"Prayers for Peace"

A Prayer for Peace

BY Thich Nhat Hanh

In beauty, sitting on a lotus flower,

is Lord Buddha, quiet and solid.

Your humble disciple,

calm and pure of heart,

forms a lotus flower with his hands,

faces you with deep respect,

and offers this heartfelt prayer:

Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.

Please have compassion for our suffering.

Our land has been at war for two decades.

Divided, it is a land of tears

and blood and bones of young and old.

Mothers weep till their tears are dry

while sons on distant fields decay.

Its beauty torn apart,

only blood and tears now flow.

Brothers killing brothers

for promises from outsiders.

Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.

Because of your love for all people,

have compassion on us.

Help us remember we are just one family,

North and South.

Help us rekindle our compassion and brotherhood,

and transform our separate interests

into loving acceptance for all.

May your compassion help us overcome our hatred.

May Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s love

help the flowers bloom again in the soil of our country.

Humbly, we open our hearts to you,

so you may help us transform our karma

and water the flowers of our spirits.

With your deep understanding,

help our hearts grow light.

Homage to Shakyamuni Buddha

whose great vows and compassion inspire us.

I am determined to cultivate only thoughts

that increase trust and love,

to use my hands to perform only deeds

that build community,

to speak only words of harmony and aid.

May the merit of this prayer

be transformed into peace in Vietnam.

May each of us realize this,

our deep aspiration.

the Middle East

A Prayer for World Peace

By Venerable Master Hsing Yun

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!

As your students and followers,

We are sincerely kneeling here before you;

Please listen to these words from our hearts;

The rumbling of wars between nations,

The clamor of discord between people,

The roar of greed in the rapids of craving,

The growl of hatred among races.

These sounds are

Like tidal waves storming against our hearts!

The sound are

Like hurricanes pounding against our hearts!

As we observe all of this,

We realize that all human suffering

Originates from our self-conceit, prejudice, and

delusion.

As we contemplate all of this,

We realize that all worldly turmoil

Is caused by our attachment to things, Dharma

and relationships.

Disagreement between different people

Has caused so many arguments;

Discrimination between different races

Has caused so many disasters;

Intolerance between different religions

Has caused so many misfortunes;

Conflict of interest between different nations

Has caused so much chaos and upheaval.

Living in this kind of world,

Every day we live in fear, with no ease;

Every day we live in senselessness, with no

peace.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!

Please listen to our sincere prayer:

We sincerely wish that, in this world, there be:

No jealousy, only admiration;

No hatred, only harmony;

No greed, only generosity;

No harm, only achievement.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!

Let people of different ages

Live in harmony;

Let people of different social stations

have mutual respect;

Let people of different professions

Work in cooperation;

Let people of different religions

Practice with tolerance.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!

You once said,

"The mind, Buddha, and all sentient beings

Are no different from one another."

"You, I, and others are all equal."

We need to learn from you the wisdom

To close the distance between self and others;

We need to learn from you the selflessness

To eliminate all of our attachments;

We need to learn from you the truth

To resolve the confrontations between races;

We need to learn from you the compassion

To reconcile the conflicts between nations;

We need to learn from you the Buddha light

To illuminate the darkness of the world.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!

Please hear my sincere and pious prayer!

Please bestow peace upon the world!

Please bless all sentient beings with harmony!

Oh great, compassionate Buddha,

Please accept our sincere prayer!

Oh great, compassionate Buddha,

Please accept our sincere prayer!

Namo Shakyamuni Buddha.

"Hwadu & Lojong"

.

Hwadu & Lojong can intertwine and combine for effective practice into seeing your true nature and cultivating bodhicitta--the mind of compassion for all beings. Hwadu uses a question such as "What is this that's chanting the Buddha's name, driving a car, bowing, etc. We keep the hwadu with us at all times to lead us to the great Don't Know, where conceptual thought is seen as useless if nothing else. You can't conceptualize your way into awakening. And practicing hwadu can lead to the Sudden Awakening of our tradition. We also talk of Gradual Cultivation. Water isn't boiling until ity hits the boiling point, and then suddenly in that instant, it is boiling. In order to keep it at the boiling point, we have to keep the heat on, cultivating that bodhicitta and awakened state.

Lojong uses slogans, somewhat like a mantra or hwadu, but where hwadu and mantras are generally a single phrase, lojong uses "slogans," 59 of them in fact. The preliminary to through the ultimate slogans are used to keep that heat on. We start with compassion for all beings, then specific beings. Deep and systematic reflection on the four points of choice, impermanence, karma, and dukkha can keep the heat on. It helps us meet new situations with compassionate mind.

Hwadu helps the awakened mind arise, and lojong helps it grow more and more.

Dae'An Citta gave the Dharma talk at One Mind Zen on October 18, 2023.

"Faith Heart Inscription"

To see that It’s All Good is easy 

If you don’t care too much one way or the other.

If you don’t cling or reject or experience emotional extremes,

None of it is hidden; it is all obvious.

Stray from this the tiniest amount

And you’ve missed it by a mile.

If you want to get to the truth

Then don’t think you know what’s true and what’s false.

To decide that what you agree with is true

and what you disagree with is false 

Is just delusional thinking.

When you decide you know what is true,

You’ll drive yourself crazy when confronted by “false.”

When you see that it’s all good as it is, is to see its reality.

 When we cling to our beliefs, and think they are truth

and reject others because they are false, 

We show our own ignorance.

Don’t mistake forms as permanent,

And remember impermanence doesn’t mean nothing matters.

Be at ease with how things go, and the dis-ease disappears by itself.

Trying to achieve the No Mind by thinking is an error.

When you all you see is difference, you miss your primary point.

