Compassion Poetry

From Frank Ocean--not strictly poetry, but a beautiful statement of compassion. (More the song than the video...)

Great knowledge is all encompassing.  Small knowledge is limited.
Great words are inspiring.  Small words are chatter.
When we are asleep we are in touch with our souls.
When we are awake our senses open.
We get involved with our activities and our minds are distracted.
Sometimes we are hesitant; sometimes underhanded, and sometimes secretive.
Little fears cause anxiety; great fears cause panic.
Our words fly off like arrows as though we knew what is right and wrong.
We cling to our own points of view as though everything depended upon it.
And yet: our opinions have no permanence.  Like autumn and winter
They gradually pass away.
We are caught in the currant and can not return.
We are tied up in knots like an old clogged drain.
We are getting closer to death with no way to regain our youth.
Joy and anger; sorrow and happiness; hope and fear;
Indecision and strength; humility and willfulness; enthusiasm and insolence.
Like music sounding from an empty reed,
Or mushrooms rising from the warm, dark earth
Continually appear before us day and night.
No one knows from whence they come.
Don't worry about it!  Let them be!
How can we understand it all in one day?

I have yet to train

Loving more

Through meditation I gain
a more compassionate core

Yes

I'd love to keep on meditating

And be Blessed

 

May you too be blessed

And may you be a blessing

to others

Mothers, Fathers, Sisters and Brothers

 

Peace

 

I never realized what was going on with Mister Rogers, but he was really quite a guy... The "poetry" bit is a song for children, toward the end.

I've long loved this one.

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Lord, make me
An instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
Oh, divine maker,
Help me to not seek so much
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand.
To be loved as to love.
For it is giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is dying that we
Are born to eternal life.

 My daily affairs are quite ordinary
But I am in total harmony with them.
       I don't hold on to anything,
          I don't reject anything.
   Nowhere an obstacle or conflict.
  Who cares about wealth or honor?!
      Even the poorest thing shines!
My miraculous power and spiritual activity?
      Drawing water.  Carrying wood.

I just found this beautiful and very strange video on bodhicitta by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

What a sweet site!
http://kindworld.tumblr.com/page/3

                    Go placidly amid the noise and haste
                  And remember what peace there may be
                                        In silence.
                    As far as possible, without surrender
                      Be on good terms with all persons.
                      Speak your truth quietly and clearly
          And listen to others; even the dull and ignorant;
                           They too have their stories.
                     Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
                        They are vexations to the spirit.
                       If you compare yourself to others
                        You may become vain and bitter,
         For always there will be greater and lesser persons
                                      Than yourself.
                               Enjoy your achievements
                                  As well as your plans.
         Keep interested in your own career however humble,
        It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
                  Exercise caution in your business affairs,
                          For the world is full of trickery.
                            But do not let that blind you
                                To what virtue there is:
                      Many persons strive for high ideals
                    And everywhere, life is full of heroism.
                                       Be yourself.
                         Especially, do not feign affection,
                           Neither be cynical about love:
             For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
                           It is as perennial as the grass.
                      Take kindly the counsel of the years
                 Gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
                             Nurture strength of spirit
                      To shield you in sudden misfortune.
             But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings;
               Many fears are borne of fatigue and loneliness.
        Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
  You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and stars.
                          You have a right to be here.
                    And whether of not it is clear to you
            No doubt, the universe is unfolding as it should.
                      Therefore; be at peace with God,
                      Whatever you conceive Him to be.
               And, whatever your labors and aspirations
                          In the noisy confusion of life,
                             Keep peace in your soul.
           With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
                             It is still a beautiful world.
                                      Be cheerful.
                                 Strive to be happy.

I am sitting here
In infinity
Listening
to eternity
You are here
with me
together we are
to be

Heard this in a fantastic dharma talk from Spring Washam and it really caught my ear. The poem is called The Great Turning, by Christine Fry:

You've asked me to tell you of the Great Turning
Of how we saved the world from disaster.
The answer is both simple and complex.
We turned.
For hundreds of years we had turned away as life on earth grew more precarious
We turned away from the homeless men on the streets, the stench from the river,
The children orphaned in Iraq, the mothers dying of AIDS in Africa
We turned away because that was what we had been taught.
To turn away, from our pain, from the hurt in another's eyes,
From the drunken father, from the friend betrayed.
Always we were told, in actions louder than words, to turn away, turn away.
And so we became a lonely people caught up in a world
Moving too quickly, too mindlessly toward its own demise.
Until it seemed as if there was no safe space to turn.
No place, inside or out, that did not remind us of fear or terror, despair and loss, anger and grief.
Yet, on one of those days, someone did turn.
Turned to face the pain.
Turned to face the stranger.
Turned to look at the smouldering world and the hatred seething in too many eyes.
Turned to face himself, herself.
And then another turned.
And another. And another.
And as they wept, they took each other's hands.
Until whole groups of people were turning.
Young and old, gay and straight.
People of all colours, all nations, all religions.
Turning not only to the pain and hurt but to beauty, gratitude and love.
Turning to one another with forgiveness and a longing for peace in their hearts.
At first, the turning made people dizzy, even silly.
There were people standing to the side, gawking, criticizing, trying to knock the turners down.
But the people turning kept getting up, kept helping one another to their feet.
Their laughter and kindness brought others into the turning circle
Until even the nay-sayers began to smile and sway.
As the people turned, they began to spin
Reweaving the web of life, mending the shocking tears,
Knitting it back together with the colours of the earth,
Sewing on tiny mirrors so the beauty of each person, each creature, each plant, each life
Might be seen and respected.
And as the people turned, as they spun like the earth through the universe,
The web wrapped around them like a soft baby blanket
Making it clear all were loved, nothing separate.
As this love reached into every crack and crevice, the people began to wake and wonder,
To breath and give thanks,
To celebrate together.
And so the world was saved, but only as long as you, too, sweet one, remember to turn

                 I am.
         The heavens are
          Fresh and open;
              The grass,
           Cool and soft;
               My body
      So sensitive and light,
                  I feel
   The movement of insects
     Beneath my naked feet,
     But, I do not crush them.
           In the image of
               A breeze
                  I see
          The face of time
                Passing.
   Inconsequential because
                  I am.
       In a whisper of color
                  I hear
    The energy of the stars;
      Its existence assured
               Because
                   I am.
       The universe feels
    The atoms of my mass,
Space knows my presence,
I know the character of light;
                  I am.
     Unable to be expelled
             From space
                  I exist:
    Proton, neutron, electron,
   Atom, molecule, and mass;
             E=mc2;  I exist
                 Invincible;
Thought springing from my being
                Immutable.
                 Invincible,
                 Immutable,
        And infinitely existing:
                   I am
                Each one
                   Of us.

It's on his site here, but I've also embedded it below:

This isn't really a poem, per se, nor clearly about compassion. But I do think it fits well enough to keep.

"All the happiness in the world comes from thinking of others.
All the suffering in the world comes from thinking of only oneself."
     These words of Shantideva derive from the experience that, if you concern yourself
with the problems of others, your own problems become diminished.  This is true both in perspective, because you soon realize that many others have more serious obstacles than yours; and in reality, because when you stop focusing on your own difficulties, they lose their mastery over you.  Blessings.