A Tribute to Mother on
Ullambana Day
Written
by Venerable Thich Nguyen Tang
English Translation & Adaptation: Tam
Lac (Jessica Tran)
10 March 2005
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The season of beloved autumn has once
again returned to bless the forests, fields and all living creatures
great and small with her beautiful presence. Autumn has again brought
with her a familiar air of gentle melancholy, calling upon a deep
passion within the heart and souls of poetic minds with each of her
graceful golden leaves falling gently down during the season. Autumn has
brought back the stillness of lovely clear pools, capturing the vastness
of a solemn autumn sky, reflecting off a season of peaceful sleeping
waters.
However, to the children of the Buddha,
autumn has become a lot more than that, it has become the season of
Ullambana[1];
the season of repaying the deep kindness of our parents: filial devotion
and virtuosity.
Thus dearest Mother,
Today as I watch the gentle fragrance of
lit incense drift silently amongst this serene Buddha altar, my heart
can not help but lead back home to you, the most wonderful person of my
life, which I cannot have missing in the world.
“Oh mother” - such words I have babbled
since a baby until today, yet still, I fail to capacitate and understand
entirely the great profoundness of its depth.
Mother, you are the very source of life,
the very essence of true love, you are the sweetest palatable fragrance
that nature could have offered.
Mother, you are a child’s only true
wealth upon the long journey of life...and exactly that mother, you are
truly everything most precious and sacred in my life:
Mother’s are the entire beloved sky,
A heaven on earth, a gift from up high
Precious warmth is the lullaby of hers
Which imprinted history, and world cultures...
As a baby, when I was thirsty, your
breast milk fed into my heart like the taste of love’s sweet nectar...
Once I knew how to eat, you were the
first person who helped me with each and every spoonful of food, you
gently held me close in your arms and treasured me like I was a delicate
gem that you tendered. All the best of things which you possessed, from
the most loveliest to happiest in the world, you entirely saved for me
instead of enjoying them for yourself.
Oh mother, you sacrificed everything for me,
From your entire years of youth,
To your love pure as the sea
Mother, you are an essential cool breeze
The branch of weeping willows,
The
shade of celestial trees,
Mother, you are perfume, you are flowers
The growing tree from love's roots
And the source of miracles and powers
You have sung beautifully to me with kind
gentle melodies...
In
the evening breeze of Autumn I sleep
Lulled by your voice throughout the nights keep
As many hours in which the night contains,
Are just the many hours your wake remains
Your concerns for me kept you awake at
night as you tossed and turned with worries for my wellbeing and
happiness throughout the long years.
And with each passing day that the sky
became more and more beautiful in my eyes, were days that another white
hair grew upon your aging mane.
Oh, your aging back has stiffened and
arched with sorrow and hurt throughout time,
Because of me, matter and worries became
natural to you as it showed clearly on the aging lines of your face.
Your sacrifices were just as natural as great mother earth giving off
life and vitality to trees, plants and all the innumerable living
creatures great and small on the face of this earth.
Mother, even though you have not reached
one hundred years of life, you have had the amazing capability of
providing your children with all the love and happiness there is in the
world.
Mother, you are like a kind angel guardian,
Protecting every step of life since time began
You gifted me with all the world's treasures,
Not keeping any sacrifice limits or measures
Oh mother, your huge heart is a source
of light which brightens up my life using your very own sweat, blood and
tears. You are just as a cool breeze from above, like the twinkling glow
of the moon and stars, like the forever burning torch within the lost
darkness of nights.
If life was like an ocean of suffering
and pain filled with boundless crushing waves of heartbreak far as the
eye could see, then you would definitely be the compassionate boat
rescuing me back to the shore of happiness.
Dearest mother, because there is you
alive on earth, I feel as though I still have everything in the world,
and if life was to be without you, there is nothing left but poverty to
a child.
You have toiled laboriously in your hard
life and have never minded the hardship and difficulties that you faced.
Even a one hundred year old mother loves her eighty year old child; thus
you have sacrificed a period of glamour and blossoming youth to swap for
days of work from dawn to dusk just for my future goals and dreams.
Because of me, your health has declined,
Because of me you left your beauty behind
As years went by, all of your hopes and
dreams lived on to raise me healthy and strong and to walk steadily in
life. All that you merely wished for was for your child to become a
contribution to society as a good person...
Rather a life of toil to
nurture her little ones
Brushing off hardship, exposed to yearly seasons
Slowly the sun kissed her cheeks of once a blooming rose
Pure beauty has faded as the wind of time blows
Oh!
What language, what definition may truly describe the depths of a
mother’s kindness?
“So
naive is the mundane language of man,
So incompetent to capacitate the simple word "mother””
Mother, how could I describe the shape of
your shape of your heart? How could I possibly calculate the entity of
your tender loving care?
