OUR ENEMIES SUTRA

by Laurence Musgrove

AI generated graphic from Shutterstock

This evening, the Buddha and I 

sat and scrolled through our phones

before retiring for the night.

I read to him about the latest

retaliation strikes in Syria and Iraq,

and he read to me about our deportation

flights of refugees deep into Mexico

designed to discourage their return

and the hopes of those now streaming

to our razor-wired border.

“It was Thich Nhat Hanh,” he said,

“who wrote our enemies are not people,

but our ideologies, fears, and attachments

to views that justify our ignorance

of cause and effect with absolutely

no guarantee of freedom or peace.

The fires we spread always burn us, too.”

Laurence Musgrove is the author of three poetry collections Local Bird, The Bluebonnet Sutras, and A Stranger's Heart. He teaches creative writing and literature from a Buddhist perspective at Angelo State University in West Texas.

MINDFULNESS

by Mary K O'Melveny

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, was one of the world’s most famous peace advocates, philosophers and poets. He developed the concept of “engaged Buddhism” and worked actively to bring an end to the tragic American war against Vietnam and bring aid to its victims, without taking sides in the conflict. He lived in exile in France for many years and returned to Vietnam in 2005. He wrote more than 100 novels, books of poetry, short stories, essays and religious philosophy treatises, including Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, and The Miracle of Mindfulness. He died on January 22 at the age of 95 at a Buddhist temple in Hue. Kham/Reuters photo accompanying January 23, 2022 “Thich Nhat Hanh obituary” at The Guardian: Thich Nhat Hanh at the Non Nuoc pagoda, north of Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2007.

is the light that shines through

each thought, each act, each breath,

each miracle that makes our world

alive    present   comprehensible

 

each breath forms a bridge

between our body and our mind 

heart and touch   sight and vision

knowledge and understanding

 

if we sit  as Buddha might sit

inhale   exhale   inhale    exhale

we learn from each leaf  each egret

each flowing river  each drop of rain

 

if we walk as if our feet

seeded flowers  our earth transforms

each day is the only day given

to make our peaceful pathway

 

each part of us  is part of all

each idea   each action    bears our name

hope will make each day bearable 

then we can begin to save each other

Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.