poem – bearing witness

A Blessing for The Journey

A Buddhist Prayer

Let us vow to bear witness to the wholeness of life,
realizing the completeness of each and every thing.
Embracing our differences,
I shall know myself as you,
and you as myself.
May we serve each other
for all our days,
here, there, and everywhere.
Let us vow to open ourselves to the abundance of life.
Freely giving and receiving, I shall care for you,
for the trees and stars,
as treasures of my very own.
May we be grateful
for all our days,
here, there, and everywhere.
Let us vow to forgive all hurt,
caused by ourselves and others,
and to never condone hurtful ways.
Being responsible for my actions,
I shall free myself and you.
Will you free me, too?
May we be kind
for all our days,
here, there, and everywhere.
Let us vow to remember that all that appears will disappear.
In the midst of uncertainty,
I shall sow love.
Here! Now! I call to you:
Let us together live
The Great Peace that we are.
May we give no fear
for all our days,
here, there, and everywhere.

by Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao

A poem by Thich Nhat Hanh

The poem perfectly reflects the spirit of bearing witness.

Please Call Me By My True Names

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

More about Thich Nhat Hanh and also this poem see on website of plumvillage

https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem/

Evi Gemmon Ketterer wrote these lines after her Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz Birkenau with the Zen Peacemakers in 2013. It was published later in the book „Pearls of Ash and Awe“. The book includes some testimonies and reflections from other retreat participants and gives some background. This is in appreciation of the 20 years of Bearing Witness in Auschwitz with Bernie Glassman and Zen Peacemakers.

Auschwitz – a Place of Cruelty and Hope

by Evi Gemmon Ketterer

In 1942

none had the vision

that in the gas chamber at Auschwitz

a German Zen Buddhist woman

would take an American male Rabbi

in her arms

till he stops crying and comes back to life.

In 1944

none had the vision

that an American male Rabbi

and a German Zen Buddhist woman

would sit behind the fence together

both sobbing and bearing witness

to those inside the fence

exposed to the new victims arriving

seen as prisoners while they knew the destiny

of those walking on the road of death.

In 1945

none had the vision

that an American male Rabbi

would comfort a German Zen Buddhist Woman

in her heartbreak about those liberated

who had to find a way back to life

by telling her stories of his family history

and their mastery of survival.

In 2013

it happend.

Let´s not deny the evil and cruelty of this place

nor the good and love that arises here.

We would deny humanity.

(2013)

More about Evi Gemmon Ketterer see on her website: https://brunnenhofzendo.ch/

The book “Pearls of Ash & Awe” is published by Edition Steinrich

http://edition-steinrich.de

A Poem by Mary Oliver

The poem is like a reminder of bearing witness to life.

A summer day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Pearls of Ash and Awe

I wrote these lines after my first Bearing Witness retreat in Auschwitz Birkenau with the Zen Peacemakers in 2014. It was published a year later in the book „Pearls of Ash and Awe“. The book includes some testimonies and reflections from other retreat participants and gives some background. This is in appreciation of the 20 years of Bearing Witness in Auschwitz with Bernie Glassman and Zen Peacemakers. The editor is Kathleen Battke. Thank you Kathleen for your effort in compiling this!

Matzes of Humanity. Fragments of Life

by Svenja Hollweg

First the fear, then the war, now annealed into our Human cells: the seemingly eternal mode of attack no defense.
So much, so convinced of something,
That we turn blind for what is, for the human being, the situation that is present.
Concealment through predominance of concepts.
The unconceivable hell is possible. As man.

Suddenly, in the middle of acting.
Like frozen.
Missend – missed as a human being.
Remaining stock-still.
Incomplete.
Silent.
In the middle of a breath humanity is
halted –
extinguished –
paused –
fixed
…
Breathing out is missing.
Deep cultures are slowed down. Peoples ´soul full of pain.
Human-Culture fragmented Frozen in the middle of a breath.
Giving space to the stories of the past. Listening to the stories of now.
A call for breathing out:
Breathe, humans!
Breathe for all these humans
Out with them
So that time gets moving!
„We ´ve all eben together before
Dancing in starlight upon the same shore
Soul weavers of sound and light
Gather together once more“ *
Peace-making – parts and the whole.
And in this ist is as of I ´d walk the ground of my Self.
Everything inside of me
Through me, through
In Auschwitz-Birkenau I picked up an acorn.
During the retreat I held it in my hand, in my coat pocket.
After a couple of days, the acorn burst open.
The Skin.
Through warmness.
Will to live, tender vitality, joyfull forwardness
One might think that in a place like this, nothing would eher grow again,
And now there ´s a green sprout, insistently welling up from its paring.
What now? This sprout indeed wanted me to act
I gave it a pot, gave it garden mold and water
And surprisingly – I now take care of a little oak tree
Promising a whole forest
Peace-making – parts and the whole.
I will dare to advance further into the mazes of humanity.
I believe it is worthwhile, because I sense there ´s more than just a confusing labyrinth.
A new culture, in case.
In silent days I can see it grow and hear it breathe
Breathe humans!
Breathe for all human beings
Out with them
So that time gets moving!

*a Song from Hawaii

More about Svenja Hollweg see on her website

https://svenjahollweg.de

The book “Pearls of Ash & Awe” is published by Edition Steinrich

http://edition-steinrich.de