Past Life Story

You were born a deer, in a clearing deep in the forest. The first scenery you saw was your mother's gentle eyes. She gazed at you long and licked you with her tongue. From that moment your life began. With softness, with cleanness. By thirty days you stood for the first time. Your legs were small and trembling, but you stood. Your mother stood beside you. From that day you walked the forest. Wherever your mother went, you followed. The path of grass, the path of water, the path of safety. Your mother taught you all of these. In your first year, you knew the forest's danger. Wolves, leopards, hawks—they were enemies of the deer. Your mother had taught you. The way of the deer is in flight. Not in fight, but in flight. Speed, listening, sharp eyes. With these the deer survives. You learned them well. In your second year, you faced your first crisis. A hunter came. You ran with all your strength. Through forest, over hills, through streams. You ran. Then suddenly you realized. Your mother was not behind you. She had given herself to the hunter, that you might live. You wept long that day. In your third year, you wandered alone. Your mother was no longer there. The forest was lonely. Yet you remembered your mother's teaching. Eat the grass, drink from the stream, listen to the wind. With those alone the deer lives. You did not falter. In your fourth year, you met your first love. A buck of the same forest. Strong antlers, gentle eyes. The two of you spent one season together. The fawn that came of you was a single one. The buck did not stay long. The way of the deer is so. The mother raises the fawn alone. You raised it well, as your mother had done. In your fifth year, you taught your fawn the ways of the forest. The path of grass, the path of water, the path of safety. The same teaching your mother had given you. Each generation, the deer passes on this teaching. That is the wisdom of the deer. In your seventh year, your fawn left your side. As you had once left your mother. You watched it go without sadness. The deer must walk its own way. That you had taught it well was enough. In your eighth year, the elders of the forest heard tales of you. You had survived all the dangers. You had been a deer of cleanness all your days. The young deer came to you. They asked you. "Elder, what is wisdom?" You answered. "Wisdom is gentleness. Wisdom is cleanness. The deer wins not by strength but by softness." In your tenth year, you wandered alone in the forest. The forest had a different shape now. New grass grew where old grass had been, and new streams flowed where old streams had run. Yet wherever you went, you saw your mother's footprints. Your mother had gone before you down this same path. In an autumn of your eleventh year, you went to a small clearing. There you closed your eyes. The forest hushed. Other beasts did not gather. The deer departs alone. As is the way of the deer. Beneath your gentle eyes is the cleanest soul of all—that was your life. You did not have strength. You did not have great power. But you had cleanness, and softness, and within them strength. Your soul, even now somewhere in a forest, must be looking out with gentle eyes. If sometime in your life a wave of pure clarity comes to you—that, perhaps, may be the gaze of a deer.