Chapter 2 "Light of the Earth" Winter in Memories

winter in memory (1) Chapter One Day and night, love knows that for the various circulations of life, it must be given endless patience and love Affection is a tragedy that must die You are such a delight, your cup should not be empty for me ——Jian Zhen's "April Cracking Silk" 1 In the winter in her memory, snow is the only dress on the earth.In the freezing weather, the black tents scattered on the snow field are places of refuge.The remnant fire of making tea shimmers in the dark space, and the strong aroma spreads out, bringing the simplest temptation and the most primitive comfort composed of food.It was as cold as a maze outside, and the felt sheets of the black tent could not be opened because of the three feet of snow.

Kassan.Grandpa lay on the card mat and called her softly. In her childhood, she could see snow in all seasons.Even in June, when the weather changes suddenly, strong winds will still carry thin snowflakes and scatter away.In the cold winter, after a heavy snowfall, you can see a silver-white world.The gloomy wind and snow are like the freezing of the ice age in ancient times.The permafrost layer of the meadow soon stiffened, and cold air seeped from the ground. In the short moment when the heavy snow came, the wind began to rage, and the temperature dropped sharply.The shepherds were anxiously driving their flocks home. They watched helplessly as the bleating lambs closed their eyes tightly, gathered together and huddled together tightly, despite the whistling wind and snow. Push them around.The lambs huddled together, tossed and tossed, like a drop of mercury moving viscously on the smooth ground, unable to move forward despite the anxious and desperate whipping of the shepherd and the sharp barking of the Tibetan mastiff.

I don’t know how many lambs could not survive such a night, and some of them were frozen into rigid ice sculptures before they fell down, and then were quickly buried under the snow, and sank into the frozen swamp in the next summer. In the soil layer.Many shepherds managed to drive them back to the sheepfold behind the tent. After a little counting, they found that nearly ten lambs were missing. Their helpless sighs were diffused in the whistling sound of the wind and snow.The shepherd patted the head of the Tibetan mastiff.It had been covered with snow and had been running for almost a whole day in the snow driving her sheep.The owner will take it into the tent and feed it.

This is the common memory of most shepherds when the snowstorm comes. In the winter when she was eight years old, another blizzard came.A young and strong shepherd came back and counted the number of lambs, only to find that more than 20 lambs were missing.He was not reconciled, so after dawn the next day, the shepherd took two Tibetan mastiffs, gritted his teeth and rushed into the heavy snow to look for the lost lamb.Even though they are dead, he still wants to bring them all back. The night's blizzard passed, and day came, and there were still flying snowflakes in front of my eyes.The shepherd walked farther and farther until he reached the hillside, and found a black spot standing still on the celestial burial platform.He took a closer look and saw that it was the corpse of a vulture lying on the sky burial platform where they had held funerals for generations.It spread its huge wings, and its black feathers trembled like prayer flags in the biting wind.The shepherd was terrified.Because, their ancestors have passed down such a myth that vultures have never existed on the earth.Their ancestors only saw that every vulture that was about to die would leave the group, fly thousands of miles into the sky, and fly to the depths of the sun until it merged into the sun's brilliance.No one has ever seen its dead body left in the world.It is believed that the vulture's carcass was swallowed by the sun's light—just as we let our bodies be swallowed by the vulture—"that's why our ancestors used it as the incarnation of the bhikkhu. The so-called six realms of reincarnation are in their It has been confirmed by him." Grandpa once said to Kasang in this way.

But now, in that ominous winter, a dead vulture was lying on the celestial burial platform.The shepherd was terrified and returned immediately. He ran a long way around panting to find Kassan's grandfather, and shouted his name loudly and panicked outside the tent.Grandpa pushed open a hole in the frozen felt curtain, and suddenly the wind and snow burst through the door.The simmering butter tea boiled in the tent trembled and went out in an instant.She didn't catch what the young man said.But Grandpa immediately took off the fur hat next to the door curtain and put it on, turned around and took her hand, Kassan, Kassan, come here.Grandpa yelled softly.

When Kassan was taken out of the tent by her grandfather, she felt that she couldn't bear the bright snow light in front of her for a moment, so she couldn't help but close her stinging eyes, completely dizzy.Because of her short size, her knees were already submerged in the snow, making it difficult for her to walk.Grandpa anxiously saw that she would not move, so he simply picked her up and walked forward with big strides.Kassan was on Grandpa's back, and she saw the plain white snow field and the sky filled with snowflakes.As silent and thick as those herdsmen who are not good at talking, it stretches quietly to the end of the field of vision.The wind blew against her face, and she felt very painful.But he didn't cry out, he just lowered his head and pressed against Grandpa's back tightly.Grandpa's cassock smelled strongly of cedar and mulberry smoke.

