The Buddha’s Invitation – a poem
More than 10 years ago I started writing this poem about Faith, Human Revolution, the Mentor-Disciple spirit and relative and absolute happiness. The picture shows Nichiren Daishonin in 1271 before an unsuccessful attempt by government soldiers to decapitate him. Just as the axe was about to fall, a luminous object, thought to be a comet, shot across the sky, brightly illuminating the beach at Tatsunokuchi. Terrified, the soldiers called off the execution. Nichiren taught that this event was actual proof of the Buddhist principle of casting off our transient identity and revealing the true nature of our lives – Buddhahood. Dx
THE BUDDHA’S INVITATION
Will you come to eternity’s tentative edge
then teach the world of its unspoken power?
Will you plunge filthy waters with only your faith
then fly to the heavens on hope’s thinnest breath?
Will you squeeze yourself through to the middle of you
yet still keep a space for those who might hate you?
Will you sit with the scream at the core of your soul
and then share your song with those who might love you?
Will you dive, will you run
Will you rise with the sun
Will you laugh, will you weep
Will you chant till you sleep?
Will you fashion your future from garbage and grit
yet keep one hand free for those who would hold you?
Will you bet all you have on an unfancied truth,
then share your raw wisdom with those once were brave?
Will you cast off your shackles, your comforts, your props,
Will you scrap sweet illusions for a Law that could break you?
Will you trade your bravado for slivers of faith
Will you silence your mind just to follow your soul?
Will you give up your status, your perks and your pride,
Will you join me in exile, where many have died?
Will you strip bare the critic, the cynic, the fool,
All the roles you have played, all the clichés, the rules?
Will you sit with the tramp, and the thief and the whore,
Will you keep giving hope when they ask you for more?
And if I stand by your side on this grand Treasure Tower…
Will you smile, will you shine
Will you say what you saw?
Will you dance, will you chant,
Will you promise me more?
Will you risk, will you write
Will you make a new Vow?
Will you stand, will you fight
Will you come with me now?
David Hare
10 January 2014