Spot's last day

Tessie placed a bunch of flower in
front of Spot's shelter on the deck.
(photo Oct. 1, 2012)

 It is five o'clock early in the morning, September 30, 2012. I'm writing this blog post to commemorate Spot, our family pet. Before I started writing and was sorting my thoughts, a cat was crying outside on the driveway, sounded to me as if the cat was asking me "where has Spot gone?"

"Spot is gone at 3:30 this morning." Chenny sadly told me when I woke up to toilet at about 4:30 this morning. He continued, "the vet has called me not long ago." On hearing this news, I felt a loss of something that had attached to me day and night for the past 13 years since our adoption of Spot. Although Spot had not been a very obedient dog, there were bits and pieces about him won our hearts. There are two blog posts (post links: 1   2   ) I have written previously talking about the loveliness of his personality.


I would never believe that yesterday will be the last day of Spot's life because every thing was occurring as usual on this day. When I came down to the garage in the morning, he was greeting me by waving his tail as usual. After I had opened his pan door, he rushed out of his pan and ran back and forth urging me to be quick to get out of the garage to the garden for the morning walk. Out in the garden, he sniffed here and there, nibbled some grass; had his wee and poo done and then came back in the garage as usual. Then I put a handful of his dog biscuit in the bowl in front of him, and as usual, he raised his head and stared at me for a few seconds with a facial expression of gratefulness, as if saying "thank you Dad", before he started eating as usual.

Spot on neighborhood watch duty
on the deck (photo Sep. 17, 2011)

Having had all of these usual routines done, I took him off the garage at around eight o'clock and set him free on the deck. That is where he carries out his daily watch for the neighborhood.

Everything was running well as usual. The only thing that was unusual in the last two or three months since his surgery in May this year to remove three tumors in his abdomen, was that he slept more during his daytime duty. And we also noticed that he had tremor now and then, and yesterday he trembled a lot; and for the first time he didn't bark around two o'clock to ask for lunch. I told Jean about his recent unusual behavior and Jean said "he is old, he is very old."

When it was about four o'clock in the afternoon, that was the time he finished his daytime duty usually, but yesterday he didn't argue by lightly barking at me to take him in, instead, he was still sleeping in his little hut on the check.

This was unusual too. I woke him up, and he stood up very slowly. And when he walked into the livingroom, he immediately sat down and then lied down on the floor. And this really worried me. I asked Jean to come over to have a look, and she said "probably he is going to die." We had thought about this quite often since spot had the surgery in May this year. "Take him down to his pan and play the Amituofo chanting to help him pass away peacefully", Jean said.

Photo taken on Sep 29, 2012. after
I held him down to his bed. He
curled up straight away to sleep
upon landing on the mat. That was
about 11 hours prior to his death.

Spot was very weak, so weak that he could not walk down to the garage himself as he usually does so I held him down and put him in his sleeping mat, and played the Amituofo chanting.

Chenny came home at around nine o'clock. He noticed that Spot was very very sick because he saw Spot vomited twice and pooed right beside his sleeping mat. I came down to the garage and realized that Spot was not just sick but terribly sick, so sick that he couldn't even stand up. Chenny asked if we should take him to the vet immediately. But it was Saturday.

Tessie transported Spot home after
his surgery done on  May 10, 2012

Chenny must have been accompanying spot all the time since his returning home that at around 11:30pm he woke me up from sleep and told me "Spot vomited on his sleeping mat and pooed. he looked at me as if asking me to help him. Dad we must go to see the vet immediately, Spot is in pain."

I agreed with what Chenny suggested. When I came down to the garage, Spot looked at me as if saying "dad I'm very uncomfortable." His eyes were full of helplessness. I said to Chenny "okay, let's go." Chenny already located the nearest vet available for emergency clinic. I grabbed a piece of cloth to wrap up spot with my hands and legs shaking seriously.

