In the early 1980’s, in the early Reagan years, when the nuclear threats were rattling and the country was sinking into economic troubles, I went to a peace gathering in a burned-out section of Camden, New Jersey. The neighborhood seemed to have neither street lights nor street signs, so I followed the sound of the bells to the Roman Catholic church. I went in through the kitchen door. Inside, a homeless family sat around the table, helping their kids with their homework.
They directed me to the sanctuary, where I found Viet Nam vets still young in their suffering, African American residents of the Camden parish, Vietnamese refugees including Thich Nhat Hanh’s birth brother, and a scattering of suburban peace workers like me. Blankets kept the cold winds from blowing through the chinks in the brick walls. Everything seemed darkened with incense, candle smoke and city soot.
When Thich Nhat Hanh sat down to give his address, the chair broke under his slight weight. He stood calmly as the young priest brought him another chair, and then he began to speak.
I was born to suffering.
I will not escape suffering.
I was born to sickness.
I will not escape sickness.
I was born to pain.
I will not escape pain.
I was born to death.
I will not escape death.
Everything and everyone I love and cherish today
,
I must part from tomorrow.
There was more—but it is those words I remember. Even in my suburban affluence I was having a hard time that autumn, and it felt liberating to “get it”—suffering is a part of life, not something that can be avoided. I went home, kept working and suffering and saying those words all winter.
In the spring, I went with my mother to see the cherry blossoms by the Tidal Basin in the national capital. People walked around photographing each other in front of the blossoms, and generals buzzed overhead in their helicopters, but no one seemed to be looking deeply at the flowers. An old tree called me over, and I looked through a hole into the trunk. There, deep inside, in the heart of the old tree, white petals were blooming in the dark.
And so, I realized, a new set of words had blossomed in my heart, inside the words Thich Nhat Hanh had said:
I was born to joy.
I will not escape joy.
I was born to health.
I will not escape health.
I was born to pleasure.
I will not escape pleasure.
I was born to life.
I cannot escape life.
Everything and everyone I love and cherish today,
I will love and cherish today.
Twenty years later, on Easter Sunday, a friend brought me to her Catholic church in Camden. As we drove through the streets, the neighborhood seemed familiar, though flooded with morning light instead of darkness. The vacant lots were filled with community gardens. Some houses had been rehabilitated, and others had “Habitat for Humanity” signs in the front yards. The church stood with the original walls and the same bells ringing, but the grounds were filled with flowers, and inside, the woodwork gleamed white and gold, the walls covered with solid plaster. The faithful of the neighborhood and beyond gathered for communion and a baptism. The young priest had gray hair, after twenty years of faithful and loving service.
I was born to death.
I cannot escape death.
I was born to life.
I cannot escape life.
Every thing and every one I love and cherish today,
I love and cherish in each shining moment,
knowing we will part tomorrow.
______________________________
In this moment, let us love and cherish all beings, every thing and every one.