30 October 2020 - Bhante Sangharakshita's death anniversary online with Adhisthana
adhisthana.org/sangharakshitas-death-anniversary-day-programme-2020/
30 October 2018
With great sadness, we announce the death of Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and the Triratna Buddhist Community.
26 August 1925 - 30 October 2018
adhisthana.org/sangharakshitas-death-anniversary-day-programme-2020/
30 October 2018
With great sadness, we announce the death of Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and the Triratna Buddhist Community.
26 August 1925 - 30 October 2018
In rememberance
Links to talks and videos
Buddhist Centre Online Link
Live streaming on Facebook
Instagram link
Four Gifts
I come to you with four gifts.
The first gift is a lotus-flower.
Do you understand?
My second gift is a golden net.
Can you recognize it?
My third gift is a shepherds’ round-dance.
Do your feet know how to dance?
My fourth gift is a garden planted in a wilderness.
Could you work there?
I come to you with four gifts.
Dare you accept them?
Secret Wings
We cry that we are weak although
We will not stir our secret wings;
The world is dark – because we are
Blind to the starriness of things.
We pluck our rainbow-tinted plumes
And with their heaven-born beauty try
To fledge nocturnal shafts, and then
Complain ‘Alas! we cannot fly!’
We mutter ‘All is dust’ or else
With mocking words accost the wise:
‘Show us the Sun which shines beyond
The Veil’ – and then we close our eyes.
To powers above and powers beneath
In quest of Truth men sue for aid,
Who stand athwart the Light and fear
The shadow that themselves have made.
Oh cry no more that you are weak
But stir and spread your secret wings,
And say ‘The world is bright, because
We glimpse the starriness of things.’
Soar with your rainbow plumes and reach
That near-far land where all are one,
Where Beauty’s face is aye unveiled
And every star shall be a sun.
The Bodhisattva's Reply
What will you say to those
Whose lives spring up between
Custom and circumstance
As weeds between wet stones,
Whose lives corruptly flower
Warped from the beautiful,
Refuse and sediment
Their means of sustenance –
What will you say to them?
That woman, night after night,
Must sell her body for bread;
This boy with the well-oiled hair
And the innocence dead in his face
Must lubricate the obscene
Bodies of gross old men;
And both must be merry all day,
For thinking would make them mad –
What will you say to them?
Those dull-eyed men must tend
Machines till they become
Machines, or till they are
Cogs in the giant wheel
Of industry, producing
The clothes that they cannot wear
And the cellophaned luxury goods
They can never hope to buy –
What will you say to them?
Or these dim shadows which
Through the pale gold tropic dawn
From the outcaste village flit
Balancing on their heads
Baskets to bear away
Garbage and excrement,
Hugging the wall for fear
Of the scorn of their fellow-men –
What will you say to them?
And wasted lives that litter
The streets of modern cities,
Souls like butt-ends tossed
In the gutter and trampled on,
Human refuse dumped
At the crossroads where civilization
And civilization meet
To breed the unbeautiful –
What will you say to them?
‘I shall say nothing, but only
Fold in Compassion’s arms
Their frailty till it becomes
Strong with my strength, their limbs
Bright with my beauty, their souls
With my wisdom luminous, or
Till I have become like them
A seed between wet stones
Of custom and circumstance.’
Links to talks and videos
Buddhist Centre Online Link
Live streaming on Facebook
Instagram link
- Poems by Bhante:
- full poems are shown below
- Four Gifts
- Secret Wings
- the Bodhisattva's Reply
- full poems are shown below
- Mantras which Bhante asked to be recited after his death:
- These pages contain links to the mantras
Four Gifts
I come to you with four gifts.
The first gift is a lotus-flower.
Do you understand?
My second gift is a golden net.
Can you recognize it?
My third gift is a shepherds’ round-dance.
Do your feet know how to dance?
My fourth gift is a garden planted in a wilderness.
Could you work there?
I come to you with four gifts.
Dare you accept them?
Secret Wings
We cry that we are weak although
We will not stir our secret wings;
The world is dark – because we are
Blind to the starriness of things.
We pluck our rainbow-tinted plumes
And with their heaven-born beauty try
To fledge nocturnal shafts, and then
Complain ‘Alas! we cannot fly!’
We mutter ‘All is dust’ or else
With mocking words accost the wise:
‘Show us the Sun which shines beyond
The Veil’ – and then we close our eyes.
To powers above and powers beneath
In quest of Truth men sue for aid,
Who stand athwart the Light and fear
The shadow that themselves have made.
Oh cry no more that you are weak
But stir and spread your secret wings,
And say ‘The world is bright, because
We glimpse the starriness of things.’
Soar with your rainbow plumes and reach
That near-far land where all are one,
Where Beauty’s face is aye unveiled
And every star shall be a sun.
The Bodhisattva's Reply
What will you say to those
Whose lives spring up between
Custom and circumstance
As weeds between wet stones,
Whose lives corruptly flower
Warped from the beautiful,
Refuse and sediment
Their means of sustenance –
What will you say to them?
That woman, night after night,
Must sell her body for bread;
This boy with the well-oiled hair
And the innocence dead in his face
Must lubricate the obscene
Bodies of gross old men;
And both must be merry all day,
For thinking would make them mad –
What will you say to them?
Those dull-eyed men must tend
Machines till they become
Machines, or till they are
Cogs in the giant wheel
Of industry, producing
The clothes that they cannot wear
And the cellophaned luxury goods
They can never hope to buy –
What will you say to them?
Or these dim shadows which
Through the pale gold tropic dawn
From the outcaste village flit
Balancing on their heads
Baskets to bear away
Garbage and excrement,
Hugging the wall for fear
Of the scorn of their fellow-men –
What will you say to them?
And wasted lives that litter
The streets of modern cities,
Souls like butt-ends tossed
In the gutter and trampled on,
Human refuse dumped
At the crossroads where civilization
And civilization meet
To breed the unbeautiful –
What will you say to them?
‘I shall say nothing, but only
Fold in Compassion’s arms
Their frailty till it becomes
Strong with my strength, their limbs
Bright with my beauty, their souls
With my wisdom luminous, or
Till I have become like them
A seed between wet stones
Of custom and circumstance.’
