Celebrating Brother Ngoc at Eighty
By Phan Tan Hai
At eighty, looking at this body of five aggregates,
awakening to the truth that form is emptiness;
shimmering like illusion, like reality—
knowing Mother waits on the other shore.
At midnight whispering to the wind,
hearing faintly the echo of sutra verses;
lotus fragrance steeped into ink and paper,
writing slowly from the heart.
Do Nghe once held the pen,
his poetry crossing rivers on ferries,
flowing through a thousand miles of mountains and streams—
only then realizing the ocean is also oneself.
What is it all for—who can know?
A newborn child sends out a laugh;
today we return, gathering things together,
and many more years drift like clouds across the sky.
Eighty—old friend, greetings to you;
you whisper to the autumn wind:
thus, thus, thus it is—
joy handed over like a precious sword.
Once you practiced the craft of delivering babies,
writing letters to newborns;
now looking back, far from the operating room,
standing in the marketplace, grateful for your life.
Was it one day you met again
someone with white hair, eyes brimming—
sitting to feel each breath,
bathing impermanence through flesh and bone.
Joy beyond measure, studying the Buddha,
seeing the moon rise, awakening to Lankatara,
realizing the whole sky is without self,
realizing the Buddha-realm is never far.
Eighty apricot branches in the front yard,
hearing life joyful as the winter wind;
flowers drifting like Dharma rain,
lifting your face, your heart light as emptiness.
Pouring out heart and lungs and liver,
transforming into drifting mist across the sky;
bidding farewell to ten thousand past lives,
birds flying, windswept across the heavens.
Buddha Buddha Buddha—non-dual across the sky;
Zen Zen Zen—sutras chanted without words;
Mind Mind Mind—no self, no dharma;
Do Hong Ngoc—smiling on into eighty.
---- August 2020. Sitting amidst the golden sunlight of a foreign land, I send this from California to celebrate the 80th birthday of the poet Do Hong Ngoc.
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