Written on My Mother's Birthday

Today is Qixi Festival, and it is also my mother's birthday; she has been gone for more than three years. These years I have been constantly negating myself, destroying all my former beliefs, and my outlook on life and values have utterly changed. Now I hold no fixed philosophy of life; toward every life ideal I harbor a deep skepticism. Is today right and yesterday wrong, or yesterday right and today wrong? Was I living in a dream in the past, or am I living in a dream now? I can no longer judge, and I no longer want to; let everything follow its own course. My heart is at peace, free of doubt, and needs no spiritual support.

After a person has felt the sorrow of death, the savor of life that follows is different from before. From my twenties I spared no cost to save my mother's life, only to end up with nothing—she finally left me. A little over a week ago I returned to my hometown and sat quietly before her grave. The grief is gone, but I still miss my loving mother. The weeds on her grave are already taller than a person; the pumpkin vines my father planted beside the grave have twined over her mound, and several large pumpkins lie quietly upon it. How swiftly a person returns to nature; the cosmos never changes much for the coming or going of any single individual.

Time can heal the wounds of the heart, and experience can uproot self-delusion. My destination is the same handful of yellow earth; before that handful, pretense, arrogance and fear can all be laid down, and the natural self reveals itself. Only in the human world are grievances and grudges so many; turn away from attachment, and the heart is at peace. My life need not be splendid; I need no one's applause or approval. I only need to return to simplicity, truth and nature.