A Prayer for Peace
by Thich Nhat Hanh
In beauty, sitting on a lotus flower,
is Lord Buddha, quiet and solid.
Your humble disciple,
calm and pure of heart,
forms a lotus flower with his hands,
faces you with deep respect,
and offers this heartfelt prayer:
Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.
Please have compassion for our suffering.
Our land has been at war for two decades.
Divided, it is a land of tears
and blood and bones of young and old.
Mothers weep till their tears are dry
while sons on distant fields decay.
Its beauty torn apart,
only blood and tears now flow.
Brothers killing brothers
for promises from outsiders.
Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions.
Because of your love for all people,
have compassion on us.
Help us remember we are just one family,
North and South.
Help us rekindle our compassion and brotherhood,
and transform our separate interests
into loving acceptance for all.
May your compassion help us overcome our hatred.
May Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s love
help the flowers bloom again in the soil of our country.
Humbly, we open our hearts to you,
so you may help us transform our karma
and water the flowers of our spirits.
With your deep understanding,
help our hearts grow light.
Homage to Shakyamuni Buddha
whose great vows and compassion inspire us.
I am determined to cultivate only thoughts
that increase trust and love,
to use my hands to perform only deeds
that build community,
to speak only words of harmony and aid.
May the merit of this prayer
be transformed into peace in Vietnam.
May each of us realize this,
our deep aspiration.
This prayer was used throughout South Vietnam in 1965 in the “Don’t Shoot Your Own Brother” campaign to rouse the willingness to work for peace. During meetings of young people, we chanted this poem, uniting our hearts and our efforts to continue to work for peace.
Words of Truth
A prayer composed by the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
Honoring and Invoking the Great Compassion
of the Three Jewels; the Buddha, the Teachings,
and the Spiritual Community
O Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and disciples
of the past, present, and future:
Having remarkable qualities
Immeasurably vast as the ocean,
Who regard all helpless sentient beings
as your only child;
Please consider the truth of my anguished pleas.
Buddha’s full teachings dispel the pain of worldly
existence and self-oriented peace;
May they flourish, spreading prosperity and happiness through-
out this spacious world.
O holders of the Dharma: scholars
and realized practitioners;
May your ten fold virtuous practice prevail.
Humble sentient beings, tormented
by sufferings without cease,
Completely suppressed by seemingly endless
and terribly intense, negative deeds,
May all their fears from unbearable war, famine,
and disease be pacified,
To freely breathe an ocean of happiness and well-being.
And particularly the pious people
of the Land of Snows who, through various means,
Are mercilessly destroyed by barbaric hordes
on the side of darkness,
Kindly let the power of your compassion arise,
To quickly stem the flow of blood and tears.
Those unrelentingly cruel ones, objects of compassion,
Maddened by delusion’s evils,
wantonly destroy themselves and others;
May they achieve the eye of wisdom,
knowing what must be done and undone,
And abide in the glory of friendship and love.
May this heartfelt wish of total freedom for all Tibet,
Which has been awaited for a long time,
be spontaneously fulfilled;
Please grant soon the good fortune to enjoy
The happy celebration of spiritual with temporal rule.
O protector Chenrezig, compassionately care for
Those who have undergone myriad hardships,
Completely sacrificing their most cherished lives,
bodies, and wealth,
For the sake of the teachings, practitioners,
people, and nation.
Thus, the protector Chenrezig made vast prayers
Before the Buddhas and Bodhisativas
To fully embrace the Land of Snows;
May the good results of these prayers now quickly appear.
By the profound interdependence of emptiness
and relative forms,
Together with the force of great compassion
in the Three Jewels and their Words of Truth,
And through the power
of the infallible law of actions and their fruits,
May this truthful prayer be unhindered
and quickly fulfilled.
This prayer, Words of Truth, was composed by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, on 29 September 1960 at his temporary headquarters in the Swarg Ashram at Dharamsala, Kangra District, Himachal State, India. This prayer for restoring peace, the Buddhist teachings, and the culture and self-determination of the Tibetan people in their homeland was written after repeated requests by Tibetan government officials along with the unanimous consensus of the monastic and lay communities.
Prayer of Truthful Words to Pacify the Fear of War
by Thangtong Gyalpo
om mani padmé hung
Victorious Maitreya, sublime and noble Avalokiteśvara,
Ferocious king Hayagrīva, Jetsün Tārā, and the rest –
Buddhas, the mere sound of whose names dispels all fear;
Compassionate sources of refuge, pray grant me heed.
In this time when individuals experience an oceanic surge
Of negative karma and jealousy – the age of fivefold decadence and strife –
As intense suffering, fighting and quarrelling oppress us,
Pray burn it all in the fires of your compassionate wisdom.
Shower the nectar of love
Upon those who fan the flames of hatred.
Bless them to recognize one another as parents,
And thereby usher in auspiciousness and happiness.
May the mischievous elemental spirits
That enter the minds of beings
And instantaneously transform their hosts into warring titans,
Never hold sway in this region again.
May all who have died in battles, fighting and wars
Immediately give up their indulgence in destructive action, cause and effect,
And, having taken birth in the pure realm of Sukhāvatī,
Lead all to that same buddha realm.
May all beings have long, healthy lives,
Be free of quarrels and strife, live according to the ten virtues,
And experience timely rains and bountiful harvests;
And may the auspiciousness of the environment and beings increase exponentially.
May these pure, vast prayers be accomplished
Through the compassion of the Guru, Yidam, and Three Rare and Sublime Ones,
Suchness, which by its very nature is utterly pure,
And the appearance of things, the undeceiving nature of cause and effect.
When war raged in Minyak, Kham, and it looked as if there was no end in sight, for no one was able to pacify the warring factions, the great yogin Thangtong Gyalpo arrived. He generated bodhicitta, and by merely reciting these verses and scattering flowers, quelled the anger and jealousy in the minds of the warring factions so that the conflict came to an end. All came to have bountiful harvests and enjoy prosperity, auspiciousness and peace.
English translation by Sean Price from Lotsawa House.