Tannishblog

I missed this week's Friday Night Zen for the first time since its inception. No excuses (although I've thought of some), I'll compensate for the oversight here.As gleaned from the MSN Buddhist community, a poignant poem on duality, life and an acknowledgement of the pervasive suffering of lives lived short of enlightenment - like yours or mine.

PLEASE CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAMES

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow -
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve year old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm reminded that my suffering is just an echo of the suffering of others; it is not unique. Each of us carried a burden of pain, commensurate to our strength, with which we utilize to gain compassion, to end suffering in others. Without a full knowledge of what hurts us, we cannot move toward its opposite. Our minds must understand what to avoid in order to cultivate its antithesis. Through our pain arises our compassion.

While our Great Democratic Empire is bankrupting itself buying munitions, plumbing the depths of corruption and exploring the permutations of profiteering, the European Space Agency is investing in humanity’s future. For a mere $140 Million, they designed and tested a new space drive in their tiny craft SMART-1, operated it for almost two years by remote, and finally impacted the craft into the surface of the moon to gain data on the mineral composition of a crater aptly named Lake of Excellence.

For the price of The War Against Terrorism (aka TWAT) America could have launched thousands of similar probes, hired an army of remote operators and invented a new industry. Doing so would advance scientific knowledge, scoured our solar system for resources and put to good use money that is otherwise wasted on destruction. It could bring in a new era of exploration, help design systems that could mine planets by remote control, thereby easing the strain on Earth’s diminishing stores.

But no. Our leaders are not so daring. They pretend to herald in a New American Century through failed military tactics of the last century while lining their stock portfolios with paper from the same defense contractors whom are grafting the government dole to benefit shareholders. Mass Murder for Immediate Gains v. Risky Expenditure for Future Profit.

Hmm…Is there such a word as Nationcide?