Thich Nhat Hanh

try

tryWhen you are in touch with the suffering in the world, it is so easy for despair to overwhelm you. …Throughout the war in Vietnam young people easily became the victims of despair because the war went on for so long and it seemed it would never end. It is the same with the situation in the Middle East. young Israelis and Palestinians feel the heavy atmosphere of war will never end.

Animals, plants, and minerals also suffer because of the greed of human beings. The earth, the water and air are suffering because we have polluted them. The trees suffer because we destroy the forest for our own profit. Some species have become extinct because of the destruction of the natural environment. Humans also destroy and exploit one another. How can we stop ourselves from collapsing in despair?

The bodhisattva of wonderful sound, Gadgadashvara, can use music, writings and sound to awaken people.  If you are a poet, a writer or a composer you can be that bodhisattva. Your artistic creations are not just to help people forget their pain momentarily but to water the seeds of awakened understanding and compassion in others.  Among us are so many writers, poets and composers who are using the wonderful ocean of sound to serve the way of understanding and love…(excerpts from Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death, No Fear)

oolong tea

 

oolongteathy“…you cannot know how many people your words, actions and thoughts have touched.

When I make a pot of oolong tea, I put tea leaves into the pot and pour boiling water on them. Five minutes later there is tea to drink. When I drink it, oolong tea is going into me. If I put in more hot water, making a second pot of tea, the tea from those leaves continues to go into me. After I poured out all the tea, what will be left in the pot is just the spent tea leaves. The leaves that remain are only a very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much bigger part of the tea. It is the richest part.

We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions and not in the spent tea leaves. I invite you to see yourself reborn in forms that you say are not yourself. You have to see your body in what is not your body. This is called your body outside of your body.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh (No Death, No Fear, pp. 119-120)

 

Views…

Our Enemy

Our enemy wears the colors of ideology.

Our enemy wears the label of liberty.

Our enemy carries a fancy appearance.

Our enemy carries a big basked filled with words.

Our enemy is not man.

If we kill men, with whom shall we live?

~Pham Day  (Thich Nhat Hanh, Call Me by My True Names)

viewdiamondsutra

…views themselves are ideas or perceptions.  Any perception has two parts: a viewer  (subject) and that which is being viewed (object).  A self view, a person view, a living-being view, and a life span view are all objects of perception. They are neither independently existing or permanent. Like everything else, they are of the nature of interbeing.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, The Diamond that Cuts through Illusion

No reset…

Each time we say or do something, write a line of poetry, disseminate an idea, send a letter, we go out in many different directions.  Once we have set out in these directions, there is no way we can pull ourselves back to the place we were before. 

~Thich Nhat Hanh (Understanding our Minds)

directionthich

consciousness

“…when consciousness manifests, it is not, at that moment, born. When it does not manifest, it does not, at that time, die. When consciousness manifests, there is differentiation and discrimination (vitalpa). Discrimination says, ‘this is self, and that is other than self.’ It is the sword that cuts and divides what is self from what is not self. But discrimination is not the truth. It is an imaginary construction, a fabrication of the mind. The Chinese ideogram for the term vitalpa means ‘universal comparing.’ To compare is to say, ‘This is inside, but that is outside. This continues to exist, but that ceases to exist.'”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding the Mind

consciousnessHanh

Dear Mother Earth

 

spider“Dear Mother Earth,

The Human Species is but one of your many children. Unfortunately, many of us have been blinded by greed, pride, and delusion, and only a few of us have been able to recognize you as our mother.  Not realizing this, we have done you great harm, compromising both your health and your beauty. Our deluded minds push us to exploit you and create more and more discord, putting you and all your forms of life under stress and strain. Looking deeply, we also recognize the you have enough patience, endurance and energy to embrace and transform all the damage we have caused, even if it takes you hundreds of millions of years.

…There are times when we have not loved you enough; times when we have forgotten your true nature; and times when we have discriminated and treated you as something other than ourselves. There have even been times the, through ignorance and unskillfulness, we have underestimated, exploited, wounded and polluted you.