Photo taken on Aug 19, 2012

The vet is called Sean. He quickly and carefully made a thorough check and set up a bottle injection. He explained to Chenny that the medicine he used was to help to relieve Spot's pain and enable him to sleep through the night. But because spot was so sick that he would believe the night might be his last night in the world. The vet held spot to a chamber to rest and there we left for home feeling a bit better but could not forget what the vet said that tonight might be Spot's last night in the world.

Back to home, I checked my mobile and there were three messages all sent from Tessie. She said that Lily has informed her of what happened to Spot, and she asked me to call her anytime if we needed her to come home to help.

Photo taken on Sep 17, 2011

When Chenny told me that Spot had passed away at 3:30 this morning, I felt an undescribable loss in my mind. Then I thought if I should call Tessie immediately to inform her of Spot's death, but then I thought now that Spot had died why to ruin her sleep?

Here are links to some photos of Spot's. We wish Spot well in the other realm of the universe and Amituofo has guided him to His extremely blissful world.

Diamond ring

Son,

In a shallow meditation I had yesterday morning, a topic I like to discuss with you emerged and my concentration was ruined so I set my thought free to roam all over this one, Diamond Ring.

I remember that you recently told mom after you finished dinner and was leaving for your room to practice your guitar, that you probably will propose to your girlfriend during the upcoming school holiday trip to Melbourne. But you had not got the diamond ring ready yet for the proposal.

I did not know that diamond ring is a must-have when a pair of boyfriend and girlfriend in relationship has come to the stage of planning a wedding, then, the first thing the boy has to buy is a diamond ring. As if among the many stages of the young people’s journey toward marriage nowadays, there is one stage that can be referred to as “diamond ring stage”.

Diamond is known as being unbeatable, undestroyable, most bright, most sparkling and etc, all in all, it symbolizes every positiveness of one's marriage. Everyone is longing for a harmonious relationship, an eternal loyalty, and may be out of their subconsciousness, they think their marriage can be assured to achieve all of these quality a diamond ring has.

However, that is just a symbol, just a stage where young people of your generation all believe it can bring happiness and harmony to them throughout their marriage life, or it is simply a fashion to them and everyone simply doesn’t want to be left out. Less people are calm enough to realize that all that is indeed a blessing or a guarantee to retaining their affectionate marriage life is not from the external diamond ring but the internal virtues both of them cultivate and observe constantly.

From the movies depicting the marriage life of a couple, usually see their very affectionate wedding photo magnificently framed and hung over the most outstanding position of the living room. And one day, they begin to fight on trivial problems, and it goes on and on, often and more often, and then finally one of them erupts anger and throw the glass of wine they are holding in hand onto the photo, drag it down from the wall, and shatter it. Interestingly, this kind of scenarios are seen in the movies or TV dramas a lot, and I believe there must be a lot happening in real life. It reflects a fact, the external decorative jewelry or magnificent wedding photos are not reliable, are not the guarantee of a happy long lasting marriage. They are just items wasted; items to make the expectation seem to be very absurd.

Of course, there are examples that they follow all of these fashions of large framed wedding photo, expensive diamond ring, and are in a profound marriage throughout their lives. But those items are not necessarily to have to be pursued, are they?

Suppose you treasure my opinions about your plan of buying a diamond ring for your beloved, the following is my idea that I take it as being significant, sacred and meaningful:

• Donate the money you originally planned to spend on diamond or huge framed wedding photo to a charity such as World Vision or Red Cross. They know how to help the people in need on behalf of you.
• Follow the most basic etiquette of engagement customs only. A no frill gold ring, an outdoor ceremony party with tea, lots of photos out of your iPhone camera.
• Observe constantly and consistently the virtues you have been taught.

Forget the diamond ring. Be liberated from ironic belief.

Father's Day 2012

Today is Father's Day in New Zealand, probably in most of the Western countries, the first Sunday of September. Tessie contacted me a few days before by texting message asking how would I like my day be celebrated? Would I like to have a lunch in the restaurant?