Oh mother, I have now finally understood,
as I now awaken to my duty as a human being, the vastness of your love,
equal to the depths of the ocean and vast as the heaven skies. I have
realised that the sweetest fragrance which runs evermore from the
streams of your heart has touched me since the very moment I came into
being, entering this world crying.
And so alas, I have wondered why there
are people out there who refuse to uphold the conduct of filiation, or
have never yearned to repay the deep kindness of their parents.
As clearly written in the Buddha
scriptural sutras: "Without our parents there would not be our form,
our mother and father has gifted us the precious body that we have today"
Only with my ancestors that I exist,
My grandparents the roots, my parents the branches
My form is as the delicate green shoots
My Life with thanks to the fertilizing of the roots
My being with help from the protection of the branches
Over the years, there have been times
when I have made you sad, and dearest mother, today I have finally
realised that upon your frail shoulders, which have carried heavy burden
throughout life, there have also been weights that came down to you from
my rebellious mischief and misbehaviors as a kid. I never knew that
slowly with time, those cruel burdens were in the process and will
eventually steal away the most precious and valuable treasure of my
life. Oh sweet kind mother! Such sadness would be the days when....
Searching through hazy nights in darkness,
Craving to recover the sweet image of a mother
The heavy sky of longing has accumulated merely so:
Depressed clouds overhead the shadow of a grave
The song of spring season birds so blurry afar
A new blooming rose now sit watching me weep
Oh
mother, at this very moment I long so desperately to return back by your
side and to look into your eyes. I will look deeply, lengthily and I
will see each detail of your kind eyes... to know that you are alive at
that very second, to know that you are sitting there by my side. I will
kiss gently upon your creased cheek and slowly rest my face into your
frail loving hands, the hands that have collected love and happiness for
me all through my life. I want to return to you, to once again feel your
warmth and protection around me, I want to show my appreciation with all
my heart and to know the feeling of what true undying love really is
again as the moments go by sitting there by you.
If a mother’s love is like an endless
stream, then without doubt a fathers care and hard work raising his
child is greater, stronger, and more everlasting than the Himalayans
Mountains.
As the ancient proverb of gratitude
remains evermore:
A
father’s
care as equal to the great Himalayan Mountains
A mother’s
love as equal to sweet undying stream waters
A life devoted to ones mother and pious to ones father,
Fulfilling the meaning of filial piety and virtuality,
Only as so is the genuine meaning of being a child.
Today, we are fortunate enough to be in
reach of the Buddha Dharma. The wonderful example of The Great Filiation
Maha Maudgalayana Bodhisattva[2]
has proven correct the golden teachings of the Buddhas of the 10
directions. Thus I vow to keep and uphold this in heart: “Being born
into a time without Buddha, devotion to ones mother and reverence to
ones father is equal to devotion and reverence to the Buddha Himself”
Similar to the oceans and heavens is the kindness of a
parent,
Oh my friend, what amount of repay may possibly content?
If you have not repaid your debt, refrain from unfiliality,
A life of misery and pain is caused by ones foolish
impiety!
Oh my beloved
parents,
My gratitude and
appreciation will forever endure time and the acknowledgment of filial
piety shall forever remain within the hearts of human kind. If tomorrow,
I am to grow up to fend for myself away from your loving arms, you will
always remain in my heart as cool trees shading my life.
How blissful it
would be once we set aside all our matters of worry, renounce such
mundane worldly pleasures and simply return back by our mother’s side;
to be with her, to listen to her gentle loving words and have her
comforting hand soothing and reassuring us? I will close my eyes
overjoyed and contented as I’ll rest my head into her arms, to find that
familiar warmth of yesteryear and suddenly remember the joy of a little
kid playing around his mummy’s feet so happy and carefree.
Oh dearest father,
mother,
This is our
sincerest dedication to you, our written tribute to you as a fresh red
rose on this day of filiation. We sincerely offer this gift of homage up
to you father and mother, with our entire hearts on the season of
Ullambana.
Namo Great Filiation
Maudgalyayana Bodhisattva
Written
by Venerable Thich Nguyen Tang
English Translation & Adaptation: Tam
Lac (Jessica Tran)
--> Vietnamese Version:
Vu Lan Nhớ Mẹ
[1]"Ullambana"
is a Sanskrit term which means "hanging upside down" also known
as Ullampana which means "merciful disposition" Chin.:
,
Yu lan Pen Jie or Xiao Zi Jie (Filial Son Festival). Vn: Le Vu
Lan, Vu Lan Bon Jap.: Urabon, Urabon-e, Obon,
[2]
Skt.: Moginlin, Pali: MoggallanaVn: Muc Kien Lien, Chin.: Mu
Lian, Jap:
目建連,
Mokkenren,
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Update : 01-04-2005
