25 December 2006

Let heaven and nature sing

Today, I shall meditate on Kuan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of compassion, and offer a Buddhist prayer.


kuanyin
May all be filled with joy and peace.
May all beings everywhere,
The strong and the weak,
The great and the small,
The meek and the powerful,
The short and the long,
The subtle and the gross:

May all beings everywhere,
Both seen and unseen,
Dwelling far off or nearby,
Being, or waiting to become:
May all be filled with lasting joy.

Let no one deceive another,
Let no one anywhere despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resentment
Wish suffering to anyone at all.

Just as a mother with her own life
Protects her child, her only child, from hurt,
So within yourself let grow
A boundless love for all creatures.

Let your love flow outward through the whole universe
To its full height, depth, and broad extent,
Then, as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a onepointed mind:
Your life will bring heaven to earth.

Translated by Stephen H. Ruppenthal
Source: From "The Path of Awakening:
Passages for Meditation."
Copyright (c) 2004 by Stephen H. Ruppenthal

4 comments:

Bridget said...

This is so beautiful, it made me cry! What a lovely post, thank you, Melanie.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the holiday season.

Nana Sadie said...

Lovely, just lovely - are our religions so terribly different - we all want the same thing: Peace!
I do not understand fighting in the name of religion...
(((hugs)))

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful prayer!! Thank you for your kind comment on my blog Melanie...it helped a lot.

xo Heather

gfh said...

Beautiful - just lovely. Thank you and peace,
-adrienne:)