There is this lean solitary tree, displaying tough-looking slender branches carrying a modest number of leaves.

It stands in lonely splendour in the bay at Teluk Kemang, Negri Sembilan, where people gather in their scores or hundreds depending on whether it's a weekend or the school holidays.

For want of a better beach to go, my family has been making a pilgrimage to that seaside as and when the opportunity presents itself.

When I first clapped my eyes on that tree about six years ago, standing there with its reflection bobbing up and down gently in the low tide, my eyes kept being drawn to it.

At that time the tree was back-lighted by the bright sky, giving it an eerie glow.

A semi-circle contour of low, wooded hills hide the hustle and bustle of life behind the beach at the bay. The sibilant sound of the receding tide, the sharp cries of sea gulls and the distant sounds of children laughing, all combined to infuse the atmosphere with surrealism.

Exorcism

I've walked gingerly on the slippery rocks leading to the tree and beyond. And I've touched the tree, felt its strength and somehow became ensnared in its spell.

I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that the ashes of one of my aunt were strewn there in the last decade.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but there's something eternal about that tree. In the last few weeks its image has been floating up to the surface of my mind quite regularly and that's why I'm compelled to write about it in the hope that it could become an act of exorcism.

The tree may be solitary but is not alone. There are the crabs that scurry around its base and tiny fishes below in the water. And not to mention the humans with unseeing eyes who use the tree to right their balance as they step from stone to stone.

One night, half-in and half-out of sleep, a thought rose about how tough and resilient that tree must be. How many storms it must have weathered, especially those brought by La Nina.

Universal link

Surely its roots must go deep and wide into the seabed to be able to withstand strong storm winds. The head bowed against the onslaught of the winds but remained unbroken.

A link has now been established between the tree and myself. But the tree is unaware how it has enriched my life by its existence as so many of its tribe have done before in my life.

Just think of it. Air is necessary to the tree just as it is to us. There are chemicals in its make-up which are also within us. The same chemicals that exist in the rest of the universe.

It must be a swamp tree. Otherwise it would not have been able to flourish in salt water. Therefore its ancestors must have borne witness to our crawl out of the primordial soup.

That's enough reason to revere and respect it as a being, one among millions of others who nightly donate life-giving oxygen from the carbon dioxide they take in.

That tree, to me, stands as a symbol of a link, among millions of others, between Man and Nature. As Lyall Watson, a fine writer on matters scientific, said in his book entitled Heavenly Breath , pomegranates, pigs and people are one. Only the DNA separates them.

It may sound offensive to some, but that is the scientific truth which cannot be denied.

Battle of life

All great religious leaders have acknowledged the oneness of all. Or, one moving spirit breathing life into all of creation.

Therefore, meanness of spirit diminishes the potential for greatness in a person. The great battle of life is not the building of monuments, the accumulation of great wealth or the lording it over a multitude of people.

It is the conquest of oneself which will stand as a monument on its own without having to loudly trumpet the achievement to all and sundry.

As one draws one's last breath, life's burden of struggles should easily fall off. There should be no dark cloud of regrets hanging over the death bed. How many of us give thought to this let alone attempt to ensure such a state?

K SUGU began his journalistic career in 1964 and has worked in the New Straits Times , The Star , the National Echo and The Sun . He became a Buddhist monk in 1981 and had his first taste of press freedom when he worked in Bangkok for The Nation. He is now retired and spends his time writing and trying to get a handle on the fleeting nature of life