Where were you before you were born?

Author: Thich Nhat Hanh

Sometimes people ask you: ‘when is your birthday?’ But you might ask yourself a more interesting question: ‘before that day which is called my birthday, where was I?’

Ask a cloud: ‘what is your date of birth? Before you were born, where were you?’

If you ask the cloud, ‘how old are you? Can you give me your date of birth?’ you can listen deeply and you may hear a reply. You can imagine the cloud being born. Before being born it was the water on the ocean’s surface. Or it was in the river and then it became vapor. It was also the sun because the sun makes the vapor. The wind is there too, helping the water to become a cloud. The cloud does not come from nothing; there has been only a change in form. It is not a birth of something out of nothing.

Sooner or later the cloud will change into rain or snow or ice. If you look deeply into the rain, you can see the cloud. The cloud is not lost; it is transformed into rain, and the rain is transformed into grass and the grass into cows and then to milk and then into the ice cream you eat. Today if you eat an ice-cream, give yourself time to look at the ice cream and say: ‘Hello, cloud! I recognize you.’ By doing that, you have insight and understanding into the real nature of the ice-cream and the cloud. You can also see the ocean, the river, the heat, the sun, the grass and the cow in the ice-cream.

Looking deeply, you do not see a real date of birth and you do not see a real date of death for the cloud. All that happens is that the cloud transform into rain or snow. There is no real death because there is always a continuation. A cloud continues the ocean, the river and the heat of the sun, and the rain continues the cloud.

Before it was born, the cloud was already there, so today, when you drink a glass of milk or a cup of tea or eat an ice cream, please follow your breathing. Look into the tea or the ice cream and say hello to the cloud.

The Buddha took the time to look deeply and so can we. The Buddha was not a God; he was a human being like us. He suffered, but he practiced, and that is why he overcame his suffering. He had deep understanding, wisdom and compassion. That is why we say he is our teacher and our brother.

If we are afraid of death it is because we have not understood that things do not really die. People say that the Buddha is dead, but it is not true. The Buddha is still alive. If we look around us we can see the Buddha in many forms. The Buddha is in you because you have been able to look deeply and see that things are not really born and that they do not die. We can say that you are a new form of the Buddha, a continuation of the Buddha. Do not underestimate yourself. Look around you a little bit and you will see continuations of the Buddha everywhere.

This book is available for sale in
Buddhist Philosophy Bookshop, Hong Kong.