Traces of Three Lives

The old mark on the tiger's mouth was made when he fell on the bluestone when he was seven years old. Later I found out that it was the first imprint of cause and effect on the Sansheng Stone. In the first life, I was a smiling woman holding flowers in the peach forest, and he was a passer-by who came in the wind. The moment the tiger's mouth touched each other, two old marks lit up at the same time, like two stars that had been wandering for thousands of years and finally recognized their way home. In the second life, I was an orphan girl guarding wild flowers on the hillside, and he was the ferryman on the river. Beside the rhododendron bushes, deep in the stream, red ropes are wrapped around old scars, and peach blossoms bloom over graves. We promised to live this life together, but death came earlier than spring. In the third life, I escaped into Buddhism and used rosary beads to suppress the old traces that refused to go out. I thought I had forgotten it, and thought that kneeling down for three lifetimes would wash away my obsession. But she stood beside the Duheng bush outside the temple gate for three years. The bells rose and fell inside and outside the threshold, and we were separated by the wind of the entire mountain. Until that night, she flicked her fingers, and I stood up from the Buddha, took off the rosary beads, and pushed open the door. There are three marks on the Sansheng Stone, one is shallow, one is deep, and one is just right. The wind has stopped, the flowers are still falling, and the three marks are still there. And we finally became the two lightest shadows in the world, waking up from the old dream and flying towards the peach forest.