A Prayer for Peace

A Prayer for Peace

From unawareness of the open source

Thoughts of self and other arise

Resting on the false ground

Of imagined inherent existence.

Imagining myself to be real, and

Looking at others as mere resource

I select and reject in order to

Develop and maintain my identity.

With my sense of who I am

Others are deemed to be friend or enemy.

This ego-self seeks unimpeded mastery, and

Resistance is taken as insult and proof of guilt.

This deluded and deluding patterning

Imposed on ever-fresh occurrence

Is the root cause of war and conflict,

Of denigration and absence of empathy.

All appearances are empty of inherent existence.

Attributions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are applied to rainbows and clouds.

The unborn ungraspable is our source,

Our radiant field, and our apparitional dance.

May the light of the Buddhas’ love

Shine into the hearts of both

The fearful and the fearsome

Dispelling the dualistic reification that traps them.

Buddhas, please dissolve the dark night of entities

With the dawning of awareness of non-duality.

May we live in the bright day of awareness and emptiness,

Clarity and emptiness, appearance and emptiness.

In this timeless now may we all

Abide in peace, love and collaboration.

May the radiance at the heart of all beings

Soften their ego-shells and let the light of love shine forth.

James Low, February 2022.

The painting of James Low was done in 2022 by Jiří Král 2022 of Turkey.

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