The last thing

Bình held his younger sister's hand and whispered:

• How much of the money set aside for my treatment is left?
  His sister's eyes welled with tears:
• Don't worry, we'll keep finding more. There's still 150 million now.
  Bình called the doctor to bend down close to his ear and asked quietly:
• Doctor, with my illness, can I donate my organs?
  The doctor glanced at his sister and said softly:
• With your illness you can't donate organs, because cancer cells could spread to the recipient's body. You can only donate your body so that students can study how diseased tissue behaves.
• In a while, when my sister has gone home, please bring me the form to sign donating my body for medical research. Thank you, doctor.
  When his sister had gone home, Bình asked someone to bring paper so that he could write a will. Bình wrote about family affection, about filial respect for his parents, and expressed the wish that the 150 million for his treatment be given to poor patients. As for his inheritance, if his brothers and sisters needed it they should take it; if they did not need it very much, Bình asked leave to sell his share and contribute the money to the School Ethics fund to encourage morality in students.
  After handing 150 million over to the hospital to help the poor patients being treated there, Bình asked to be discharged and go home, with no more treatment.
  At home Bình knelt and bowed to his parents for never having been able to repay them, and for having weighed on their hearts all this time. Then he bowed before the ancestral altar, then lay on his bed, taking no more food and no more medicine. The cancer pain struck terribly. Bình gritted his teeth and bore it, refusing morphine to ease the pain. Sweat covered his whole body, and his body gradually weakened. The whole family and his friends stood around sobbing quietly.
  But since Bình had not truly stopped breathing, no one proceeded with the shrouding and funeral arrangements. Heavy time passed. Three days later Bình opened his eyes and stammered a request for a sip of water. The family, astonished, gave him water spoonful by spoonful. Then Bình gradually became lucid, until he sat up and could eat a mouthful of rice porridge.
  News of Bình's waking reached the doctor, who asked for him to be brought to the hospital for re-examination, tests and another scan. The results were surprising: the tumours had shrunk, and his blood readings had risen to nearly the normal range. The doctor asked him to stay to continue treatment. Bình smiled, declined and asked to be taken home.
  At home Bình told of a strange experience. He had entered the realm of death and come back, as follows:
  "I saw myself slip out of my body and saw everyone weeping bitterly. I tried to console them, but no one could hear me. Suddenly three men dressed in magnificent costume, like those in period dramas, came and signalled me to follow them. These men were full of authority, so I could not resist. We came to a place like a vast courtroom, where very many people stood waiting to be judged. Each had a very different appearance. Some were dazed and dejected, some calm and composed. My name was called, and I went forward, knelt and heard the judgement. An official of some kind, imposing and majestic, sitting on a high bench, spoke in a language I couldn't make out, yet I understood all its meaning. He praised me for not clinging selfishly to life, for knowing I was about to die and wanting to do one last beneficial thing for the world. Because my mind was good, he decided to let me live another 10 years. On this very day, 10 years from now, I would really die and go to another place. During these next 10 years I must strive to cultivate my morality and spread the ethics of cause and effect to everyone. Thanks to these meritorious deeds, after dying 10 years from now I would be born into a noble family where I could do even more good deeds. After that I was taken back and fell into my body again."
  Bình's story moved the whole family. The family decided to practise together and do good, meritorious deeds from then on. Clearly this world has fairness, has observation, has testing. 🌬

If there are gods and saints above, they do not sit there waiting for us to plead so that they may bestow blessings or send down calamity as we wish. They have their own wisdom, their own views, their own power. They sit quietly waiting to see how we handle everything when we are fortunate or when we meet misfortune.
When we are fortunate, favoured and promoted, will we use our advantage to treat people well, or become overbearing, arrogant and contemptuous of others? When struck by disaster or illness, will we cling selfishly to our own life, or think of the many who suffer more than we do and try to help them one last time?

Everything favourable or adverse in this life is an opportunity for us to cultivate and affirm our morality. Once we have affirmed our morality, those above will know for themselves what to do with us.
But if each day we do not first take care to cultivate morality, when unusual circumstances arrive we will act wrongly. The best course is to strive day by day to cultivate our morality and do good, meritorious deeds little by little.