Great bodhisattvas
arrive at consummate skill in means;
they are always concerned with the welfare of all
sentient beings, they do not reject the realm of common
ignorance, do not seek individual escape, do not cling to their own
happiness. They only strive to edify and liberate others; they are
able to enter and exit meditations and liberations, and have
attained mastery of all concentrations. They come
and go in birth and death as though
roaming through a park,
never getting sick
of it.
How
amazing it is
that all people have this but
cannot polish it into bright clarity.
In darkness unawakened, they
make foolishness cover
their wisdom.
Darkness
cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that. Hate cannot
drive out hate; only love
can do that.
January 15, 1929 ~ April 4, 1968
The grounds
for hope are in the shadows,
in the people who are inventing the world
while no one looks, who themselves don’t know yet
whether they will have any effect, in the people you have
not yet heard of who will be the next Cesar Chavez, the next
Noam Chomsky, the next Cindy Sheehan, or become something
you cannot yet imagine. In this epic struggle between light and dark,
it’s the dark side — that of the anonymous, the unseen, the officially
powerless, the visionaries and subversives in the shadows —
that we must hope for. For those onstage, we can just
hope the curtain comes down soon and the
next act is better, that it comes more
directly from the populist
shadows.