When Grandpa put her down, she saw the corpse of a vulture, lying frozen on top of the sky burial platform, just like the corpses of those who have been put up to wait for the sky burial for generations, lifeless.People gathered around the carcass of the vulture in panic, turning and praying in the snow.Kassan saw that their hair and bodies were covered with snow.Because of the cold and anxiety, he knelt there all the time, his body trembling slightly.They could recognize that this was the leader of the group of sky burial diners, the leading vulture. People's prayers persisted until dark.The fine snow that had been falling all day gradually stopped.The crowd dispersed, but no one dared to move the vulture's body.Kassan felt that she was about to lose consciousness from the cold, and in the unconscious freeze, the snow had gradually disappeared from her knees to her thighs.But to her surprise, the vulture's body was never buried by the heavy snow, and the snowflakes that fell on the black feathers unintentionally shook off with the wind.

When it was getting dark, Grandpa said softly, Kassan, Kassan.let's go back. When she and grandpa returned to the black tent, the grassland was completely covered by the deep night.The starless night is as thick and impenetrable as grandpa's red and black cassock.But it was a rare clear night, only the bright and clear moonlight reflected the boundless snowy ground silvery white.The snow-covered silence between heaven and earth is like the memory that grandpa's lips trembled but could not reveal. In the black tent, Kassan fumbled to light the oil lamp.She saw Grandpa sitting on the couch without saying a word, like a Buddha statue.She suddenly remembered something, got up and went out, and brought in the Tibetan Mastiff Jimei from the sheepfold.Ji Mei cried out in a low voice, and after entering the tent, she lay down next to Grandpa.Kassan stroked Jigme's long curly hair and wiped off the thick snow from his body.It lay there peacefully, eyes slightly closed.

When she brought the reheated buttered tea to Grandpa, his cloudy tears rolled down his protruding cheekbones.She doesn't speak.Just stretched out his hand gently to hold Grandpa's hand.Jimei gently rubbed her back against Grandpa's leg very humanly.The corners of Grandpa's mouth trembled slightly again, but he still didn't express any words. She saw the subtle expression on Grandpa's face.I miss my parents so much. That night, due to the abnormal cold, she hugged Jimei's strong and warm body tightly, and fell asleep unconsciously.At some point, she felt Jimei in her arms agitated slightly, and an indistinct sound came from her throat, waking her up.Kassan opened his eyes vaguely, and saw Grandpa lighting the torch and going out.Grandpa, what are you doing... She asked tremblingly.

But Grandpa didn't seem to hear it. He just put a bag of suet in a big cowhide pouch, stood up, took the torch, and wanted to leave. Kassan stopped talking, she didn't care too much, and immediately followed her grandfather out, staggering on the snow and walking behind her grandfather, she turned her head and saw that Jimei had run out and was faithfully guarding outside the sheepfold, Its muffled dog bark was heard in the distance.She didn't know where grandpa wanted to go, for such a long distance, she could only follow him blindly. winter in memory (2) Under the moonlight, the silvery snow field is vast and boundless.Presents some kind of hallucinatory realm.Extreme silence surrounded by dark hospitality.There is no way.endless.The cold air freezes in this wilderness like ice.She heard the clear creak of her feet on the snow and her own heavy breathing.Because of the cold in the middle of the night, she felt that her feet, hands, face, and nose had lost all feeling... Even the lobes of her lungs felt as if they were stuffed with ice cubes.She lost her voice just like that, followed someone helplessly into the wilderness, enduring great pain and fear.The journey of that night became a hidden prophecy of her fate in this life.Because of this, she was able to deeply remember that on a snowy field with nowhere to go, blindness is more terrifying than death.

