The Chronicle of Leaving the World

I once dreamed: May our happy days stretch late into the evening. Steadfast as a pine, I would meet you, graceful as an orchid, and fall in love at first sight. You would have a maid, and I a servant. We would choose an auspicious day and celebrate our wedding night by candlelight. By day, we would walk hand in hand, watching our two or three children play. At night, we would embrace as you read to me. We would live in our own paradise, troubled now and then by worldly worries. In our later years, you would love wearing red, and I would cherish my bamboo cane… But in reality, I am young and poor, yet clear-minded; refined and romantic, yet devoted to Buddhism. I write down these fragments of my life, just in case I need to verify them in the next one.