Vulnerable
Zen Lesson 2025 11 19
geese on Neshaminy Creek, the other day.
Over the last couple months a fellow Buddhist teacher and I have been thinking through ways to meet the community, promote Buddhism, and dialogue with other faith traditions. We decided to try to develop something along the lines of a “Floating Poetry Sangha”, which would be an event in different spaces dedicated to writing and reading spiritual poetry, written by oneself or by others.
In that spirit I’ve been looking over these pages, two years of nearly weekly poems, for the readings as yet unscheduled. Here is one from just about a year ago.
(-)
In the Community Zen liturgy we chant the name of the Bodhisattva of change and faith, determination and loyalty. We chant it like a mourning dove. I pity the poor Christians who can’t translate the Sermon on the Mount into their own lives. I often don’t know how these poems will evolve, but lately I have been reflecting on the embrace of cruelty and how strange that must be.
Blessed are the worried as they provoke your concern. Blessed are the suffering as they recruit your compassion. Blessed are the terrified as they invite you into their home. And blessed are the dead. Blessed are the vulnerable, the frightened, those who run. God bless you, you will never, god willing, have need to run. (-) God bless the frightened, watching tv all day. God bless the living rooms that are their birthright. Bless the dreaming dead who will not know what struck them. who will not know what struck them. who will not know what struck them. because they are dreaming because they dream of strangers looking in, so sad, their eyes so large and rimmed with tears for you, you, who is so frightened of them, in a living room of paintings of make-believe sadness.