Parting

Enough, Ananda! Do not grieve, do not lament! For have I not taught from the very beginning that with all that is dear and beloved there must be change, separation, and severance? Of that which is born, come into being, compounded, and subject to decay, how can one say: ‘May it not come to dissolution!’? There can be no such state of things.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html

Many eons ago, in the summer of 2001, when Destiny’s Child was going strong with “Survivor”, and Daft Punk released their album Discovery, I was in Hanoi, Vietnam studying abroad with the intent of going into graduate school later. Needless to say, I crashed and never went into grad school.

But I do remember spending a lot of time in dial-up Internet cafes, whose computers all had the same background poster for the game Final Fantasy X.

I had been playing Final Fantasy games all the way back to the original. As a kid I was play-testing games for Nintendo of America (they recruited local kids on a voluntary basis then) and got to play the original Final Fantasy before other kids in the US did. I got the game later for my birthday, and always loved Final Fantasy since. Final Fantasy X just looked so cool, and it was exciting to see what the tenth title would have in store.

However, because I was a broke college student in a poor, communist country, I couldn’t play FFX. When I got back to the US, I was now a broke adult who quit grad school and needed a job. Then two weeks later, 9/11 happened, so the economy only got worse. It took years to climb out of that mess before getting married, and raising a family.

All this is to say, I never got to play FFX until I found the HD Remaster recently.

Warning: this post has major spoilers.

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I struggled initially with the game controls and didn’t really understand the plot or the Sphere Grid system until about halfway in when it all started click into place. The story of crashing Yuna’s unhappy wedding, and the budding romance between lead characters Tidus and Yuna was really sweet. Then you get to this scene…

At this point, I was bawling my eyes out. It was really beautiful. It made me think a lot about my wife and I when we first met. We had our own romantic moment like FFX, albeit it was a snowy night for us Nevertheless, this brought back a lot of warm memories. It’s a wonderful feeling to be young and truly fall in love for the first time. I am also happy I can still share my life with that same person even almost 30 years later, raise a family, travel together, and so on.

But as I get older there’s also a nagging thought in the back of my head that it won’t last forever. My wife and I have had conversations about this too. Sooner or later, one of us will go. The thought of being in a world without my wife is a very unpleasant one, but the thought of not being able to protect her anymore is equally unpleasant.

And yet, one of these eventualities will occur someday.

… and is what the Buddha is warning his attendant Ananda about: separation is inevitable. It’s just how things work. It’s not that there aren’t pleasant things in life, and falling in love very high on that list, it’s just that it can’t last forever and parting will occur sooner or later.

Watching my kids grow up and leave the nest has also been bittersweet. I cherish the memories of playing Legos with my firstborn daughter, but that little girl no longer exists, and the adult is now living in another country. My son is approaching adulthood too. I miss the “Pokemon battles” we would act out together when he was a little boy, but that boy is now an awkward teenager, and before I know it, he will be gone too. When he marries someday, I can imagine my wife bawling her eyes out.

So, the Buddha might sound like a downer at first, but he’s also pointing what is plainly obvious too: for every pleasant moment in life, it carries a sad burden too. He asks us to view the world with both eyes open. We cannot simply shut ourselves in from the world; we have to live it fully, but also fully aware of what it entails.

We have to see it through to the end.

Namu Shakamuni Butsu

P.S. Final Fantasy X truly is an amazing game and a beautiful story. 10/10 recommend. As of writing I haven’t quite finish the game yet, but I have briefly seen some spoilers and kind of dreading what comes next.