Chapter 20 On the flying grass like beads, see "Continuation" (18)

Pay attention to the flying grass, it is the season when the sunny flies are flying all over the mountains. There are dragonflies flying everywhere by the stream, fields, and forest tops. They don't know what they are busy with, they fly very fast and in a hurry!I looked up at the dragonflies as I walked, fearing that I might be hit by one of them.While paying attention to the dragonfly above his head, he realized that what he was stepping on was the unremarkable flying grass. Flying grass is also known as milkwort grass. Dozens of small flowers are clustered into cymes, distributed on the nodes of each stem and leaf, which looks like a necklace strung with pearls from a distance.Its fruit is a purple-red capsule, and the leaf shape is like a pair of wings, flying with the wind, so it is called "flying grass".

The special posture of the flying grass like a string of beads reminds me of the "continuity" mentioned in Buddhism. We often talk about impermanence, but we ignore that the world is continuous, just like the rain falling from the sky, it seems to be in a string, but in fact it is distinct.Everything is a continuous existence, and impermanence changes in the continuation. Observing impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and selflessness from the continuation and harmony is the complete observation of the world taught by the Buddha. Our body and mind are also impermanent.The me when I was a child and the me now, the body has grown and aged, but it is still the same me. Because of the continuity, people think this is me.

However, have I always been the same me?Obviously not, each stage has different changes, from naive child to youth, then to mature adult, and finally to death in twilight.Every stage is me, but it is not me either - because impermanence continues.Is the mind not impermanent? "Cheng Wei Consciousness Theory" said: "Constant rotation is like a torrent, which arises and dies in a moment, and the next moment is not the previous moment." We think that our thoughts have not changed much, but in fact they have already turned a thousand times, and the moment to moment is the same as the previous moment. birth and death.

Because of this, "don't have second thoughts for a while", when righteous thoughts arise, afflictions have no foothold.There is only one thought at a time in the heart of continuous thoughts, and righteous thoughts are the best choice! The dragonfly flew again.Countless dragonflies hover in the sky, shuttle the smell of the coming rain in the early autumn dusk.And the flying grass on the meadow announces that the flowering period is coming to an end in autumn.These two accompanied me on my walks, from the side of the road to the orchard path, from the mountain road to the embankment, all the way to the end of the world...

Seen from a certain angle, the flying grass on the ground looks like a dragonfly sitting on the tip of a leaf; while the dragonfly in the sky looks like flying grass flying in the sky.For a while, people can't tell the difference, can't tell.I stared at the flying grass and the dragonfly, pondering carefully: "Impermanence, incessantness, inconsistency, invariance..." This is me in autumn, the dragonfly in autumn, and the flying grass in autumn. (This picture is provided by Wu Xiaodan)