It seems to have been a fixed customary to our family that when there is something worthwhile to celebrate, the one who proposed will organize for the whole family to have a lunch together in a nearby restaurant, and of course pays for the bill too. But this customary has been changing gradually in the past two years when I am the main character to be offered a free lunch celebrating either my birthday or Father's Day, I opted having the celebration at home with the meal purchased from a nearby takeaway. So when Tessie asked me what would I like to choose, I said to her "thank you very much, just bring a couple of dishes from the takeaways near you."

Because she will be available on Saturday, and Chenny will have his music classes on Sunday, so we decided to change it to Saturday.

Since the date and time were decided last week, I have been looking forward to its arrival. After all, having the whole family together for a meal is such a precious occasion.

The lunch was a very pleasant one. Everyone enjoyed the food from takeaway restaurant, everyone laughed. Tessie told us that she went to watch 10 movies during the film festival, and the two of them impressed her the most were "the last ocean" and "the climate change". Tessie has been a happy and talkative girl since she was very small. So she talked a lot about the two movies. I know she is very enthusiastic about the environmental issues. Chenny talked about his plan to organize a performance concert for his student, and Lily gave him her ideas and suggestions about how should the concert be presented.

When the celebration was coming to an end, I asked Jean for that pack of sticky rice she bought the other day from T-mark, and moved to the kitchen to demonstrate how to cook sticky rice in only one pot for Tessie. The demonstration was a success, and I packed the whole lot of the stir fried sticky rice in a recycled lunchbox for her to take home.

And this concludes my Father's Day celebration of 2012.

Reading books

In the waiting room of the Labtest Browns Bay waiting for my name to be called up to collect some blood sample for my health checkup, I saw a mother with her son, a toddler waiting, too. Each of them held a book in their hands reading quietly. The toddler seems to be very sociable that he stared at me with a trace of smile on his face. I smiled back. Having sensed my friendliness, he wobbled toward me pointing at a picture in his book to show me, seemed like trying to tell me what it was. I was amazed by his being very interested in books and his sociability. His mother smiled and looked at him. I asked the mother "your baby is very fond of reading, how have you trained him to be a book lover?" She said "I read books for him before he goes to the bed." "Ah! that's why." I extolled.

I'm not a good reader and that is why I admire people who enjoys reading. This reminds me of the summer vocation of my first year of senior high high school. one of the homeworks assigned to us for the summer vocation was reading a book titled "dream in the red mansion" and writing a short conversation about what you have learned from reading that book. I remembered that Chinese classical fiction we were asked to read was more than 400 pages. The story was about a heavily pampered only son of that family and his cousin, Lin Dai-yu. It is one of the most favorite books among Chinese reads. I tried to read them all, but because I was not so interested in reading that I had only finished about one third of that book. When that summer vocation was coming to an end, we were supposed to return to school to get ourselves prepared for the resumption of school before the official start of the new semister. I asked some of my classmates about how well had they done the assignment of reading that classical fiction, and a couple of them excitedly told me they loved it, and not just the that, they read two or even three times of it. At that moment, I admired them very much and felt ashamed for my reading capability.

There is another type of reader who cannot live without something to read. Once I was engaged in a chat with a group of my colleagues talking on the subject of reading. One of my colleagues said that her husband was a strong reader. Her husband has to have something to read. When he is not busy with anything then he is always in search of something to read. If the community newspaper is the only thing he can get at that time, he reads it without skipping any single word. And he does even read every one of the advertisements in the classified pages. it will be very cool for me to be like him.

I admired book lovers. I know there are lots of profound book readers. They are able to be completely absorbed in the reading for hours or even a non-stop whole day. Some of them can finish reading of a heavy book in a few minutes with perfect comprehension. My web search for the fastest reader tells me the Howard Berg is the fastest reader in the Guinness Book of World Records. His reading speed is 25000 words per minute. Comparing to mine, the number of words he can finish in a minute will take me two days at least. How can he do that, and why can't I?

