[April 23, 2014] A Passionate Life and Years of Burning Fervor
A Passionate Life and Years of Burning Fervor Xuefeng April 23, 2014 (Translated by Xidai and Edited by Kaer) 
Having no holidays or rest days, all of Chanyuan Celestials here work every day from morning until night. Some of them have fallen asleep while working, some bleed from their noses while working, and some were too tired to wash their feet and faces and just collapse into bed and fell asleep immediately after supper. We are weeding, cultivating the soils, picking sheep dung for manure, rush-planting many trees in the Spring, collecting firewood for fuel, and building living rooms and toilets. Every brick and stone are very important to us and mud is the most valuable material. This is a life filled with passion. These are the years of burning fervor. Chanyuan Celestials are working as hard as they can, using their own hands to create their own lives. The trees they planted are sprouting forth buds and leaves while the seedlings of the vegetables are growing quickly. The rubbish has been cleared away and the environment is much cleaner. The wild geese that head south are coming here and the crows of the sparrows are twittering merrily in joyous choruses. Everything is full of energy and vitality. How beautiful the life is! Chanyuan Celestials are all optimists and romantics. Though the life here is very simple, it is always full of a broad range of delights. They laugh and play as they walk. Life here is always full of happiness and laughter. We have suspended our monthly parties, but all brothers and sisters like to joke and frolic with each other. Some of these funny jokes that were told by ChanyuanCelestials made everyone laugh so hard that they spit their food when sitting on the small stools, bricks, and stones during supper. This is a group of carefree children. This is a group of fools who never pursue selfish interests. This is a group of aspiring pillars of the world. This is a group of Celestials and Buddhas with no considerations of life and death. The hardest and dirtiest jobs, they do! The most bitter and saltiest water, they drink! They live only for today, no matter what tomorrow brings. They live only in the NOW, no matter what the future brings. They are happy as fairies (celestials in Heaven). They are burning the passion of youth into full play.They forget the time and the bitterness. It gives endless fun to become a creator. It makes our passions run high when devoting ourselves to such lives. Even you are eighty years old, you are still not an old person. Every one here is in the bloom of youth. Their youth is burning: it is burning completely and thoroughly; it is burning naturally and purely; it is burning so hard that the green trees are growing and beautiful flowers are blooming; it is burning cleanly, tidily, and orderly. Only those who experience this kind of life can truly understand what the life is. Thank the Greatest Creator for such an extraordinary life. It is a test. Impurity disappears, gold shines. As fire tries gold, so does adversity try virtue. The crops have been ripe, I will harvest these ripe crops to the ban of heaven in order to finish the task the Greatest Creator gave me. I am dying happy now. |
