Good morning!
We are now having thunder and rain.
Ryokan made a poem:
A lone pine tree –
If it were human,
How I’d like to loan it
A straw rain hat!
How I’d like to loan it
A straw rain coat!
A lone pine tree –
How lonesome!
After fleeing the triple tragedy of a record earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, the people of Takada Matsubara (Pine Plain) returned to find only a single pine tree, out of 70,000 prior to the inundation, surviving. So they want to save this tree as a “light of hope” for survival, even as it continues to struggle for life amid the lingering effects of the sea water.
If we have truly compassionate hearts, like those of Ryokan and the people of Takada Matsubara, we will not continue to create nuclear bombs, nuclear power, nuclear waste, nuclear radiation, or plutonium – hell king: nuclear bomb material. We must know that we cannot survive without the compassion of trees and truth.
4/19/11