People who love reading are usually quiet, calm and confident. Their school performances are unexceptionally outstanding. A family friend came to visit us with their two daughters of year 4 and 6 in the primary school. Both of them disappeared soon after greetings. I found them sitting on the floor side by side with my old Reader's Digest in each of their hands reading by the book shelf, totally absorbed in the books. When I switched our conversation to the topic about their children's strong reading capacity, I was told both of the two girls were of the top students in the school.

Unable to cut it through, yet sorting makes it more tangled

15/07/2012 Sunday

“What does life mean to me?”. I learn; I work; I take my responsibility, and etc. Are these what life is all about?

When Jean is out shopping and Chenny is out teaching, and Spot is sleeping next to my feet on the floor. When my surrounding is so quiet, my thought begins to wander, and it always lands on the topic such as “what does life mean to me?”

My logical part of the brain immediately searches in the archive for the most matching answer, but before long, it says to me that it has run out all the ideas and it gets no answer for me. At this moment, sometimes I recalled the Script in the Diamond Sutra which throughout its content states all the paradox of every aspect the Buddha tried to make his disciple understand.

“All of the phenomena are illusory and are real at the same time.” If I use this kind of statement as a template and put my question into it, then it sounds like this -- “life is elusive and is real.” Then, what Buddha tried to explain to me might be: “hey! Kuei, whether your life is elusive or real, don’t be too serious about and should be serious about, just live your every day as it is and no more other meanings and no less than any other meaning.”

It sounds very insane, but what else do you think is not? Perhaps this is the path toward enlightenment; and is not the path toward anywhere.

I got to be hurry

01/07/2012 Sunday
Yesterday could be the coldest winter day in Auckland. When I started my early morning meditation, I felt very cold, so cold that I put my gloves on, grabbed a duvet to cover my lap to keep warm so as to get the meditation going.

I have indulged myself in learning or exploring new areas of skill, for example, growing vegetable, repairing household appliances, typing with a dictation software, learning advanced Excel formulas and etc., in the past three or four years. Last month, I have turned more attention to the cultivation of spirituality realizing that nothing that I have acquired will be brought along to the grave. With this understanding, I have taken my daily spiritual exercise more seriously.

Why do I think I have to be more serious on the path of spiritual cultivation? Because I believe in reincarnation. The theory of reincarnation states that all beings on the planet are subjected to be permanently trapped in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. And we have no control about where will we be reborn after our death. It is impossible that all of us will be reborn into the royal family to enjoy a good life, and even if we were, we will die again and be reborn to somewhere we are fear of -- to Africa that is constantly in short of food; to realm of animal that is born to be slaughtered by the butcher for food. Knowing that all of the beings are suffering from all sorts of fear, ancient sages taught us ways of liberation, assuring that there are hope and methods to set us free eventually.

If I can live up to 72 years long like my father, hey guys, I got only 10 damn years to live. And therefore this is my realization of the imminence and seriousness of doing my spiritual exercise.

The Queen's 85th Birthday

04/06/2012 Monday

This weekend is a long one because of the Queens birthday. While New Zealand is celebrating the Queens birthday this week, Australia is not yet until next week, how strange it is?

I pondered on the mystery of life a lot recently. And the destined fortune that the Queen Elizabeth has been the topic of our conversation. We agree that her destined fortune is unsurpassable in the world. In the history, there were innumerable military coups overthrowing the kings or queens recorded, and this never had happened to her. As to her marriage, she married a tall and handsome husband, and I believe throughout her marriage over the 60 years, the husband had never had a harsh words to her, let alone any violent assault happened to most of the couple in the world (I, too, have never said any harsh word to my wife). Longevity is around her family and so she is believed to be having a healthy and long life. And during her sovereignty, she had had a most glorious position in the global political stage that the United Kingdom was once referred to "the Empire on which the sun never sets"

Buddhists believe that everything happens with a reason. So why the Queen has such a good destined fortune and not me or you? Why some people are born in a rich country while a lot more others are born in poor ones?

