An elegant life is subtle yet flavorful. Our lives are like a stick of burning incense: what has passed is gone, and joy or pain, like the ash at the end of the burning stick, will eventually fall. Life is impermanent, and human hearts are changeable; why fuss over right and wrong, gratitude and resentment? Once we view things lightly, disputes become irrelevant; once we let go, success and failure become merely such. Among the three thousand matters of the human world, a calm smile suffices. Facing the various circumstances of life with a smile is a kind of elegance in life.
Infatuation is akin to an illness, yet it is easily praised by outsiders as a certain will or belief. Perhaps many people have a mentality of sympathizing with the weak and the defeated, thus often showing recognition or praise for the infatuated, or at least feeling reluctant to cast them into the pit. Just as the saying goes, "sincere effort can open even gold and stone," infatuated individuals may maintain themselves in this environment, only to ultimately spin a cocoon around themselves, imprisoned for life by the love they wove themselves.
Perhaps we should try to forget, yet we cannot help but recall, as love, hatred, obsession, and resentment intersect like threads. One can only lament the decadence of time, counting the luxuries soon to pass, and pressing indelible memories deep into the heart. Drinking coffee, one tastes the bitterness. Joy and sorrow, one can still feel that genuine touch, that moving sensation, that longing, and that loneliness.
What kind of heart you have determines what kind of life you live! If we currently harbor resentment, we live a hellish life; if our hearts are currently kind and beautiful, we live a heavenly life; if our hearts are currently free from greed and attachment, we live the life of an Arhat; if our hearts are currently filled with compassion and emptiness, we live the life of a Bodhisattva; if our hearts are ultimately perfect, we live the life of a Buddha.
Forgetting someone is not about never thinking of them, but rather thinking of them occasionally without any ripples in the heart. True forgetting does not require effort. In everyone's phone book, there is a number you will never call but will never delete; in everyone's heart, there is a person you will never mention but will never forget.
