“to live with awakening and compassion”
In this beautiful talk about nature, Thich Nhat Hanh hits on a lot things. But for me, his message of eternal awakening and compassion is fundamental. I put his letter to Mother Earth to voice and text to help more out there, find his message.
This morning, I went for my daily long cycle. It’s stifling, so hot and humid - I have to get up at 4am to catch some minor dip in temperature. But it is nice because it is so quiet and peaceful and I’m blessed by seeing the change of night into day, this magic trick happening right before my eyes!
It’s a time for me to think. I used to do this on my long runs but now, the bike will have to do. Time has us all in her chains.
When I say “think” I don’t mean it in the normal sense of the word, a controlled mental form of gymnastics. No. For me, my thought is more about being “in” the world and removing the barriers of “self”. Karmayoga.
That happens as I take in the world around me, as I cycle along. I hum, I repeat lines of songs, I stammer and undergo a chain of associations inside. Meaning is created and the path that is meaning is a path that embraces everything else. I am somehow made whole again.
So, the key to being alive in your precious time and space, here and now, is noticing and living “in” the world. Not apart from it, as a distant observer, sterile examiner. Your world should not be a whirl on silver wheels.
I’m reminded of Bruce Cockburn and his Silver Wheels. A much unrecognized Canadian artist. One of the good guys, good ones. His name brings back many good memories. Without his guitar, an immensely shy man but with his guitar and voice, fearless. I wonder where Bruce would say, the lions are today?
The skin around every city looks the same
Miles of flat neon spelling well known names
Used trucks dirty donuts you you're the one
Fat wheeled cars squeal into the sun
Whirl on silver wheels
We have corrupted our world, our own lives by following the errant path of dualism, falling down the Cartesian rabbit hole of separation between us/nature. Tat Tvam Asi - the Sanskrit for “That - You Are” is an essential learning, a learning we repeatedly need to learn on the way to unity and Brahman. Too much of our life, without Mother Earth is a shattered life, a life divorced from the source of all knowing and being.
“In our present attitude the natural world remains a commodity to be bought and sold, not a sacred reality to be venerated.”
― Thomas Merton, When the Trees Say Nothing: Writings on Nature
Living “in” the world means to forsake the hubris of Aristotle and materialism. We are not, nature is not - inert matter but living spirit. Unity is activated and energized by compassion. For if all things are related, connected, one … we must have compassion for all living things. It is the way of the bodhisattva.
At the end of my ride, I was returning and nearing the hellish city and box in the sky where I’m currently living. Building 103. 12th floor.
I took a small path through some rice fields (the fields all have these concrete roads through them, so farm machinery can get to them) and at its end was a kilometer long barn of ducks. Just ducks. The bottom of the wall was wired, so I could see inside, a huge, continuous field of ducks. For 3, 4, 5 minutes I rode along, them looking at me, me looking at them. In compassion. I knew they’d soon be someone’s supper. Connecting. We all play our role.
I didn’t need to understand as so often we want to do. No asking the question “Why is the world so?” No. I just needed to live and enter their spirit through the magic of compassion and the door of dear Mother Earth. A door that is always there for us to walk through.
I got home and phoned my mother, my mother of the here and now. For me, she is still the child of the earth, the hippie on the homestead where she still resides. Always at peace in her garden, among her goats, pruning her plants and flowers, feeding her birds. She was always full of connection with nature, connected through a deep compassion. I thank her for modeling this, this, her 85th birthday.
I have two mothers. All of us are born twice. Once to a mother in the temporal realm, once to a mother that is eternal.
By Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear Mother Earth,
EACH MORNING WHEN I WAKE UP you offer me twenty-four brand new hours to cherish and enjoy your beauty. Every miraculous life-form–the clear lake, the green pine, the pink cloud, the snow-capped mountaintop, the fragrant forest, the white crane, the golden deer, and the extraordinary caterpillar–each one has been born from you. So too has every brilliant mathematician, every skilled artisan, and gifted architect. And looking deeply I can see that it is you who are the greatest mathematician, you the most accomplished artisan, and you the most talented architect of all. A simple branch of cherry blossoms, the shell of a snail, or the wing of a bat–each bear witness to this amazing truth. It is my deep wish, dear Mother, to live in such a way that I am awake to each of your wonders, and nourished by your beauty. I cherish your precious creativity, and I smile to this gift of life.
We humans have talented artists, 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 dusk? 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 along your hazardous journey of eons? We have many great love stories, but who among us has love as immense as your own, embracing all beings without discrimination?
Dear Mother, you have given birth to countless buddhas, saints, and enlightened beings. Shakyamuni Buddha is a child of yours. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and yet he is also the Son of Man, a child of the Earth, your child. Mother Mary is also a Daughter of the Earth. The Prophet Mohammed is also your child. Moses is your child. So too are all the bodhisattvas. You are also mother to eminent thinkers and scientists who have made great discoveries, investigating and understanding not only our own solar system and Milky Way, but even the most distant galaxies. It is through these talented children that you are deepening your communication with the cosmos. Knowing that you have given birth to so many great beings, I know that you are not mere inert matter, but living spirit. You are yourself a great being, a bodhisattva. It is because you are endowed with the capacity of awakening that all your children are, too. Each one of us carries within us the seed of awakening, the ability to live in harmony and with your deepest wisdom–the wisdom of interbeing.
But there are times when we have not done so well. 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 ourself. There have even been times when, through ignorance and unskillfulness, we have underestimated, exploited, wounded and polluted you. That is why I make the deep vow today, with gratitude and love in my heart, to cherish and protect your beauty, and to embody your wondrous consciousness in my own life. I vow to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before me, to live with awakening and compassion, and so be worthy of calling myself your child.
Dear Mother Earth