In both Eastern and Western worlds, "you reap what you sow", is commonly accepted. "You harvest melon because you planted melon, harvest bean if you planted bean". With this concept in mind, we can conclude that the Queen Elizabeth must have done a great lot of good deeds in her previous life and soul she is rewarded with such a divine quality of life.

123 Henry and Helen overseas study

Spot revisiting the vet

25/05/2012 Friday

Today, Spot is supposed to go to the vet’s clinic at 11:00am for the surgery stitches to be removed. Trying not to bother my children, who are busy at work, to help with transportation, we had to walk for a distance of 10 minutes to the vet's clinic. Fortunately it was a beautiful sunny day and there were not too many cars on the road at that time.

Spot was very cooperative in the beginning, he stood on the table quietly, and the vet using a sharp blade to cut the stitches and pull it off one by one. Suddenly Spot barked fiercely, apparently the vet accidentally cut into his skin and so Spot cried hurt. He barked a few times fiercely, exposing his teeth and making a furious face, and bit on the lower arm of the vet’s right hand. The vet retreated to the other room to treat his wound leaving the nurse and us in the room. He turned back to ask the nurse to shift Spot down to the floor. A moment later, a more senior nurse walked in with a mouth cover in her hand. She put it on Spot’s mouth and tightened the belts. I had been trembling slightly since I waited in the waiting lounge due to my Parkinson's Disease, now the incident made me tremble really seriously. I could see Spot’s eyes were full of anger and frustration because he was subdued by the nurse’s mouth cover then.

A few minutes later, the vet reappeared in the clinic room to continue his stitch removal. Fortunately Spot was still and quiet for the vet to complete the task. Upon completion, he told me, “the wounds healed very well, and there is no charge for today.” I said to him,”very sorry doctor, are you alright? I hope the bite did not happen.”

Spot seemed to be relieved after we left the clinic. He had totally forgot what had happened some ten minutes ago, and concentrated in his marking on every single tree and pole along the journey home.

Is there such thing as Enlightenment

I have been pondering on this question a lot recently. Every time when this question comes up my mind, the first thing I thought of was what Shiddhatha Gautama said 2500 years ago when he exited from his nonstop seven-day meditation, "it is amazing that the entire living beings possess a whole lot of wisdom and virtues."

As we believe that Buddha set "no lies" one of the five basic precepts, so what he said in his teaching must simply be true. In China, there was a good example recorded in the "the sixth patriarch's altar Sutra" which recorded an anecdote of the sixth patriarch Hui Neng.

Hui Neng (638–713 AD), was a woodsman before he was ealightened. The Sutra said that he once delivered his firewood to a restaurant in town. Having got his job done and on his way leaving from the restaurant, he heard someone reciting the scripts of diamond Sutra. He asked the guy what was he reading, and the guy replied "diamond Sutra". He begged him to read on. Hui Neng was totally engulfed by the script being read, and suddenly attained a great enlightenment when the guy read up to the end of that chapter: "one should not attach his perception of anything to his mind".

As usual as many other pioneers who attained enlightenment before him earnestly reflected their experience by a verse right after they exited that state. Hui Neng's example of enlightenment was recorded in the "Sixth Patriarch Altar Sutra". He summarized his insight of the scripts in the following verse:

" never had I expected that the self is purely clean; never had I expected that the self is beyond birth and demise; never had I expected that the self is completely sustainable; never had I expected that the self is unshakable; never had I expected that the self generates limitless matters" (何期自性本自清净，何期自性本不生灭，何期自性本自具足，何期自性本无动摇，何期自性能生万法")

The two examples I raised on the above are not contemporary and we may feel they are too remote and not so real. So the other day, I googled on this question "who were recognized as enlightened being?", the search listed heaps of entries relevant to this question, and among them were masters teachers and spiritual practitioners. Some of them were very famous worldwide like Ramana Maharshi, Ajahn Chah, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Eckhart Tolle, and so on, whose followers wrote and published their witnesses or their thoughts about the teachers in order to share their experience with the mass multitude.

