This morning, I bumped into a friend at the bus stop, and had a quick chat with him. It was the first time I met him there— I’ve been waiting at the same bus stop for the last month at the same time, but surprisingly I saw him there. It was a nice coincidence.
He is a Buddhist too, and I knew him through one of the activities UNIBUDS organised. During our short talk, he told me that he’s been having a terrible gastric problem, and because of that he won’t be able to join a retreat held during the coming long weekend, because all participants are required to uphold Eight Precepts, which includes no meal after mid-day. So he was disappointed.
But his gastric is not a simple gastric. I mean, it’s something to do with the tectonic movement of the earth. Few years ago, he had the same gastric problem in the moment before the tsunami hit Aceh (Indonesia), also during the most recent big earthquake in China…..
Scary but true.. it turned out that his gastric today wasn’t a “normal” gastric problem. I cautiously read the news articles to search for any news related to the earth movement (eg earthquake, tsunami, or other natural disaster). I sadly found what I was looking for: earthquake in Italy. My heart always goes to the victims of earthquakes — becaue my hometown 3 or 4 years ago was hit by a massive earthquake which collapsed one of our properties. It was a gloomy moment for all of us — especially those people who have lost their friends and families. Luckily, there wasn’t anyone hurt in my family — we only lost materials and possessions. But it’s not like in a movie, we didn’t really have a happy ending. Some of my relos — the whole family; my cousin, his wife, and their 2 sons— took their last breathes buried by collapsed ceilings. It was a gloomy moment.. the scars caused weren’t yet healed and cured completely. I could see that sometimes my mum missed her gone friends. Also, I could see how my auntie sometimes has moments when she missed her son and his family. It left a scar, but we lived with it. What’s happened in the past, we can’t erase them. It’s already passed and gone. What we could do now is to live in the now and move on. There is no happiness in grasping on the past.
I wish that the condition in Italy is getting better and the victims can move on…. May all beings be well and happy….
