"Seven years after the death of my mother, I woke up suddenly one night, went outside, and saw the moon shining brightly. At two or three o’clock in the morning, the moon is always expressing something deep, calm, and tender, like the love of a mother for her child. I felt bathed in her love, and I realized that my mother is still alive and will always be alive. A few hours earlier, I had seen my mother very clearly in a dream. She was young and beautiful, talking to me, and I talked to her. Since that time, I know that my mother is always with me. She pretended to die, but it is not true. Our mothers and fathers continue in us. Our liberation is their liberation. Whatever we do for our transformation is also for their transformation, and for our children and their children.
"When I picked up the autumn leaf and looked at it. I could smile, because I saw the leaf calling back through a multitude of her bodies in the ten directions, just as Shakyamuni Buddha did in the Lotus Sutra. Then I looked at myself, and saw myself as a leaf, calling back countless bodies of mine to be with me at that moment. We can do that by dissolving the idea that we are only here and now. We are simultaneously everywhere, in all times.
"When you touch the soil here, you touch the soil there also. When you touch the present moment, you touch the past and the future. When you touch time, you touch space. When you touch space, you touch time. When you touch the lemon tree in early spring, you touch the lemons that will be there in three or four months. You can do that because the lemons are already there. You can touch the lemon tree in the historical dimension or the ultimate dimension; it is up to you. The practice of the Lotus Sutra is to touch yourself, the leaf, and the tree in the ultimate dimension.”
