Compassionate Sympathy for Sentient Beings

 

Yutang Lin

 

 

Disciple Fang Xin (Relax) asked for my calligraphy

       To serve as her maxim

Her last name in Chinese is Min

So I wrote    Ci Min Zhong Sheng

       Compassionate Sympathy for Sentient Beings

Fang Xin mounted and framed it

       Hung it on the wall of her living room

And looked at it often to awaken her mind

 

People in the world all have sufferings

If mind is trapped within one's own sufferings

Then there is no way out

And no date of escape from suffering

 

When a Dharma practitioner is enwrapped in personal suffering

It should be used as an opportunity to comprehend

       That all sentient beings have sufferings

       And their sufferings are often much more than one's own

Thus transmuting experiences of suffering into

       Root source of compassionate sympathy for sentient beings' predicaments

Thereby simultaneously extinguish one's inner sufferings

       And transform them into tranquility and clarity

Mind's eye suddenly opens

And compassion and sympathy becomes deeper and wider

 

Compassionate Sympathy for Sentient Beings

       Is not just a slogan

With one's own inescapable sufferings

       It is inseparably intertwined

And yet it has the deep significance and function

Of self-help escape from suffering

And further universal salvation to all beings

May all comprehend its superior applicability

And may we all strive to attain such Bodhicitta

 

 

Written in Chinese and translated on February 12, 2011

El Cerrito, California

 


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