So I believe there is such thing as Enlightenment. But like most of the learners, I haven't had a chance to experience Enlightenment.

But what is enlightenment all about? How do they feel when they reached that level of state?

I believe it must be a marvelous, wonderful, peaceful, blissful, or perhaps awesome spiritual state that is beyond the capacity of description the worldly language can make us understand.

It is said that when Shidahtah Guatama had achieved his Enlightenment, he realized that it was almost impossible for the sentient beings to achieve the same state, and so he decided to leave the Samsara behind and enter Nivana. However, he might think it was a selfish thought and then had a strong urge to share his discovery and experience about the enlightenment, so he came out of his deep meditation and started his career of 49 years of teaching.

Is there such a thing as enlightenment? I have been skeptical to this question. Because if there is someone in the world who is widely recognized as an enlightened being, how come in the past 30 years since I had the chance to get to know something about Buddhism, have never had the chance to see an real example myself? And I am not the only one who has never witnessed an enlightened being, none of my fellow Buddhists has ever seen one, but the majority of them believe their adored masters are.

Althoug I have been so skeptical about this question, I absolutely believe what Siddhartha Guatama and Hui Neng had said about their experience or insight of enlightenment. I even believe there are a lot more other people somewhere in the world are born to be enlightened beings, and only a very few people have the chance to be learning from them directly.

What enlightenment is all about? Why Buddha, Hui Neng and innumerable other sages of the ancient day spent their whole life time to learn how to achieve that objective with a great amount of effort? My perception of the above questions might not be correct, but it is based on what I have experienced so far. It is because the reality of life is full of contradiction. If we look at worldly matters closely, we will agree that nothing remains the same permanently. However, the logic of our brain is conditioned or is programmed to compare, to judge, to discriminate, to love this and hate that, to insist to do things on a certain way. If everything runs perfectly, then we are happy, but the problem is that it is never guaranteed to go our way, so we are upset, stressed, disappointed when things go other way round. In a nutshell, what makes us suffer is because life sucks, life suffers. This is the cause that drove Shiddahtha to escape from palace to learn from those famous Yogis of his era how to make mind peaceful and happy eternally.

How will we feel when we have achieved certain level of enlightenment? It must be unimaginably marvelous when the mind is tamed and enlightened. That is why Shidahtha Gautama bothered to preach the path which lead to the goal of enlightenment.

In 2009, I was recommended to watch a video clip presented by TED. In the video, Dr. Jill Taylor delivered a speech about her own experience of how it feels being in Nivana. That occurred on her in a morning when she had a brain stroke which despaired her left hemisphere of the brain. Before I quote the relevant content of her speech, I would like to emphasize that Dr. Taylor herself is a neurologist, a brain scientist, and that she was not a believer of any religion prior to her incident, according to what she told Oprah in an interview on TV.

Dr. Jill Taylor could be the one who has used the plainest English to describe the feeling she had in her TED speech in 2008. In that speech she told the audience an incident occurred in a morning of September 1996 when she encountered a massive brain stroke which despaired her left side of the brain. Because she is a neurologist, she knows how the two brain hemispheres work, but to experience how a brain stroke patient feels when part of their brain is getting out of order, that could be the only chance for her. So even though she was in an emergent condition, a thought flashed through her mind -- "how cool it is that how many brain scientists have such a good chance to study the brain inside out."

When her speech came up to the part describing how she felt when her left brain was shuting down and only the right brain did its job. She said,

"Our right human hemisphere is all about this present moment. It's all about "right here, right now." Our right hemisphere, it thinks in pictures and it learns kinesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information, in the form of energy, streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems and then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. I am an energy-being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy-beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family. And right here, right now, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect, we are whole and we are beautiful." ,

"My left hemisphere -- our left hemisphere -- is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past and it's all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous collage of the present moment and start picking out details, details and more details about those details. It then categorizes and organizes all that information, associates it with everything in the past we've ever learned, and projects into the future all of our possibilities. And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It's that ongoing brain chatter that connects me and my internal world to my external world. It's that little voice that says to me.", she said, "position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Nirvana. I found Nirvana. And I remember thinking, there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body.But then I realized, "But I'm still alive! I'm still alive, and I have found Nirvana. And if I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana." And I pictured a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time. And that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres and find this peace. And then I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a stroke of insight this could be to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover."

