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“We don’t have to grieve only those we know. Sometimes we grieve for that which was lost, that which was never allowed to be.”
“I’m offering prayers of guidance,” the monk said as he opened a jug of water and poured a little into each cup. “Blessings that those lost to us might be treated favorably by the goddess Meng Po, whose task is to ensure that souls of the departed do not remember their previous lives. She does this by offering trapped spirits a cup of her five-flavored tea of forgetfulness—mai wan tong—the waters of oblivion. That the soul will forget everything from this life, and all the lives before. That the slate will be clean when she accompanies them to a long bridge of mist that the soul must traverse
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point in time without being weighed down by memories of family, of suffering, of wishes unfulfilled.”
To be so well known and yet so unknown at the same time, the madness of—as Yao Han might say it—being praised for having wings but kept in a cage.
feeling okay after a lifetime of feeling everything—rage, grief, anxiety, sadness, confusion, disconnection, and longing—to just feel okay was as wonderful as it was unfamiliar.
families are like a school of sharks: it’s a miracle they don’t eat each other or simply
swim their separate ways. Something compels them to stay together.
Samsara. That’s the Sanskrit word for wander, but what it really means is rebirth.” He looked up at her and smiled. “Maybe it means that if I’m lucky, I get a do-over.”
“Samsara is also Dukkha,” Sam lamented. “Which means suffering. It’s a karma thing. Sometimes we just don’t get it right at this turn at bat. But there’s a lot to be learned along the way, especially by how we treat others. My parents always stressed that karma is transpersonal. It’s not about doing good or bad, making wise of foolish choices, for our own karmic benefit. It’s about how our choices can improve the quality of other people’s journeys. Our family’s, our children’s, our partners’, romantic and otherwise.
How each generation is built upon the genetic ruins of the past. That our lives are merely biological waypoints.
A part of us comes back each new season, carrying a bit of the genus of the previous floret.
It’s my belief that we are just an ever-changing collection of memories that, when added up, create the illusion of self.
“But that’s the point, isn’t it, to keep learning, to grow, to do more good than harm, to create compassion, to understand that every person you encounter is not there by coincidence? All of us play a role in another person’s life.”
Karma is more like a suitcase. You have to be unafraid to open it up and look at what’s inside, to unpack the things you don’t need. Karma is the climate of the past, which shapes how much leeway we have in the future.”
