Scott McClellan, President Bush's former press secretary,has written a book criticizing his former boss. In the book, McClellan claims that Bush lied to the American people before this country went to war. In fact, Bush could not articulate when McClellan asked, if the war was necessary or not. Bush simply went along with his advisors. Most Americans think Bush misled the country. This is the first time a friend of Bush has written a book publicly saying so. The name of the book is What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.
President Bush will be remembered for the Iraq War. Thich Nhat Hanh is known as a man of peace. He is a Buddhist monk who saw his country, Vietnam, ravaged by military combat. He was Chair of the Buddhist Peace Delegation to the Paris Peace Accords during the Vietnam War. Thich Nhat Hanh was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr. He has authored many books including Peace Is Every Step and Being Peace. This man has dedicated his life to teaching people how to resolve conflict peacefully. He has also worked to heal the suffering that armed conflict brings. Nhat Hahn published a collection of his poems. His book of poetry is Call Me By My True Names. I Met You in the Orphanage Yard and Interrelationship are two poems from that book.
I Met You in the Orphanage Yard
Your sad eyes
overflowed
with loneliness and pain.
You saw me,
You turned your face away,
Your hands drew circles
in the dusty ground.
I dared not ask you
where your father or mother was.
I dared not open your wounds.
I only wished to sit with you a moment
and say a word or two.
O you small ones
of four or five-
your life buds already cut off,
already engulfed
by cruelty, hatred and violence.
Why? Why?
My generation
my cowardly age,
must shoulder the blame.
I'll go in a moment,
and you will remain
in the shabby yard.
Your eyes will return
to your familiar yard
and your fingers will draw again
those small circles
of pain
in the dusty ground.
Interrelationship
You are me, and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we "Inter-are"?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.
I support you;
you support me.
I am in the world to offer you peace;
you are in the world to bring me joy.
Getting physical
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Training sessions have been going really well these past few weeks. I
swim, lift, and run on my own (or with the masters swim team) during the
week, and o...
12 years ago
1 comment:
Thich Nhat Hahn wrote moving and beautiful words. Perhaps in the yin and yang of life we have to know war to know peace. I don't know. I know the world is becoming more desensitized to pain and suffering. People want deeper pressure in their massages so that they can feel something, and they have reached a point in their lives where all they can feel is pain. At the opposite end of the spectrum are people who don't want to feel. There are people that don't care for relaxing music that is composed to help lower the heart rate. They become very aggitated when things slow down or the space they are in becomes too quiet. I think that is because they don't want to feel, because when you really allow yourself to feel then things can rise to the surface that many of us spend years and much hard work and energy trying to keep suppressed and then we think because we have managed to keep these things buried that we have been successful at controlling our emotions and our lives, but the junk keeps trying to come to the surface and when it doesn't then illness is often the result.
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