Listen! Oh my babies…
When I saw the people without a teacher, drowning in the sea
of birth and death I was moved to spare them, to spare them from wandering in
the sorrows of false-narrative, from falling under the waves of desire…dissolute
and abandoned.
I saw the people fettered to their possessions, to their families, to their fears and aspirations not knowing how to set them aside, and I was moved to aid them, for they were harming themselves and others, with hand and heart and tongue; the seeds they planted in the field of their ambition, they flooded with foul water…gleaning the bitter fruits of their desires.
I saw the people longing for happiness, without understanding what happiness is or how to prepare the conditions for its eventuality; I saw the multitude recoiling from pain, without understanding the source of their suffering or knowing how to prepare the conditions for its acceptance, and I was moved to show them the way; for they sought the peace of the divine but would not follow the path which led to it…the path that had always before them.
I saw the people in fear of birth and rebirth, old age and death, the fear for heaven and the fear of hell, yet still pursuing the path that leads to these, all- while remaining ignorant of their ultimate end; I was moved to console those who were burning in the fires of pain and sorrow, to show them how to find relief through za-zen[i], and the waters of samadhi.[ii]
When I saw the people living in an era of injustice, subjected to the tyranny of kings and potentates, while suffering hardship and disease of both body and mind, yet heedlessly following after the pleasures of the moment and the trivialities of the marketplace, I was moved to remain with them in this age of war and the cheapening of human life, the dehumanization of our sisters and brothers that results in the wounding, killing and enslavement of one another…to walk in the way and establish it path before them.
I could see conflagrations of hatred raging in the hearts of the people, like consuming fires—fed by the bellows of deceit and conceit, and knew the people were doomed to pay an endless retribution of suffering, and I was moved to compassion, because the wealthy and poor alike hoarded things they could not bear to give away: the writer at her desk, the farmer at the plough sowing seed, merchants buying and selling in the marketplace, accumulating the bitter-dregs of life’s duress.[iii]
Pity the fool...[iv]
[i] Zazen is a traditional form of seated meditation that forms the heart of Zen Buddhism
[ii] Samadhi, a deep state of meditative absorption and mental oneness
[iii] A transliteration by Big Sugar Buddha, of The Buddha’s Pity, from The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha: Early Discourses, The Dhammapda and Later Basic Writings, edited with commentary, introduction and notes, by E.A. Burtt, revised and updated bibliography, Penguin U.S.A., A Mentor Book, 1982, pp. 240-241
[iv] Mr. T.