Myanmar Travel Notes: "The Myth of Bagan (2)"

That night in the middle of the night on February 6, 2020, I was very sad. Can you "understand"?

The puppets on the banks of the Irrawaddy River made me wonder what the purpose of life is.

The Buddha said that only by enlightening wisdom and having compassion in one's heart can the world wake up. Only by understanding that everything is empty and not falling into reincarnation can the real liberation be achieved.

I think that the drama of life can be played by puppets, but the understanding of life still needs to be experienced with the heart. Therefore, the meaning of life lies in perception, whether it is joy or sorrow; in speculation, in order to discern whether it is light or darkness; in choice, whether to be a cynic or to still firmly choose to go retrograde in the world of mortals after understanding the void to save the common people.

Life is short, we are not heroes, and we don’t want to be heroes. We just want to understand what is the value of living?

A white-throated babbler flew in front of us, and the setting sun shone on it, making it shine like a god in a golden dress on the Olympic Mountains. What a beautiful picture this is, this is the value of living.

Only by living can we know the beauty of this world. In order to perceive such beauty, we must live with dignity; in order to protect such beauty, we refuse to join in the same trend.

Standing in front of the honey-colored stupa, I realized how lucky I have been with my choices over the years.

White-throated babblers are endemic to Myanmar. They live in small flocks and are independent of each other. Whether standing on a branch or buried in a bush, it keeps watching the world.

It is not afraid of humans, but it is not too close to humans like the house sparrow. It is a bird that belongs to the wilderness. Even if it lives around the village, it is free and is not tempted by the grains on the ground. Instead, it is on the branches by itself. look for food. Its eyes are more white than black, and it looks a bit unapproachable. However, it is happy and does not need us. Again, it's freeing.

Are there any unfree birds?

The rock pigeon refused to leave because of the food scattered in the field, even though I was getting very close. Both the white-spotted black rockhopper and the East Asian rockhopper can be found here. One is a local bird, and the other is a foreigner who has come all the way to overwinter. Fortunately, they are not xenophobic and happily share this land. There is also the solid-colored woodcock, a bird that is very common in southern China, but here it is so bold that I dare not recognize it.

A variegated squirrel appeared in the telescope. It attracted my attention with its cool running performance on the pagoda, and I couldn't help but walk over. Suddenly, a brown three-toed quail flew out of the grass at my feet. Judging from the hurry, it must have been frightened by me. I was also startled by it and stood there motionless.

The world seemed to fall into silence.

I regretted not discovering the presence of the Brown Kittiwail beforehand, even though I knew it would be impossible given its perfect protective coloration. When I finally gave up the idea and took another step, I never expected that another one would fly up.

Now I really feel uneasy. But the grass underfoot is very deep. Where are they hiding? There are no clues to be found. Helpless, I had no choice but to keep walking, and they continued to burst out of the grass, and then scattered like fireworks, six of them in total.

My heart is literally bleeding. The brown three-toed quails seemed a little strange in appearance, but they often jumped up suddenly and quickly fell into the grass without warning, making it impossible for me to observe them carefully. Even if I had fifteen years of bird watching skills, it would be in vain. At most, I could vaguely feel a few chests turning black, that's all.

To be honest, the feeling of powerlessness was just like the feeling I had in the middle of the night on February 6th.

However, soon, I realized: I am not the only one who has such a sense of powerlessness, but it is a psychological state that almost all people have. It is precisely this sense of powerlessness that shows that we are normal people; in addition, there is no need I am frustrated that my hard work for so many years has not worked, because even if I work hard for another fifteen years, it will still be of no use.

If you want to see the characteristics of a quail in a fraction of a second, you are going in the wrong direction. What we have to do is to find the place where it exists, seek the support of our companions to surround it, and wait patiently until it slowly walks out on its own, and then we can see everything clearly, clearly, and truly.

They are indeed not brown three-toed quail. One of the characteristics of the female brown three-toed quail is indeed the black breast, but the truth is that black-breasted quail lives here. Thanks to the reminders from experts in my circle of friends, I didn’t give up and finally figured out the truth.

The brown three-toed quail belongs to the family Pheasantidae of the order Ploviformes, and the black-breasted quail belongs to the family Pheasantidae of the order Galliformes. They are distantly related and basically cannot get close to each other in eight lifetimes. However, their food sources and living environments are similar, and convergent evolution has resulted in their similar appearance, feather color camouflage, and habits.

This is just like the principle that systems change people - no matter how different fabrics are put into a big dyeing vat, the colors will come out the same.

It was getting late, and the ruins of the moat of the Bagan Palace were overgrown with grass. A huge Nanyang jacaranda tree grew on the long-crumbled city wall, majestic and majestic, like a canopy of clouds. I couldn't help but run over to take some photos. Unfortunately, I couldn't get satisfactory results under the backlight, so I simply climbed into the city wall to find an angle with good lighting. Unexpectedly, I climbed in and was fascinated by everything in front of me.

In the jungle under the sunset, there are two or three pagodas. With their peerless concealment, they hide a lot of exquisiteness, a lot of subtlety, and a lot of charm that makes people want to live here for a long time. Religion is the mother of art, and architecture is a solid art. At this moment, these pagodas are rubbed by leaves, moistened by dusk, surrounded by birds singing, and met by me again.

I stood there for a long time, watching the setting sun withdraw its golden gifts from the pagoda little by little. The pagoda gradually returned to its original color of gray white, brick red and even jet black, but it was still so beautiful! I admit that the previous sunset made them look like they were shrouded in holy light, but in fact they do not need the praise of the sun, they are beautiful in themselves.

Those domes, those sculptures, those patterns, they originate from illusion, are achieved by passion, and are ordinary from daily life. They no longer need aloof majesty to flaunt themselves, they are touchable and the most real ordinary. I admire this ordinaryness.

That day in Bagan, the dusk was as dark as blood, and my mood could not calm down for a long time.