I have been reading the journals of Thich Nhat Hanh Fragrant Palm Leaves which really provides an insight into how he has had revelatory moments at different times in different places. It also makes me realise how lucky I am to be in Vietnam at a time when the sanghas following him can come out in the open- the one at Dien Quan practiced in secret before his visit here last year.
I miss my husband a lot and the sangha provides me with the emotional support to stay here. To be gentle with yourself and to show yourself compassion is a lesson I have learnt here. I had my own quiet moment of reflection waiting for my Vietnamese class looking into a pool of water. I've been dwelling on impermanence and how everything inter-be that in death we are still part of life and vice versa. I've been thinking of ways to write this into my fiction and finding it rather difficult.
I suppose the interaction I have with ghosts, spirits with humans has this interlaced through it.
This picture is of a gatha carved in rock from the Thay pagoda. I've been told that it is about impermanence and the reflections of life in water.
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