From her speech, we'll understand that to be a living being, we got to have a balanced brain on each of the two hemispheres--the right side provides information, raw or processed, stored, and the left side does the comparing, analyzing, concluding, planning and so on. When these two parts are in conflict, then we will be like living in hell, and when they cooperate, we will have less trouble.

Of course we are not hoping to be knocked out by stoke in order to simulate an artificial enlightenment, but Dr. Taylor's speech convinces us there is such thing as enlightenment, and it is attainable by doing the right practice.

Tainan mom has gone to the other shore

This is a photo of Jean's maiden family reunion taken in 2007. Mom in the centre, Qian ge (Qian is our eldest brother), Jean and Zhe mei are to her right hand side; Gan ge, Shi jie and eldest sister-in-law to her left. Apparently, Jian mei was the photographer. Mom was then at the age of 85.

At 11:40 am of 21/01/2012, (6:40 am Hong Kong time), Jean’s youngest sister, Zhe, called us from Hong Kong to notify the death of our Tainan mom who at 4:00 am of Taiwan time, finally repaid her Karma and was able to drop the load of all of the various encounters good or bad to her perception in this world, and left for the other shore which we hope is The World Extreme Blissfulness in the West.

I and my wife refer to her as our “Tainan mom” in distinguish her from “Taipei mom” which was referred to mother of my side because Tainan mom lived in Tainan City and Taipei mom was in Taipei.

Tainan mom was sent to hospital in July 2010 due to a fell and consequently suffered from brain stroke that made her bedridden and had never been able to live without some life support devises and 24 hours medical care since then. During this period of her hospitalization, the modern medical technology had made her alive from the appearance, however, to her children and to mom herself, the regular daily phlem sucking was a horrible experience, as the children saw their beloved mom wailing out of horror.

Mom was the only daughter of a well-off farming family, born in 1922. She had a nature of kindness since she was a small child. Mom’s name was Chen Xin Hu, 陳心壺. Not so tall but with a beautiful face that always radiated compassionate smile. Everyday in the morning, she would carry a big load of vegetable produce from their village to the market and accompanied her grandmother selling those produce. Because of her overly tanned skin, her nickname was "the little black beauty".

When dad was told of his grandpa's intent of matching him with that black beauty, he became uneasy every time when he came home after school and passed through the room where grandpa's literacy class was undergoing. He always bowed his upper body and sort of sneaked into his room. Mum later recalled her impression of dad before their marriage, saying "he looked like a skinny mouse, with glasses sitting across his nose, trying to escape the surveillance of a cat in our classroom."

After dad had finished his study at Fuzhou Industrial Institute, he worked for China Petroleum Company in Fujian office as Chemical engineer. Then, following his parents' will, he married to "the little black beauty" in 1943. Then, in 1945, right after Japan surrendered and returned Taiwan to China’s ruling, dad’s company sent his team to take over the management of its petroleum fuel production, so this young couple unexpectedly took dad's younger brother and their first child, Qian, left their hometown, Fuzhou, came and settled down in Taiwan for the rest of their life.

Mother's compassion can be found in the following few stories.

There was a man wondering about our village every day during early 1960’S. He was schizophrenic patient. People living in the village usually shut their doors and would not answer the knocking when he knocked their door to beg for food. Mom reacted differently. She opened the door when she knew that guy began his door knocking for food, she initiatively waved him from a distance to come over, and let him come in to his bowl of noodle served on the dining table. That had been occuring for quite a long period of time till the security guard stationed at the entrance gate of our village stopped from entering to our village.

