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SÁCH AMAZON


Mua bản sách in

Reading on the 2016 Buddha's Birthday Celebration at Khuong Viet Pagoda (Paris, France)


Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the beginning of today's Buddha's Birthday celebration at Khuong Viet Pagoda, I would like to tell a story from the Sutta Pitaka: the story of the fish. Buddhist scriptures are not always scholarly or profound. Sometimes the Buddha tells simple stories that everyone can understand. I chose such a simple story to remember the old village pagodas, the soul of Vietnamese Buddhism, where the poor people shared joy, suffering, good harvests, bad harvests, hunger, and virtue with the monks. Our Khuong Viet Pagoda is such a poor pagoda. Therefore, the Buddha's Birthday story of Khuong Viet this year is a simple story, a story of the poor, a story of fish in a dying pond, and we cannot look at the fish dying like that and be indifferent or forgetful. I will tell you a very short story from the sutra:

Once upon a time, in the country of Kosala, in the city of Savatthi, there was a lake called Jetavana, covered with vines. That year, there was no rain, the people's crops were dry and the lake was dry. Fish and turtles burrowed into the mud, but the mud also dried up, exposing their bodies to the crows. A fish saw its fellow fish in such a state of distress and thought to itself: "Besides me, no one else can save my people from this suffering. I will perform a good deed, the deed of speaking the Truth, causing rain to come and free my people from suffering."

The fish broke through the mud and emerged. Its entire body was as black as an ebony core, but when it opened its eyes from the mud, they shone like two gems. With those two shining gems, it looked up to the sky and said to Pajjuna, the king of the gods: "Hey, friend Pajjuna, I feel the suffering of my relatives. When I, a virtuous one, suffer, how can you not make rain? Although I was born in a species that has to eat my relatives, from the very beginning, I have never eaten a fish as small as a grain of rice, never taken the life of any other living being. That is the Truth. With this Truth, Pajjuna, make rain to free my relatives from suffering!"

The fish gave the order as if giving an order to a slave. Having given the order, he recited this verse to Pajjuna:

Thunder, Pajjuna
Stop the crow from causing harm!
Drive that crow away
Help me through my suffering!

The cloud god and the rain god took one cloud to wear as underwear, covered themselves with another cloud, and sang a storm song. In the east, a cloud arose as big as a threshing floor. That cloud gradually grew larger until it was as big as a hundred, a thousand threshing floors, and it made thunder and lightning and poured water down on the land of Kosala. The rain was uninterrupted, filling the Jetavana Lake in an instant.

A common story is as simple as cassava and potatoes. But is there any common story that is not filled with meaning? What makes it rain? Truth. Not Truth from some supernatural being, but the simple Truth from a vow that says: I do not lie. It's like a fish reading the Heart Sutra: "Truth is not false". Surely truth is not a lie. It turns out that lying is a drought. When we lie to each other, we bring drought to each other. A society is the same: if the superiors lie to each other, drought will be trusted. Telling the Truth will bring good rain.

But the Truth of the fish is not just simple. It is also great heroism, great power, great compassion. Because this fish swims against the current of the law of heaven. The law of heaven is that big fish eat small fish. It is bigger, higher, stronger than the law of heaven. It is unique. Listen to it say: "Besides me, no one else can save our people from suffering". In heaven and on earth, only I am the most honored.

That fish is the previous incarnation of Buddha. When he was a fish, Buddha swam against the law of fish. When he was a human, Buddha went against the law of humans. The law of humans has birth and death. For many lifetimes, Buddha also wandered in samsara like that. Until one morning, in Lumbini garden, under the sal flower branch, Buddha was born, declaring: "I am the highest being in the world, now is the last life, no more rebirth". That is the Truth in Buddha's mouth. He had to be born as the last human being to speak the Truth. The truth is not false.

But why did Buddha speak the Truth? Why did the fish have to make a vow to speak the Truth? Because of compassion. Buddha had compassion for human life drowning in birth and death. The fish had compassion for its kind dying in the dry mud. In Buddhism, Truth is the Truth spoken from compassion, and only because of compassion. The ultimate goal of Truth is compassion, is compassion. Buddha discovered the Truth after witnessing birth, aging, sickness and death at the four gates of the city. After having compassion for human life. That Truth made the earth move. That truth makes the sky rain.



Ladies and Gentlemen, today is Buddha's birthday, the most pure day of the year, I restrain myself from saying anything other than the sutras. I only choose the simplest story in the sutra, the story of the fish, to express the two most essential things in Buddhism: Truth and Mercy.

I hope that the Truth will rise up and good rain will fall on our beloved Vietnam as it did on Kosala.

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