and Way Way thought, When one first meets him one gets the impression that he is haughty and aloof, but when one actually talks to him he is quite warm and friendly. She was beginning to change her mind about him already.

“What did the doctor say?” he asked.

She found it easy to respond to him directly as his questions showed interest and caring, and this encouraged her to tell him more. “The doctor said it was not tuberculosis, that it was just the body’s mechanism being overheated, like a nose bleed, and that we were not to worry.”

U Saw Han’s face looked thoughtful as he asked, “Has he ever had this happen to him before?” Although he was pleasant and asked questions in a gentle persuasive manner, he seemed upset and regarded Way Way in a serious manner.

Way Way looked up at him through her eyelashes and smiled, “No, never,” she said quietly, shaking her head for emphasis.

“Well, … don’t worry too much, but on the other hand don’t be too negligent either. As to the business I came for …”

They had been standing all this time, and before going on he looked at a chair in front of the desk and said, “May I sit down?”

“Oh yes, please do,” said Way Way. She sat down at the same time as he did and found herself face to face with him.¹⁶ She quietly asserted her dignity by sitting in a businesslike manner and showing deference by waiting for him to speak.

“Please tell your father, when he awakes,” U Saw Han went on, “that a telegram came from the firm accepting the price he asks. But it cannot be done immediately as the barges will take a week to get here.”

“If that is so, I don’t think the deal will be feasible. It has to be transacted immediately,” said Way Way. “The next lot of paddy we will be receiving got wet, and it would not do to mix the two lots in the godown. Only when the present paddy has been removed can we put in the new stock.”

Quite taken aback at this, U Saw Han listened with a smile. “Do you have a lot of paddy? When is it coming?” he asked, regarding her steadily.

Way Way took a large account book out of her desk drawer and, opening it, looked at the figures and said, “A large amount. We have 3,000 baskets out of our own fields. And there will be more from all the other fields.”

U Saw Han looked admiringly at her and at the large book and then back again at her. “Your name is Way Way, is it not?” he asked, and Way Way smiled at him and nodded. U Saw Han looked at Way Way’s smiling face and child-like manner of nodding instead of answering, and thought it very charming.

“Way Way, don’t you attend school?” asked U Saw Han, who took a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and wiped his face.

“Since Daddy was alone, I left school when I finished the seventh standard.”

“Oh, then the lady I saw was not your mother …”

“No, she is my aunt.”

U Saw Han put his handkerchief back into his pocket and said, “Oh, I thought she was your mother. Please don’t think me nosy.” He got out some matches, lit a cigarette, and drew on it.

“No, I don’t think that,” she said.

He took a long draw of his cigarette, his eyelashes fluttering slightly, and asked in a serious tone, “Has your mother passed away?”

Eyes downcast, Way Way hesitated to answer. She glanced up suddenly and saw U Saw Han’s face regarding her with a tender expression.

“My mother is alive. She is a nun in Sagaing. It has been five years since she left. That’s the reason I’m not in school. I help my father with his work.”

Way Way turned her face away after speaking, and U Saw Han looked at her gently and was quiet. Although outwardly quiet, inside he was in a state of upheaval. As he looked at Way Way his heart seemed suddenly to pour out its love for her in her poignant, sad existence. He sensed a dim stirring inside Way Way’s heart, a hint of a capacity for happiness.

“Oh … when did you come in, sir?” Daw Thet’s voice asked as she emerged from the back of the house into the room. She did not come any closer to U Saw Han but talked to him from a distance.

U Saw Han stood up and answered, “I just arrived. I am sorry to hear of U Po Thein’s ill health.” He sat down after he spoke.

“Seems like he caught something. It just happened this morning. The doctor says not to worry.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Daw Thet wanted to go on talking but U Saw Han had turned towards Way Way. Yet Daw Thet did say, “Don’t go yet. Have some coffee.”

“Oh, no thank you,” said U Saw Han, “I only drink coffee in the evening. Please don’t bother.”

Way Way had been feeling as if she ought to offer refreshment to U Saw Han. In their house it was customary to offer coffee to anyone who came to visit, regardless of the time. She now made a mental note of the one guest to whom they need not offer coffee.

“I’ll make certain that arrangements are made for the paddy barges to be sent as soon as possible. I’m sorry to intrude on your work time, Way Way. You are very young and it is really commendable that you are such a help to your elders. I will take my leave now.” Then U Saw Han also said goodbye to Daw Thet, and left.

Smiling a little uneasily, Way Way muffled a laugh and said to Daw Thet, who had in fact barged into the room after she could no longer restrain her desire to hear what was being said between the two, “I knew you were standing behind the screen all the time.”

15. For three months during the Burmese rainy season (approximately May to July), Buddhist monks practice special ascetic exercises, live austerely, and do not perform ceremonies such as those of marriage. Unlike Christian Lent, this tradition does not commemorate events of the Buddha’s life, but is said to be the result of instructions given by the Buddha to his followers. In the latter half of the twentieth century increasing numbers of laypersons have shown an interest in observing this “Lenten” season in ways similar to those of monks.

16. In polite Burmese society it is frequently considered embarrassing for a young, unmarried girl to sit tête-à-tête with a bachelor.