We adopted a black dog. It happened on one day in late 1960's when dad finished work in Taiwan Sugar Research Institute, he noticed a black dog always followed him from the bus stop all the way till dad entered home. Mom always offered some leftover food to the dog by the door. One day, mom suddenly decided to keep it as a member of the family, and gave it a name of ‘xiao hey’, meaning little black thing. Xiao hey did not disapoint mom, she behaved nicely, and never had she caused any trouble to us. She walked to bus stop everyday and waited to greet dad upon his arrival and they walked home together. She played with us. From its excellent behavior and smart, we believed she was a pet of a well-off family and was later discarded for some reason. In 1978, she became weaker and weaker and died peacefully.

Mom was very religious. Back in Fuzhou before she married to dad, she chanced to be taught with Pure Land Buddhism which advocates that practitioners believe in chanting the ultimate mantra of “Amituofo” will be born in the Extreme Blissful World”. Her temperament was that she would stick to the teaching wholeheartedly if she believed the new things she learned was relating to love and sincerity.

She later became a vegetarian for religious reasons and due to two incidents happened to the family. One day in 1956 after school time, uncle did not return home from school. Not long after mom sensed the abnormality, someone representing the school came to tell mom that uncle was identified as political activist by government authority and had been charged imprisonment for 10 years. Readers who are familiar with what happened during the 228 uprising will understand why uncle encountered this unfortunate incident. Uncle's teacher was proved a spy embedded in Taiwan to collect information for Chinese Communist, and uncle happened to be an outstanding student of this teacher, and was close to him. People charged with this kind scenario were put in jails in an offshore island called Green Island, and many of them were just disappeared and never been seen anymore.

Mom was overwhelmed by the incident. Though she could not do anything, she knew Buddha would help her. She was on normal diet as the majority of people. But she vowed to Buddha that she would from then on observe vegetarian diet through the rest of her life for the repentance of the ill luck that her brother-in-law was charged and for his expedited release, so she prayed.

Uncle was released when his imprisonment was fulfilled in 1966. Then there was another heartbreaking incident fell on the family.
In 1976, Dasou (refers to eldest brother’s wife) gave birth to their second child, Zhiwei. This poor boy was unfortunately attacked by a flu during the first month after labor, and developed high body temperature that seemed not to subdue. Tainan City Hospital doctor diagnosed him with Meningitis and told dad the baby would be definitely disabled when he grew up unless properly treated by bigger hospital in Taipei. This incident of our family was something inspired mom that life is full of impermanence.

Mom sincerely prayed and prayed day and night to Buddha for the healing of Zhiwei. She was and had become an even more strict vegetarian since the second family misfortune. Zhiwei was miraculously given a place by the Women and Children Hospital in Taipei which had strong demand always so it was a bless, and Dad urgently bought an air ticket and rushed the baby to the hospital. After a long process of treatment, Zhiwei returned home a healthy baby till present.

When mom had become frail from her eighties of age, she lived alternately in her two son’s homes. Gan Ge (our second elder brother) employed a Philipino maid called Marlisa to manage their household chores including the tasks of attending mom. Each time Marlisa finished the kitchen chores, she normally waited till Gan Ge’s family finished and then had her lunch on the table. But when it was Gan Ge’s turn to look after mom at their home, mom always insisted that Maria came to lunch on the table together. More ironical thing mom did there was, each time Marlisa was going to mop the floor, mom would compassionately say to her, “ Marlisa, come to sit here for a rest, Ah ma (meaning grandma, referring to herself) will do the moping for you.”

At age 90, she finished her last bit of journey. Last night, Jian e-mailed us the schedule of each of the customary events prior to the funeral cemeony, and by the way she described that mom’s face looked peaceful and the body was flexible, those appearence indicated the soul had settled in decent realm if it was not the Extreme Blissful World. Jean has got the earliest available flight, and will fly to attend the planned 7 sessions of the 7th Realm Lifting rituals aiming at giving mom’s soul a push to assure that the merit gained from the 7th Realm Lifting Rituals will achieve this goal. Amituofo.