Samsara, the Wheel of Rebirth

The garden was still wet with dew that morning.

The grandfather was watering his pots of jasmine when he heard his grandchild calling from the row of trees in the corner of the garden. The voice was small but clear, like someone who had just found something very important.

"Grandpa, come here, Grandpa. Hurry."

He set the watering can down. The earthenware knocked once against the ground, and he walked over. The child stood in front of a low branch, pointing at a small cocoon swaying from it. Inside the cocoon, something was moving, tearing the shell open little by little.

The grandfather and the child stood still and watched.

It took about a quarter of an hour. Then, from that cocoon, a pair of wet, crumpled wings came free. The little butterfly clung to the empty shell and tried its wings, trembling slightly.

The child whispered, "What was it before, Grandpa?"

He sat down beside the child. He looked at the butterfly and did not hurry to answer.

"Before," he said slowly, "it was a green caterpillar. Do you remember the caterpillar crawling on the leaf last week?"

The child nodded. "I remember. But caterpillars don't have wings."

"That's right. But it did not come to an end, little one. It only changed its shape."

He pointed to the empty cocoon still hanging on the branch. "That is the cocoon. Inside it, the caterpillar slept a long sleep, then came out as a butterfly."

The child looked at the cocoon, then at the butterfly, then at the grandfather.

"Grandpa, are people like that too?"

He smiled. A good question, he thought. A question our ancestors were already asking thousands of years ago.

"People long ago believed so, little one. They called it luân hồi. The word is a translation from Sanskrit, a very old language of ancient India. In Sanskrit, the root word is samsara. It means wandering, passing through many different forms."

He sat down on the step beside the child and went on. His voice was soft, like a man explaining something he had turned over in his mind for a long time.

Two great traditions see this circle in slightly different ways.

Hindus believe that every living being has a soul. That soul is never born and never lost. When this body comes to its end, the soul moves into another body, the way a person steps from one room into the next.

Buddhists understand it a little differently. In their view, there is no fixed soul at all. What passes from one life to the next is a stream of consciousness. It carries everything a person has done. Everything they have thought. Everything they have chosen.

But both traditions believe that the circle is real. Birth, life, a change of shape, and then a new beginning.

The grandfather led the child inside and took out a book of photographs of pagodas. He opened it to a page with a picture of a pagoda wall.

"Look at this. This is a painting of the Wheel of Rebirth. People paint it in pagodas to remind themselves of that circle."

The child studied it closely. The wheel was large and divided into many parts, and each part showed a different realm. One realm glowed with light. One was cool and green. One was busy with crowds of people coming and going.

"These are the six realms of rebirth," the grandfather explained. "The realm high above is full of light. The human realm is where we are. The rest are other realms."

"These pictures are not meant to frighten anyone. They remind us that everything is moving, and nothing stays still forever."

The child looked up at him. "So we are in the human realm. And what comes after that?"

He gently closed the book. He looked out the window, where the sun was beginning to touch the eaves, before he answered. "That depends on what we do while we are human."

"I believe that the circle of rebirth is not a punishment. It is a chance. Each turn gives us one more try to do better, to love more, to be a little less selfish."

He told the child how, nearly two thousand years ago, Buddhism came to the land of Bắc Ninh. It arrived through Luy Lâu, a trading center in those days, where boats stopped and the first monks brought their scriptures. From there, the idea of luân hồi slowly blended into the Vietnamese language. It entered the way Vietnamese people think, and the things grandparents say to each other every day.

"Have you ever heard people talk about this life and the next life?"

"Yes. Grandma always says that when she goes to the pagoda at Tết," the child said. Tết is the Lunar New Year festival in Vietnam.

"That's right. This life and the next life is the way we Vietnamese talk about rebirth. Not through difficult philosophy. Through everyday words, through incense smoke on the altar. Through a sincere heart that wants to do good, so the next life will be healthier and more peaceful."

The child was quiet for a while, then asked, "So when does the circle end, Grandpa?"

He laughed. A very big question, he thought.

"Buddhism calls it nirvana. Hinduism calls it moksha. Both speak of the moment we step outside that circle. Buddhism teaches that when we are no longer greedy, angry or deluded, the circle stops."

"Is it very hard, Grandpa?"

He stroked the child's hair. "Very hard. That is why it takes many lives."

The grandfather and the child went back out into the garden. The butterfly from before was still there, drying its wings in the early sun. Then it lifted itself up, flew lightly over the sprigs of white jasmine, and vanished into the green of the garden.

The child watched it until it could no longer be seen.

"It's gone."

"Not gone," the grandfather said. "It is beginning again."

And somewhere in the bright garden, the scent of jasmine rose, light and lasting, like something that had just been sown in the earth.