Precious Stones

This post provides a translation of a short piece of writing entitled "Precious Stones," by Aung Thu Nyein, also available on his blog here.

Vocabulary:

သက်တမ်း ။ life span
လက်စ ။ work that had begun but not completed
ပရဟိတ ။ the good or welfare of others (note that the word is misspelled in the original text)
စူးစမ်း ။ investigate
လူမှုရေး ။ social obligations
တနံတလျား ။ all accross, from end to end
လော ။ a numerical classifier for counting number of times
စိုက်စိုက်မတ်မတ် ။ directly, straightly
စိတ်ပါလက်ပါ ။ willingly
ကုသိုလ် ။ virtuous action; merit (see earlier post about this word)
ကြောင့်ကြ ။ to be anxious, worried
အကောင်အတည် ။ visible form, body structure
အလွဲလွဲအမှားမှား ။ wrongly, in a bungling, contrary manner (not the word is misspelled in the text)
နောင်တ ။ repentance, remorse, regret
အသေးအဖွဲ ။ an insignificant matter
တောက်တိုမည်ရ ။ odd jobs, trivial matters
တဖြုတ်ဖြုတ် ။ adv. (drop off, fall) one by one
ချီ ။ particle often suffixed to certain nouns to form adverbial phrases of time, number or manner
ဆယ်စုနှစ် ။ decade
ဝေငှ ။ to distribute
ကျွမ်းကျင် ။ to be beyond cure
ပို့ချ ။ to teach
မှတ်သား ။ to note down events
ဉာဏ်စမ်း ။ to test someone's intelligence, wisdom
ပုစ္ဆာ ။ question, problem, riddle
ဖန်ချိုင့် ။ a glass jug
လက်သီးဆုတ် ။ (v.) to close one’s fist, (n.) the size of a fist
ထပ် ။ to stack, pile
တညီတညာ ။ in unison
ကျောက်စရစ် ။ pebble
ထပ်မံ ။ once again
လောင်း ။ to pour
လစ် ။ to slip out; slip away; slip; lapse; be missing; be absent
တုန့်ဆိုင်းဆိုင်း ။ hesitantly [?]
သဲ ။ sand
နှုပတခမ်း ။ lip, brim
သင်ခန်းစာ ။ lesson, moral
ထောင် ။ stand,
အိမ်သူ ။ wife
နိဂုံးချုပ် ။ to conclude a speech or write an epilogue; wind up a speech

Translation:

 Precious Stones

Aung Thu Nyein

I repeatedly think of my existence. I have very little time. I still want to write some essays. I still want to translate some books. And there are still books to read. And I got married late. According to the life span of Myanmar people, it can be said that at the lengthiest life I probably have about 55 years or 60 years. If that is the case, I must give time for my marriage. I can only give as much as 25 remaining years for my family.

And my little daughter in the distance looks forward expectantly to her father. And I must give time for my daughter. Comrades are requesting [that I give] time for the political work that I've begun and not yet completed. There is so little time for the work that I have begun. I still want to give donations. And I still want to do some welfare work. I still want to do some investigative work. [And there is] time that I must give for social obligations with my friends.  And there are also still travels that I want to take all accross Myanmar.  I still want to try calming and healing meditation.  And I still want to study the valuable Chinese practice of Tai Chi.

I once read an essay.  It was about a young person who for his whole life willingly and directly noted down the things that he wanted to do.  I happened to think that he had much merit and good kamma.  Therefore, with real merit he could get a situation in which with extraordinary courage he could do what he wanted to do without worry.  As I am 35 years old, I have passed half [of my life].  Asking which of my dreams would come to be, I was settled in a contrary place.  I have no regret for having completely entered into politics. In the revolution, while doing trivial matters, there was satisfaction and dissatisfaction.  As for one of my friends, while making a note to take photographs of little flower blossoms, he was satisfied with his life.  And in that was his merit.  As for time, it falls away until it is gone.  One year, one year, a decade has gone.

One day I read an interesting piece of short writing.  After reading it, I wanted to distribute it to my friends.  It was a short fable.  It told of one time, in a university, a person who was ill beyond cure taught students who were studying economics about matters concerning the organization of time.  He said to the students, “Let us not forget.”  He issued a rule to note down events.  “Okay students, it’s now time for a riddle to test your knowledge.”  After the teacher had spoken, he took out a glass water jug and set it down on the table.  After that, he systematically put stones about the size of a fist into the glass water jug.  The students did not know what the correct thing to do was and watched silently.  He inserted the stones systematically one after the other.  He placed the stones on top of each other in the glass water jug and it was approximately filled.  After that he asked the students.  Is the glass water jug filled?  The whole class responded in unison “Yes sir, it’s filled.”

“Is that the case?” he asked again and once again took out a bag into which he had put small pebbles.  After that he poured the pebbles into the space around the large stones.  In the space into which they were sliding, the pebbles filled [the glass water jug].  After that he asked the students again.  “Is the glass water jug filled?”

One of the students responded hesitantly, “Um… it’s possibly still not yet the case.”  “Good,” the teacher replied and pulled out a bag of sand.  [The teacher] poured the granules of sand on top and filled up the empty space between the pebbles.  The granules slid over and over into the space between the big stones and small pebbles.  The teacher asked again.  “Is the glass water jug filled?”

All of the students [replied] “It’s not yet filled,” and the teacher, while speaking, pulled out a glass jug of water and poured it onto the stones.  The glass water jug was filled up to the brim.  At that time, while looking at the students, the teacher asked, “In this lesson, what have you learned?

One student replied while raising his hand, “What the teacher wants to say is that in our schedules, during the time that we’re not free, if we look precisely, we can find additional time.  Is it not that we’re still able to make more time for ourselves, Teacher?”

“That’s still not it,” the teacher replied.  “At this moment, in this lesson, what I want to say is that if we don’t first put in the biggest stones, then we won’t be able to get this much more. We can’t get [more time] because we do trivial things. What are the most important stones in our life?”

“Is it our children?  Is it our most loved wife? Education? Dreams? Our precious affairs? Activities? Health? The things that we have enthusiasm for? Doing work for the welfare of other people, and such?  The thing you have to remember is to first put in the most important stones.  If you don’t put them in, you won’t be able to get more—our granules of sand.  If we are worried over the little stones and act chaotically, we won’t be able to get the benefit of time in our short lives.  Therefore, ask yourselves again, what are the important stones in each of your lives?  As the teacher asked, the short tale was concluded.

I have gone on long with these thoughts.  What are the important stones for my life?  Have I already decided?  I’ve got my daughter whom I love.  And as for the benefit of others, I have done as much as I can.  And I have had success.  And I have had failure.  Whatever the situation, I am satisfied.  On the one hand, repeated thoughts happen to return.  To what extent have I set down big stones for our democratic revolution?  Is this enough?

Friend, have you already decided on the big stones for your life?  I’m asking with good will.