Horror of Two Overdone Nanns

For supper last night, I reheated a prepacked naan using a microwave oven. To my shock, when it was ready, it was puffed up but crispy hard like a biscuit. (I ate it anyway, with some vegan mayonnaise to make it less dry.) I was baffled, not knowing how it turned out this way, while vaguely remembering encountering the same problem a few months ago, only to resolve it later. While still puzzling over the cause while walking to lunch today, I suddenly recalled that when the first naan from the previous pack turned out overdone, I then read the instructions on the packaging, only to realise it only needed 30 seconds of reheating, instead of the default duration. That was how the rest of the naans in that pack were done just right thereafter.

Now, this isn’t just an apalling case of forgetfulness, because I related it to something more horrifying… The fact that I lost mindfulness of such a recently learnt everyday lesson is truly terrifying. It made me wonder how many much more important spiritual lessons I might forget by the end of this life. I did not just forget having made a mistake, I forgot how I resolved it too. There were five nanns in the pack. Despite one mistake followed by four corrections, I made the same mistake again for a new pack! How much do we really learn, do we really internalise?

The Buddha-to-be as a newborn is said to have walked from birth. He did not forget how to. For the rest of us, we were born unable to walk, only to crawl, fall and bawl… before ‘re-mastering’ walking… once again. I wouldn’t want to go through that painful cycle again, even though I can’t recall the anguish. And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? We forget the anguish of rebirth, and we return. I must make it to Pureland, that land which enables and sustains mindfulness of everything important (the Dharma), where enlightenment is a definite eventuality.