Frozen in Time : 天長地久

Dear Friends,

             

image from     bbs.chinadaily.com.cn    /      www.flickr.com

• Remember 5.12 ?

That was the day when hell arrived on Earth in Western China, with 汶川 (Wen chuan) being the worst hit. It is still a ghost town one year later. Our prayer to all those who perished and suffered.

• How about Kung Yu-sum ?  Who’s that you may ask.

Last week, most Hong Kong folks seemed to forgot 5.12 and instead got more excited about Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum’s relationship with lover Tony Chan in the inheritance war of the century. At stake is HKD 100~200 Bln estate left by Nina Wang, and whether it should go to Chinachem Charitable Foundation or Tony Chan.

Both parties are in possession of  a will from Nina Wang, both claimed theirs  to be genuine, though Tony’s is the most recent of the two. Tony is married with couple of kids, one of which is my boy’s schoolmate. So you see, we are “connected” persons.

To prove his case, Tony presented 8 boxes of  “evidence”, to demonstrate his intimate relationship with Nina Wang, including photos, tapes, gifts and even the signature pony tails of Nina Wang.

In matters of romance story, we typically see people falling in love trying to “freeze” that beautiful relationship via some external objects, be they gifts, personal items etc.

• It is in essence the “mummification of love at the peak”, wanting to capture a photographic snapshot of that instant, frozen in time (“stasis”), and that by touching or seeing these external objects later, one will be time-transported back to those sweet moment. Jacques Lacan has expounded this well in his study.

• Chinese expresses this wish as 天長地久 (tian chang di jiu), i.e. “as long as the heaven and earth have existed and continue to exist”. That’s in the same spirit as that of mummification.

In postings Universal Four Seasons and Harmonious Cosmic Motion, we see that there is nothing to freeze. If one tries to, it will be a futile exercise anyway. In that sense, mummification of love is a futile exercise. Or can we say that once frozen, it dies. But tell that to your girlfriend/wife about diamonds, that they are futile exercises ? (see posting How much is a Peanut? How much is a Diamond?)

In Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra, it is said :

• 色不異空, 空不異色; 色即是空, 空即是色

And in Diamond Sutra, it is again said :

• 一切又為法, 如夢幻泡影, 如露亦如電, 應作如是觀

 

Frozen in time, what’s yours ?

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