a step back

Ok I know I've been completely absorbed into the "fantastic" world of law. As a matter of fact, I volunteer myself to be sweetly roasted day in day out. So what for?

I called mom today. The first words she said: No time to talk today. I'm rushing to sing the ZhongBa Rinpoche's prayer for 40,000 times!! "Why in such a hurry?"said I. "Today is the last day of the monastery's prayer gathering." Said she. She normally had other excuses when I caught her in the middle of a prayer session. "What for mom? Why hurry?" She would say that she started too late. "Some of the nuns practised from as early as 4, you know. I was 49 when I started. I've got some catch up to do."

I'm not trying to draw a parallel here though I'll eventually sound like it. But bear with me for a moment please. I realize as I recount our chat that I, too, also started late. From 17-22 I mucked around at university in China for my BA journalism. Turned out that I not only did not want to practise journalism in China, but I lost faith in the society and its government altogether. So from 22-23.5, I changed 3 jobs in 15 months to get the best salary I could possibly get as a translator so I could afford myself an oversea study. Then, from 23.5-25, I studied linguistics here in Australia during which I permanently migrated. Next steps were predictable. I had a full-time admin job for 2.5 years. Of course, I couldn't possibly find anything locally with my Chinese journalistic degree which in the context of the Chinese style journalism is rightfully a laughing stock. Nor could I possibly be a full-time linguist if there's a job called that at all on mycareer. So I was an admin assistant with a post-grad degree and an impressive academic record. I ask myself "What for?" That's when I came up with this idea of studying law. I want something intellectually challenging and financially rewarding and I want to excel in that. Law is like a fantastic fusion of sound reasoning and superb rhetoric skills: reminds me of my iphone. So I ended up here whilst, perhaps, 10 years late, which is why I've got some catch up to do.

But now, take a step back. I actually want to talk about death tonight. Yes, the dark, thick soup of death that voids life 'n its conducts. When it comes, it comes with such sweeping force that dwarfs the great tornado of Oklahoma. But long before that, my confidence that sustains me as a social person so far will drain out drop by drop. I'll shrink from a person with a family, a dog, a group of friends, colleagues, acquaintances...to basically a person. A naked, lonely, helpless person. Sometimes, driven by my guilt to my parents for being so far away from them, I lie in bed in the darkness and contemplate what it is like for my dad to live the days before his death. He will reach out his feeble hand to ask the sitter for a simple work such as drinking water to be assisted. Maybe he will have already lost his voice, vocab, expression, coherency or cognition, which means even the best sitter cannot decipher his needs, that is, presumably with adequate patience. His soul will scream in the depth of despair, but no longer will anyone hear. It will wait in the darkest corner of a dilapidated room (perhaps, under a pile of debris in an unattended and unlit warehouse truly like a childhood play that went terribly wrong) for the moment something strikes so that all will end. I know with conviction that this mirrors my death too, and if you are undeterred by the cruelty of its truth, yours too.

What for then? If all roads lead to this desperate state of affairs, this black unfathomable pit hole, what do I live my life for? Moreover, why do I waste so much time to possess things that are so impermanent that I'm deprived of them the moment death comes. Worse still, in the process of possessing these things, I will most likely lose myself in gossips, lies, jealousy, meaningless strategies, greed, hatred, excessive attachments... I will lose my purity, my pristine qualities of unconditioned love and compassion. I will gain experience, knowledge and lose my innate wisdom.

I guess there isn't an answer to this question. Or put in my eloquent legal way, it can be said that this question is too fundamental to be answered. LOL...Am I funny? After all, I still wanna be a lawyer. But maybe the moment I find myself too absorbed into the fiasco of life, I'll take a step back and talk to death my lovely and truly dear friend.