Photo by Mitch Doshin Cantor founder of the Southern Palm Zen Group
The power of peace is a deadly assault weapon it kills hatred, it kills fear, it kills amorous, it kills the feelings of not being good enough, not smart enough, not rich enough …the power of peace, love and compassion is more powerful than any hatred in the world it can break down any walls that anyone wants to build.
So if we really want to make a difference in this world let us join together in peace, love, and compassion. Let us take our intelligence and drive and put it behind food, shelter, and electricity for those in Puerto Rico and around the world who are dying and suffering from natural disasters, wars, and starvation caused by global warming.
Let us put it behind creating a country where all people have the right to vote. Let us get rid of mass incarceration in America, mass discrimination in America, mass drug addiction in America and most of all mass hatred in America!
We can do it through the only way possible…through peace, love, and compassion. Inside each and every person is a little child crying and screaming for the love of their parents the feel of a hug and a kiss on the cheek. That’s all we really want in life. We simply want someone to love us!
Can you be that love for someone today?
Metta (Loving-Kindness) Sutra
By Shakyamuni Buddha
May all beings be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle, or low realms of existence, small or great, visible or invisible,
near or far, born or to be born,
May all beings be happy.
Let none deceive another nor despise any being in any state; let none
by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should
one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire
world, above, below, and all around without limit;
so let each cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole
world.
‘The Southern Palm Zen Group (Boca Raton)
Beyond Prayer 9…Metta: goodwill and loving-kindness
Posted in administrators, bombing airplanes, Buddhaghosa, campus unrest, cause and effect, chant, death, discrimination, diversity, education, Ethics, extinct species, fears, happiness, hate speech, human race, Kazuaki Tanahashi, love, meditation, Metta, Metta Prayer, oppression, planet earth, prayer, prison system in America, protesters, religion, sexual assault, Shambhala, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary on November 13, 2015| 2 Comments »
Kazuaki Tanahashi, in his book, Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary, writes this:
As we watch the news each evening and see the students on campuses around the country protesting for things that I thought would not still exist in 2015: hiring discrimination, race discrimination, hate speech, unresponsive administrations, sexual assaults, and more. Each of these protesters want for themselves the list of things we recite in the first verse of the Metta and they also want it for everyone else on planet earth. And thus, we chant for them in the second verse.
We can add those in the prison system in America and those in the Middle East who are being killed and bombed in their countries and homes, and in airplanes flying through the air after a family vacation. As a human race we need to work at learning how to live together with our diversity and cultures and religions or we will soon be an extinct species and all that will be left are the birds, the bees, and the trees.
Besides chanting this verse each and every day with love and passion, what can you do each day in your families, homes, workplaces and communities? Think small or think big but please think and then act. You just may save someone’s life. You never know.
May you be happy and find ways to share your happiness with everyone you meet.
In gassho,
Shokai
[1] Tanahashi, K. (2015) Zen Chants Thirty-Five Essential Texts with Commentary. Shambhala: Boston & London
[2] Ibid.
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