Hanh Nhat - Love Letter To The Planet

A
Love Letter
to
the Planet

THICH NHAT HANH

PARALLAX
PRESS

Berkeley, California

Contents

Dear Mother,

I bow down before you with utmost respect and the clear awareness that you are present in me and that I am a part of you. You gave birth to me and provided me with everything I needed for my nourishment. You gave me air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and medicinal herbs to heal me when I was sick. Because you gave birth to me once, I know that you will continue to give birth to me again and again in the future. That is why I can never die. Each time I manifest, I am fresh and new; each time I return, you receive and embrace me with great compassion. You are the great Earth, you are Terra, you are Gaia, you are this beautiful blue planet. You are the Earth Refreshing Bodhisattvayears. You have numerous children, millions of species amongst which the human species is just one. Many of us humans, blinded by greed, pride, and delusion, have been unable to recognize you as our Mother. That is why we have caused so much suffering to one another and have damaged your health and your beauty. We know that you have enough energy to embrace and transform our mistakes. But our deluded minds continue to push us to exploit you and create conflicts. This causes you a lot of tension.

Mother, you are a great realized being, a great bodhisattva. You are not only a mother to us all, but you are the mother of countless buddhas, saints, and bodhisattvas. Our root teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, was a child of yours. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and the Virgin Mary were also your children. The matriarch Lieu Hanhto educate others, to help them, and to protect you. There are those of us who have been able to investigate and seek to understand distant galaxies, as well as our own Milky Way and the planets of our solar system, thus helping you deepen your communication with them. We know that your relationships with the planets, especially with the Sun and the Moon, are already harmonious. You rotate smoothly and interconnectedly with them to create the rhythmic cycles of day and night and the four seasons. We are aware that you are one of the most beautiful and precious bodhisattvas in the universe. We are also aware of your virtue of great patience. That is why we can wholeheartedly take refuge in you and have total confidence in you.

YOUR JOURNEY OF EONS

You manifested more than 4.5 billion years ago, and life began to manifest on you less than one billion years later. Since then, you have gradually become the beautiful living planet that you are today. Life evolved from deep within the oceans, multiplying and prospering on your body, slowly improving the atmosphere so that countless species could manifest. After one billion years, there was enough free oxygen in the atmosphere to create the ozone layer, which then prevented harmful radiation from reaching your surface, thus allowing life to develop on land.

In the first few hundred million years, you overcame great challenges to create an atmosphere capable of sustaining life. You had to release great heat and expel great fires and gases from your volcanoes. Steam was released from your crust, becoming water vapor in the atmosphere. Along with water and ice from other small protoplanets and meteorites, the water vapor helped you create the great oceans. Greenhouse gases trapped heat from the Sun and kept the oceans from freezing. Your gravity helped to anchor the life-sustaining atmosphere, and your magnetic field prevented it from being stripped away by solar winds and cosmic rays. But before even forming the atmosphere, you had to endure a collision with a great heavenly body, almost the size of the Red Planet. Part of the impacting planet became you; the rest of it, along with part of your mantle and crust, became the Moon. Dear Mother, the Moon is a part of you, as beautiful as an angel. She is our aunt. She always follows you, tugging at your sleeve, helping you to slow down, helping you to keep your balance, and creating tidal rhythms on your body.

TOUCHING THE EARTH

Your immeasurable patience and endurance has made you a great bodhisattva, a solid place of refuge for us all. Every time we are unstable, every time we lose ourselves in forgetfulness, sadness, hatred, or despair, we feel the need to go back to you and practice touching the Earth. Touching you we find a refuge; we reestablish our peace, regaining our joy and self-confidence. We know that we are all your children, and even though we make many mistakes, you always forgive us. Every time we return to you, you are ready to open your arms and embrace us. Thanks to you, we realize our nature of no-birth and no-death. You store in yourself vast treasures of energy in various forms. We vow to utilize these treasures skillfully so that they wont dry up, so that you wont need million of years to meticulously replenish them.

Respected Mother, wherever there is soil, water, or air, you are there. You give us life and nourish us. If we nurture the awareness that we are always in you and you are always in us, then both of us are peaceful, happy, healthy, and strong. But because some of us are not able to see this truth, we lose ourselves. We lose the capacity to recognize that our physical bodies are also your body. Our minds are filled with confusion or drifting in dreams, forgetting the precious gift that was given to us by you. Therefore, we make the vow that from now on we shall take every step in mindfulness. We will be clearly aware that we are placing our feet on the Earth, so as to be in touch with you and with all the wonders of life manifesting on you. We know that mindful steps like these have the capacity to nourish us, heal us, and bring us in contact with you in the present moment. You are the Pure Land

Our teacher, who was also a child of yours, attained the Way at the foot of the bodhi tree. He accepted this place as his true home. We want to continue his career, making the vow to remain with you throughout countless lifetimes, offering you our talent, strength, and health so that many more bodhisattvas can continue to rise up from your soil. Each time we sit in stillness on Mother Earth, we will be aware that you are in us. We make the aspiration to embody your great virtues: the virtues of solidity, perseverance, patience, and forbearance; the virtues of depth, endurance, and stability; the virtues of great courage and non-fear; and the virtue of inexhaustible creativity. We vow to practice wholeheartedly to realize these virtues. We know that you have already sown these potentials as seeds in the soil of our hearts and minds.

THE EARTH IS US

The manifestation of each of your children is beautiful, and each contributes to your beauty. A clear lake, a green pine, a pink cloud, a snow-capped mountain-top, a fragrant forest, a white crane, a golden deer these miraculous manifestations of life are all your children, and each one of them enhances and magnifies your beauty. Your children include millions of species, each with its own language. Since you are our Mother, you understand all these languages, including the languages of humans. You are a planet, Mother of all beings, and not just of humans; therefore we feel very at ease every time we talk to you and offer you our prayer. We are all your children, and at the same time we are you, for you are fully present in each one of us.