Grandpa walked all the way to the celestial burial platform before stopping to look back at her.Kassan felt that he had been frozen unconscious.The vulture's body was covered by the deep snow all around, and the exposed part looked as small as a young falcon.She saw Grandpa put the torch close to the big bag of suet and roasted it.The stiff suet melted. Grandpa untied the bag and poured the suet on the vulture.Then he put down the torch.move back. It jumped up violently and quickly wrapped the body of the vulture.The huge black feathers rose up with the heat, and then quickly ignited as if being sucked into the tip of the flames, then curled up and disappeared in an instant.She felt the power of the flame firsthand.In this endless cold night, it brings a sense of dignity to life.The snow is constantly melting, and even a small piece of bare ground is exposed.Kassan suddenly wished very much to fly high like a vulture, and then be able to look down on a star of flames on the snowy field in the middle of the night. Soon the flames began to weaken, and after they were extinguished, a large black surface was left behind.Like a scar of unknown origin on a smooth back.He said that only fire can get rid of the ominous and foul smell here. Since then, no one has visited this celestial burial platform.The land scorched by the fire was as dull as a corpse, like an incomprehensible spell scalding the land of my hometown. Grandpa couldn't get sick because of the cold that night, and he looked very old and haggard.A pair of bony hands were wrapped under old brown and black skin that was wrinkled like a crevice in a ravine.Every day points to a certain empty direction.At the same time, no one wanted him to preside over the sky burial anymore, and everyone believed that he was involved in this horrific incident... Grandpa's sky burial career ended with the death of the vulture leader. In the black tent, grandpa became weaker and weaker day by day, his movements sluggish like a haggard oil lamp.All day long, he muttered vaguely some scriptures with vague language, as if he was reproducing the oracle of a terma.Wearing the cassock blackened by mulberry smoke, lying on the couch.The vertical and horizontal wrinkles on the face are intertwined like the mountains and rivers on this plateau. And in Kassan's dream, he repeatedly walked blindly in the depths of the moonlit snow field that night. Grandpa has been a sky burial master forty years ago.He used to be a monk, and the master in the temple passed on the work of the sky burial master to his grandfather.Grandpa took over from him and walked up to the celestial burial platform in that crimson cassock.Forty years of continuous mulberry smoke had smoked the cassock into a dark black color. The Hindu Vajrayana classics and teachings have undergone repeated evolution among the people, resulting in a spread: every human body has several "wheel chambers", arranged in the shape of a lotus along the vertebrae, from the tail to the top of the head.Once the petals are cut and the roots are split, the whole lotus will fall apart, losing essence, blood and life.In other words, when the body on which the soul rests is declared broken and dead, the soul needs to find a new carrier. "So, Kassan, you have to remember," Grandpa said to her after returning from a pasture in the dark sky, "our physical body will always be nothing more than a lotus flower, and it will perish. But our The soul is eternal. Kasang, you must have a good and beautiful soul. Only in this way can your soul obtain eternal life under the care of the Buddha." This is the grandfather in Kassan's memory.Kassan will always remember that grandpa stood under the blue sky and on the broad celestial burial platform, and when the cedar smoke rose, groups of vultures wandered over.This frame of image became the imprint of her childhood. At this time, Grandpa whispered her name softly, Kassan, Kassan... His voice was as weak as the slight sound of burning cow dung and fire. Kassan held the tsampa silently.Her Tibetan mastiff named Jimei lay quietly beside her.It has a tall and strong body like a yak, and its black hair is very long.Just from the fist-sized paws of that brawny man, it can be known that this is a rare and pure-blood mastiff.Kassan raised his head, and through the gap in the door curtain, he could see the deepening winter outside the black tent. The white snow is spread on the soft and boundless land, undulating like a huge hada covering.However, in the dark tent, the only light is the fire with buttered tea.Brings a sense of security from hunger, and thus constitutes the original content of existence. Kassan, Kassan.Grandpa was chattering alone. This old man, like a corroded bronze statue, sat on the mat, like a vulture who knew that he was about to die, and tried his best to get close to the sun and light.Grandpa started to move his body, he wanted to get out of the black tent, and wanted to see the magnificent golden banner clouds above the snow-capped peaks in the distance.However, the moment he tried to stand up, he suddenly fell down.In the end, he couldn't get close to the dazzling and quiet white world outside.His life, accompanied by the black mulberry smoke on the celestial burial platform, the empty and speechless corpse like a broken lotus, and those circling vultures, ended in a silent and profound nightmare. Kasang slumped on the ground out of horror, and knocked Xue Dong and Jia Dong who were leaning on the side.She felt like she couldn't move her body.I just feel too quiet, but I can only hear the strong wind on the winter wasteland beating the black tent made of yak skin, making the sound of hunting. The felt curtain lifted by the violent wind tore a dazzling snow light.Kassan's eyes were stabbed painfully.Grandpa lay beside her quietly, like a river that has waded through thousands of mountains and rivers and finally nearly dried up.Ji Mei stood up, barked anxiously, and circled around Grandpa.