Past Life Story

You were a thousand-year turtle, born of legend. While ordinary turtles lived a hundred years, you live a thousand years. While ordinary turtles dwelt in shallow water, you dwell in the deepest water. From your earliest days you were different. In your first year, you opened your eyes for the first time. You were in deep water. There was no light. The water was cold and dark. Yet you were not afraid. The deep water was your home. In your tenth year, you saw the surface of the water for the first time. You floated up slowly. You came up out of the water. You saw the sky. The blue sky was beautiful. Yet you returned to the water. The deep water was more beautiful. Within the deep water you saw what others could not. In your hundredth year, you came to know the secret of time. The thousand-year turtle is not just a turtle that lives long. The thousand-year turtle is a turtle that watches time. While other beings flow with time, the thousand-year turtle watches time. Time flows, but you stay still and watch. In your three hundredth year, you encountered a wise sage. He had come up by the water to meet you. He bowed before you. "Old thousand-year turtle, give us your wisdom." You raised your face out of the water once. The sage gazed at you long. He understood your wisdom. To watch time is the deepest wisdom. In your five hundredth year, you came to know the truth of time. Time is not a straight line. Time is a circle. What was once will be again. What is now has been before. To know that circle is to be free of time. The thousand-year turtle is free of time. In your seven hundredth year, you rose above the deep water once. There you watched the world. The world had changed greatly. New people appeared, old people vanished. New cities arose, old cities fell. Yet to your eyes, all of these were one moment. In your nine hundredth year, your name spread to the entire universe. Other elders came to you. They asked. "Old thousand-year turtle, what is the meaning of time?" You answered. "Time is illusion. Eternity is truth. The thousand-year turtle has lived a thousand years, but in truth has lived but a single moment." In your nine hundred and ninetieth year, you encountered a person. He had come up to the water with a thousand years of love. He had been lost, and he had found you. You let him see what you could see. The flow of time. He understood. He returned to his beloved. In your one thousandth year, your time finally came. You did not depart. You only sank into deeper water. There you closed your eyes once. Yet you did not die. You only watched time forever. From that moment, time and you were one. In your eternal time, you became the spirit of time. Even now you are watching. The world's changes, the lives of beings, the flow of moments. You see all of these. And in seeing them, you complete time. The thousand-year turtle watches time—that was your eternity. You did not flow with time. You watched time. From that watching came true wisdom. Your spirit, even now in some deep water, must be watching. Slowly, with stillness, with depth. If sometime in your life a strange perspective of time comes to you—that, perhaps, may be the gaze of an ancient thousand-year turtle.