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I was reading Thich Nhat Han's commentaries on the Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion and he shared a really nice poem that I thought I'd pass on here. He wrote it for the members of the School of Youth for Social Service during the Vietnam War as a guide for their work. He says that even though they were working for peace, both communists and anti-communists believed them to be working for the enemy and would treat them as such.
"Promise Me,
Promise me on this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:
Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember you and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.
The only thing worthy of you is compassion -
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.
One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.
Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine,
guiding my way."
He also mentions that as he reread this poem later on he suddenly understood the Diamond Sutra.
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