A letter from Thay

All over the world we are also waiting for the spiritual leaders in the United States to stand up to provide that spiritual leadership, in order to end quickly the suffering and loss of lives in Iraq. Spiritual leaders should stand up simultaneously with a clear voice to help wake the people up and show them the way. When the people have a clear vision, and the people have made up their minds, then the government has no choice but to follow. The war in Vietnam ended because of the awakening of the American people at the time.

On October 6th 2007, when we had a day of mindfulness for 1,800 psychotherapists in the University of California in Los Angeles, the monks and nuns of Deer Park and Plum Village put on the Sanghati robes after the Dharma talk, chanted May the Day Be Well and evoked the name of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara to send energy to the monks and lay practitioners in Burma. The governor of California and his wife also came to attend that whole day of mindfulness.

UNESCO reported that each day about 40,000 children die because of hunger or lack of nutrition. Meanwhile, corn and wheat are largely grown to feed livestock (cows, pigs, chickens, etc.) or to produce alcohol. Over 80 percent of corn and over 95 percent of oats produced in the United States are for feeding livestock. The world’s cattle alone consume a quantity of food equivalent to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, more than the entire human population on earth. Eating meat and drinking alcohol with mindfulness, we will realize that we are eating the flesh of our own children.

If our human race continues to live in ignorance and in the bottomless pit of greed as at present, then the destruction of this civilization is not very far away.

Read full letter here from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. (PDF file) Blue Cliff Monastery was founded in 2007 and is located near Pine Bush, NY.