I force myself to write sometimes, even when I don't want to. A little bit like now. A stroke of genius, I convince myself, if I can connect with and express one feeling. Or if I can tug a memory off its shelf and study it. And maybe, find a new place for it to belong to.
Today's Sunday. I easily convinced my family to visit the Buddhist temple that we frequent.
Sundays are great for temple goings. The mornings usually run slow. No one wakes up anyone else. Yen leaves me behind in bed, my body hugging the bed. A quick inhale of air in case I feel myself drooling. Whatever light makes in would sober me a bit. Whatever I see and feel from the comforting space that is the back of my eyes, I take in the sensation. The whiff of bed. The whiff of myself, and whatever scents from central air conditioning fall on my covered feet, expanding in an invisible mushroom shape along my body towards the tip of my head. Cool air.
Mom walked in this morning, scooping egg into her mouth. She mumbled something about breakfast and maybe going somewhere. I closed my eyes again and went back to sleep.
I turned to my side and grabbed my phone. Checked for texts from someone, and as I scrolled lazily, an "I miss you," from my good friend. The best text I received all day today, first thing in the morning. I smiled into my arm, replied, and lied on my back. Stared at the scruffly ceiling.
I started to feel hungry and remembering how eager my mom was earlier this morning, egg-scooping, I got up slowly. Disorientedly went to the kitchen to cook an egg to go along with rice and bbq meat leftovers. Agh. So good. Damn good with my aunty's leftover fish sauce.
Everyone was doing their own thing. It will be Grandma's birthday in two days and so this weekend is her birthday weekend. She sat across from me while I ate, talking about all the plants she arranged that morning, probably since 7 am.
"When you trim plants, cut diagonally or it'll look ugly and silly," she relayed to me. I was a bit confused between enjoying all the rice dish's flavors and hearing all about this botany action that I had to ask, "What do you mean, grandma?"
"Let me show you."
She grabbed a pair of scissors behind me and through the glass doorway, she looked at me while raising the pair of scissors. It was pretty cute of course. She trimmed the dead parts of the leaf diagonally and I instantly got it.
I raised two thumbs up. Yen asked me about something. Agh, I forgot, but whatever it was, the next thing I knew, we made plans for the temple. And we went.
"How do you feel wearing such gaudy floral prints, Ngoc?" Yen asked me after I put on my dress.
"Hm... I feel powerful. I feel good." Yen doesn't feel the same about it sometimes and prefers simpler colored outfits. They do suit her. I just... I like looking loud sometimes. But honestly? I thought my dress was pretty calm and muted from my usual stuff, but maybe it's not so calm and muted for a Buddhist temple. Maybe.
The four of us wore our favorite outfits and we all looked great. So wholesome and pretty beans.
Since the ceremonies and lessons already began, we all waited around outside a bit awkwardly, looking at the art and the nature. The temple had again, changed drastically since we last saw it. The reflection pool was emptied. There was a new 4-story structure behind the pool. The garden from the parking entrance into the temple was richly green and diverse, and instead of the pebbled roadway that we were used to, the parking lot was entirely white cement now. That was the starkest of it all. Was cement. Welp. It made the heat worse.
Cement always makes it worse.
What felt stronger than before was how more in tune I felt to the energy of the space. Perhaps it was the abundant green nature tricking me or the way I was breathing in clean air, but my mind felt so quiet for the first time in a long while.
Even as we stood outside waiting around awkwardly, I felt the edges of my skin relax. The tip of my nose, my finger tips. Whatever urges to fidget were quieter. Especially at the tip of my head, I felt a lightness.
Without even meditating, the earth beneath me felt closer than ever before. Mom felt brave and entered the ceremonial space, in the middle of the ceremony, and Yen and I followed. We disturbed no one as we sat down, gladly. They were preaching about the 4 noble truths and the 3 reasons that humans continue to hurt ourselves.
For some reason, I keep remembering only one of the ills of the mind: "delusion."
Deluded to think. Deluded, I am here today. I am a deluded bean. The delusion of even what you're chasing. Thinking it will be what makes you well -- but that thing won't.
For a bit of time, I've just been traveling, being, and existing in my last year of college til now in a different space. I had a post-grad slump. I sat in my room for hours and hours and moments when I wasn't sitting, I was trying to find my next dopamine hit. Whether it be at the gym or eating Cane's or petting my dog -- you could even argue this was all me taking care of myself haha.
And yes, that's the case.
but nevertheless, there is something so forceful about standing on temple land that forces all my thoughts out. I feel clean and empty, like the brain I first had. There's nowhere more powerful and sacred than a quiet mind. Free of its own thoughts and worries and wants. Completely receptive it is, to the universe. The lessons to be taught. No pressure to be anywhere or be anybody.
Just, clean. The opportunity to have clarity is the day's best gift. And what gift it is to stand on sacred ground and feel enough to know everything at once.
I am a being, I keep saying. I am a deluded being, I know. I know I'm searching for my highest self in all the mistakes I keep making.
I know she wants to protect me, higher-self-Ngoc. Higher-self-talk tells me I need to be quiet and hear her speak.
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