Those who don’t maintain “Don’t Know Mind”

are trapped by making opposites.

Deny that a glass of water is a glass of water, you go thirsty.

Contend that a glass of water is always a glass of water 

And you forget to fill it.

Thinking and talking only make opposites.

Listen and maintain ‘Don’t Know Mind” and the world is open.

Strip away the opposites, and what’s left is pure.

But start to care about appearances and achievements,

and what’s pure gets muddled.

To see this purity even for a second, goes beyond opposites.

All things are constantly changing,

and to give them any permanence is ignorance.

Don’t go searching for answers, just stop making assumptions.

It’s difficult to stop making opposites;

It’s a hard habit to break.

If “Don’t Know mind” is lost

There will only be confusion.

The 10,000 things arise from one,

But don’t think about “one” as a concept.

When you can see that it’s all good,

There’s nothing that isn’t good.

When everything is good,

old habits of making opposites is gone.

When there is “Don’t Know”

The habit of “I Know” is gone.

Let go of opposites, and even the concept of Don’t Know is gone.

When “I think” and “I know” are gone, the concepts are gone.

Thinking of “you” creates the concept of “me:”

Thinking of “I” creates a separate “you.”

“You” and “I” aren’t false or true, they’re just a part of reality.

And in this reality, they are not the same or different.

If not creating the opposites of rough or smooth,

You will see it’s all good.

“Good” is just another word for open,

And open is neither hard nor easy.

Relying even on the concept of “I know”

Is just a hindrance.

To have a closed mind that makes awake separate from any other state

Misses the point of “awake.”

To have an open mind is to be unattached.

And to see it’s all good is to be unattached.

And when you see that it’s all good is to be free.

But when you’re not free, everything is closed and confused.

And making opposites is just making things difficult,

So why bother with overthinking if that makes life difficult?

But don’t get it twisted; don’t think words and ideas are bad.

To see that they’re just a part of life as-it-is Is to see all things as they are.

Thinking there’s something more than just this

 is to create more opposites that make more difficulty.

There are no opposites and creating them is just ignorance.

To be under the impression that you can think your way into awakening is the biggest problem.

Searching frantically for what’s already there creates problems.

“Just being” is enough.

Opposites come from troubled thinking.

They are as real as the stars you see when you rub your eyes.

To try to hold them is impossible. 

Don’t think you are right and the other is wrong.

Don’t think there’s a hole where there isn’t one, that's just an illusion.

When you’re awake, the illusions stop on their own.

If you don’t invent differences,

The 10,000 things share the same root.

To understand this is to be freed.

When freed, the common root is everywhere.

Trying to divide the single root is like trying to divide mercury,

it can’t be done.

When all is still, it’s only still and not more than that;

There’s no need to invent movement.

When there is only light, there’s no need to invent dark.

And even the concept of light is unnecessary.

There aren’t concepts before thought.

When there’s even no concept of one root, 

The concept of separate is also nonexistent.

The troubles that doubts have caused you vanish,

Leaving only unnamed reality.

When freed from these doubts, you cling to nothing.

It’s all good, and there’s no need to think about it.

When acting before thought, self and other disappear from the world

“as it is.”

To realize this, act without making opposites 

When you don’t make opposites, all things are one thing.

“All” is just “all” with no exclusions

When you awaken to this,

You have realized this unity.

Reality as it is has no size or space,

And is dependent on nothing related to physical form.

Beyond and before thinking, everything is just as it is,

And you see clearly.

You see that large and small, green or yellow, now or then

Are just made by thinking, and these names are irrelevant.

If you see this irrelevance,

You also see existence and non-existence

are also just opposites created by thinking.

Second-guessing this point or arguing about it

or trying to realize it as a concept

Is to just trying to grab air.

When there are no opposites, “All” is just “all.”

in the ultimate reality there is only one thing.

When you realize the lack of opposites,

this includes the concept of perfect and imperfect being irrelevant

When you trust that It’s All Good,

You realize the true nature of reality.

There is no language before thought,

It’s all good from moment to moment.

Defining the boundary of one moment to the next is impossible.

Accept but do not settle.

Reinterpretation of Richard Clarke’s translation of Third Zen Patriarch Sencan’s  verses--“Xinxin Ming”

1 & 2 Same or Different

How many of us live in a world of duality--sticking to concepts such as right & wrong, good and bad? How many of us even see that as a problem, or even give it a second thought? Those can be very convenient concepts in everyday life. When asked to explain how to transcend duality so that the whole picture is evident, Vimalakirti responded with silence. Was this response a dualistic choice between using words or silence? On one level, yes. That was his response to the question of "or." The totality of his response could be said to be dialectic rather than dualistic--non-dualism and dualism that comprise two parts of a whole, where silence and sound are not two, and not one. One is an aspect of the other, which is ineffable, indescribable, incomprehensible, and vice versa. 

Duality is an aspect of non-duality, just as birth and death are an aspect of no-birth and no-death. The cells in my liver are different from the cells in my heart, but there is no agreement that while different, they are both aspects of the body as a whole. This body is and aspect of an ecosystem, the ecosystem part of the planet, the planet of a solar system, galaxy, and so on. Can any of them be separated out in a way that is all-encompassing? 

In the vast open field we call "emptiness," there are aspects of void, and aspects of infinite possibilities where nothing is the same nothingness. To contend that dualism is wrong and non-dualism is better is just another example of dualistic thinking. But this dualism is merely and aspect of all the possibilities within reality. When we see both the voidness and openness of "emptiness," we see the whole picture, where the response is "    ." But/and you already know this.

Robert Koho Epstein gave the Dharma talk at One Mind Zen on October 4, 2023.