Translated and Edited by TBF Translation Team

(Continued from issue 481)

About being a foreigner—who is not a foreigner? Everyone is. When you ask around, everyone is a foreigner. When you return to your hometown, there are no old friends; everyone is now playing the role of a foreigner, traveling away from their homeland to make a living, generation after generation, wanderers in foreign lands, no way to return. And even if they do return, everything is foreign.

As to my homeland, what I feel is unfamiliarity and a fear of not finding a familiar face. It is really true that as one approaches one’s homeland, one feels apprehensive. It is indeed a sad and disheartening feeling!

Today I finally understand:

The human life is one of drifting in a suffering ocean of birth and death

One’s homeland is no more the place where you were born.

And neither is it the place where you will die.

Even though Leaf Lake is the place of my retreat, I feel it is so familiar and yet so foreign. Will I grow old and die at Leaf Lake?

I understand that within our inner heart is really where our true homeland is, that deep within our heart is where our homeland has always been, within our original nature, within the realm of the True Buddha, within the Maha Twin Lotus Ponds, within the pure land of Buddha’s country.

That is our eternal homeland!

(the end)

《本文譯自真佛報第438期頭版師尊「真佛論劍」文章「尋找故鄉的人」》