…we have turned to you dear Mother, and asked whether or not we could count on you, on your stability and compassion.  You did not answer right away. And then beholding us a great compassion, you replied, ‘Yes, of course, you can count on your Mother.  I will always be there for you.’ But then you said, ‘Dear children, you must ask yourself, can your Mother Earth count on you?'”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, (Excerpts from Love Letter to the Earth)

thursday’s special: vernal

just being alive

I

and the poppy

~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)

poppiesthree

“We humans have talented artist, but how can our paintings compare to your masterpiece of the four seasons? How could we ever paint such a compelling dawn or create a more radiant dust? We have great composers, but how can our music compare to your celestial harmony with the Sun and planets-or to the sound of the rising tide? We have great heroes and heroines who have endured wars, hardship, and dangerous voyages, but how can their bravery compare to your great forbearance and patience…” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Love Letter to the Earth

submitted in response to Lost in Translation’s photo challenge.

the sunflower…manifesting

sunflowerladybugsmall

“Look at the sunflower growing in the garden. The sunflower relies on so many elements in order to manifest itself. There is a cloud inside of the flower because if there were no cloud there would be no rain, and no sunflower could grow. There is the sunshine in the sunflower. We know that without sunshine nothing can grow; there would be no sunflowers. We see the earth, we see the minerals, we see the farmer, we see the gardener, and we see time, space, ideas, the willingness to grow and many other elements. So, sunflowers depend on many conditions in order to manifest, not just once.

sunflowerladybug2

I like to use the word ‘manifestation’ instead of ‘birth,’ and I also like to use it instead of ‘creation.’ In our minds, ‘to create’ also means from nothing something is brought forth. The farmer who grows sunflowers does not create the sunflowers. If you look deeply, you see that the farmer is only one of the conditions that can bring sunflowers into being. There are seeds of sunflowers stored in the barn, there are fields outside where you can plan sunflowers, there are the clouds in the sky to make rain, there are fertilizers, there is sunshine to help the sunflowers to grow. You, the farmer, are not really the creator of the sunflower. You are just one of the conditions. Without you the sunflowers cannot manifest. But the same is true of other conditions. All are equally important to the manifestation of the sunflower.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh (No Death, No Fear, pp 87-88)

spring rain

“What is the cause of everything? …everything relies on everything else in order to manifest. A flower has to rely on non-flower elements in order to manifest. If you look deeply into the flower, you can recognize non-flower elements.  Looking into the flower, you recognize the element sunshine; that is a non-flower element. Without sunshine, a flower cannot manifest. Looking at the flower, you recognize the element cloud; that is a non-flower element. Without clouds, the flower cannot manifest. Other elements are essential, such as minerals, soil, the farmer and so on; a multitude of non-flower elects has come together in order to help the flower manifest.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh, No Fear, No Death

springrain2

 

 

looking deeply into a flower

springblossoms“Nothing can exist by itself alone. It has to depend on every other thing. That is called inter-being. … Looking deeply into a flower, we see that the flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower. A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest itself. The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity.” (Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear, pp 47-48)

wpc: earth

wpcearthForest.

Thousands of tree-bodies and mine.

Leaves are waving,

ears hear the stream’s call,

eyes see into the sky of mind,

a half-smile unfolds on every leaf.

There is a forest here

because I am here.

But mind has followed the forest

and clothed itself in green. ~Thich Nhat Hanh*

wjpc-earthpeace

May Peace Prevail On Earth

*cited: Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart

an uncertain weekend

Angry in the ultimate dimension

I close my eyes and look deeply

Three hundred years from now

Where will you be and where shall I be?

~Thich Nhat Hanh*

abnwstudy

While Thich Nhat Hanh’s words are of anger, I believe they also apply to today’s uncertainty in that “…we are living in the most fear mongering time in human history. And the main reason for this is that there’s a lot of power and money available to individuals and organizations who can perpetrate these fears.”

…where fear is about danger that seems certain; anxiety is…”an experience of uncertainty.”

If there is a crack in human psychology into which demagogues wriggle, it is by offering psychological relief for the anxiety created by uncertainty…this is where a good scapegoat comes in; for example, There’ us — real Americans – then there are…”**

May equanimity fill the minds and hearts of all this holiday season and end this dangerous game of brinkmanship.

*cited: No Death, No Fear, Thich Nhat Hanh

**cited: Why We’re Living in the Age of Fear, Rolling Stone