Every meal weaves Miracle; water, sun and soil are its threads.

Though my knife could end a creature’s life to continue mine, I have chosen a gentler line.

The heart on its hinge swings in the wind; bangs open, bangs closed, welcomes you in.

I eat with silence as though silence were my kin.

Together, or alone, a meal weaves Miracle; water, sun and soil the moment’s thread.

Panch Ratan “Five Jewels” Dal A home-made dal is food for a king, or queen (and you are worthy of the crown)

As I stood under the shower’s spray this evening, allowing the warm water to wash away the day’s dust and travel, I found that as the dirt left me, so did peace and security.

I looked at my hands, and as I passed them along my arms, I suddenly felt an urgency, emergency, imagined I was rushing to remove an invisible poison – radioactive decay – that had collected on my skin and sifted through my clothing, as I sat cowering inside my home, whose chinks and gaps would never be airtight, whose doors and windows were designed to breathe as a human breathes, to move air in and around me so that I might have fresh oxygen to light my blood and to quicken my pulse.

In 1995, one of America’s respected spiritual leaders, Ram Dass, interviewed Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh about anger, about violence, and about the simple ways (not easy, but simple) in which each of us may live better, supporting a peaceful home, peaceful neighborhood, and peaceful nation. While it lasts, the interview from YouTube is linked below. I have transcribed the text, which can be found after the video.

RD   You spoke the other day about holding anger, and emotions like that, in a tender way. Could you speak a little bit more about that?

A walk through the Boston Common in the fall of 2005. Our nation was still numbed and dumbed into the facile acceptance of a war that was not a war; a police action where no one managed the police; an act of mercy where there was no mercy.

The only way to follow such a course of action is to dehumanize, and in doing so, you remove the humanity not only of government, but of the people as well. You cannot kill without denying the Other is a mother like you, a father like you will be, a child that you would have then lose. You cannot kill without simplifying a people and a language, a religion and a region. On the Common green there were heaps of shoes of all sizes and shapes, women’s shoes and children’s, men’s and grandfathers’; mounds of shoes without number, because the faceless cannot be counted.

Many Buddhist traditions share a specific practice for opening the eyes, opening the eyes of the heart. 

If you follow the path of enlightenment that Gautama Buddha walked, one who wishes to be free of entangling thoughts and desires – desire for the next and better car, the other better house, a different and better partner – makes an active attempt to embrace impermanence. Meaning: one does everything in his or her power to realize that this life passes with the snap of the fingers, that much of our effort comes to no result, and that in our hurry we often miss opportunities for seeing what truly has value.

The heart is torn by wind. When the heart-wind rises, true words are taken and replaced with falsehoods. That is the way of the wind. It is harder for the one afflicted, even, than it is for those he or she accosts: the heart is torn by wind, and the words and deeds which proceed from that turbulence further nothing.

Some words that helped me tonight…

“Being in harmony does not mean that we do not disagree or make mistakes and miss opportunities to understand one another. It means that we are doing our best and there is no division or split within the Sangha. We are sincerely practicing the way of liberation and peace for ourselves and for each other. We never forget our commitment to each other, our commitment to ourselves to practice mindfulness night and day, dwelling happily in the present moment. That is the teaching of the Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone. Harmony is our daily practice; it is our most essential practice.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Joyfully Together

There are many pleasant notions that present themselves, on one’s walk through any given day, present themselves like flowers holding their faces to the summer sun… should you choose to look at them, they are there. 

To disemburden the heart requires practice, however, and patience, as well as a disciplined mind to keep cloud or eclipse away from those moments of ease. Cloud will come, of course, it always does – let it come, but in five minutes, I am busy with a flower – which makes it all the more important to remember sun, flower, embrace, release, and renewal, to remember that they exist, or risk ingratitude for the gift of life.

The boys are taking numbers
to stand in line again
born with an open hand
which of them will be men today
and draw a card that wins?

They’re looking for a future
looking for their rising star
to shine above the fields
a voice shouts from the doorway
“C’mon in, boy, you’re hired.”

They say that in my country
when the market’s weak there’s war
and our coin is thin, my friend
dig a grave for the bravest ones
in endless waves of sand