The Soothing Jaling Sound

Hearing that beautiful but sad and soothing sound of Jalings from neighborhood suddenly brought a pang of sadness running down my nerves. I felt and felt it hard. It's been whole day since that emotional music (should I say) caught my ear and thinking. Perhaps the neighbor is performing a grand ritual or rimdo. That continuous sound made me both sad and emotional. Life is good, only when all things run smoothly and bad (worse) when things doesn't go so well. Life is but a fallacy which we all cling to and which we treat just like everything is under our control, as if we are here forever; as if the wealth we collect will keep us alive, when in reality we can't take even a small pin. 

I wonder why is it so hard to leave that Fantasyland that we live in and realize the ultimate truth? Why is it so hard to bring the mind home even for the blink of a second? How sad that despite all these realities, despite all the truths in front of us, we still deny it and we still continue living the fantasy life of ours. Why is it that we can go on to watching hours of sitcoms and series while it's just so hard to concentrate on the things like doing even a minute of short prayer? 

The beautiful and sad sound of the Jalings made me realize all these. I could ponder upon this life even if it was for that brief moment. I realized that I have Nothing to show to the lord of death. What if I have to leave this world the very next moment? Fear engulfed me then and for a moment I felt like leaving everything. Was it a dream? Perhaps! But I am certain I felt it so vividly, even though it was but a dream. I realized that the only thing that will help us beyond this life is how we prepare ourselves doing so-called choe (ཆོས) . And knowing that it's never late than never, the best day to start is right now- this very moment, and I  was like why am I still waiting for the best day?

However we all wait right? Like the great Patrul Rimpoche said, we prepare and prepare whole life only to leave this world unprepared. We all know the facts and we still keep it at bay. We hardly put what we know into practice or follow it. We work our ass off and sometimes stoop so low that you don't even realize that will help you at the end or not.

But then it's life and that's it. It's from experiencing such brief moments where you are being reminded that you don't have all it takes, that life is ephemeral and so are those connected to it that keeps us on track, that gives us some rays of hope to correct if you are on the wrong lane or to start afresh. Life is not about the destination but milestones one covers at a time.