Good for you and good for me

 "Wow! This photo is cool. How did you capture such a wonderful moment?” 

I asked a friend who is a photographer. 

“It was a present moment before thinking.” 

"You mean the state of absence of ego? or the state of vacant?” 

“No, A state of not thinking.” 

 It is not a colorful or shady photo that poses like a handmaid with a camera the size of a cannon as instructed by the photographer. It is also not a photo taken by adjusting the overall screen while putting in something to put and taking out something to take out. Anytime, anywhere, when I look at her photos taken with an iPhone, the tension is relieved, the complexity is simplified, and the chill is getting warm. 

 "Do you have any thinking or not? You have to think and act." 

When I was young, I constantly tried to think with the scolding of people around me. But does she mean I should train myself not to think now? 

 A friend and I during the week whenever we have time and go from place to place by car. It runs like a horse unbridled, then stops where we want to stop and looks around. We wander aimlessly towards the beach, mountains, lakes, and green meadows. If there is a good place, I brought simple toiletries so that I could stay overnight. we don't care if we get lost because we want to run into something unexpected with no plans or reservations. When we're hungry, sit at a table by the roadside of the restaurant, fill the stomach, and stupidly watch the people walking by. We drank as much wine as they were given by the winery, and gibberish staring at each other while being intoxicated. 

 While my friend was immersed in ‘before thoughts’ as she watched the rippling waves, I looked at the floating clouds and remembered the words about the death of Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. 

'Ask the cloud. 

“When is your date of birth? Where were you before you were born?” 

Clouds were water on the surface of the ocean before they were born. Or it was a river and it became steam. It was also the sun because it makes steam. The wind is there too, helping the water turn into clouds. Clouds will turn into rain or snow or ice. Clouds are not lost. The rain becomes the grass, the grass becomes the cow and the milk, the milk becomes the ice cream.'

 Our wondering truth-seeks, both good for her and good for me, float like clouds, like water, like the wind. The waves on her iPhone resemble clouds. Clouds resemble ice cream. 

“Friend, let’s go eat ice cream.”