icebergs are buddhist monks

icebergs are buddhist monks i send forth,

released into the world from the great monasteries of the poles.
their mantra is the blue light humming within their frozen cores.
their message is peace and oneness,
but alas they simply vanish.
every year monks leave me and never return.

– yann martel

Read the rest here. (found here via twitter. Thanks Isabella!)

I missed the whole Blog Action Day thing this year (tisk tisk), but this poem fragment reminded me of it and the whole fact of Global Warming. While there is little I can say in this moment, noting that countless wise things have been said, and little in particular I can do, I would like to post a few more photos, specifically of the changing leaves of Glacier National Park, this time in a particularly contemplative mood:

In each leaf, and in each dew drop, countless moments.

What stories might these leaves tell? What teachings? Perhaps to the astute ecologist they might hold warnings. To the Jesuit they may speak of God’s gift, flourishing in every moment. For the Buddhist there may be anicca, impermanence, anattā, not-self, or dukkha, unsatisfactoriness.

Or perhaps,
simple
disenchanted
delight
in beauty.

6. Pare ca na vijānanti, mayamettha yamāmase; Ye ca tattha vijānanti, tato sammanti medhagā.

[And there are] those who do not realize, one day we all must die. And [yet there are] those who do realize this, who cease/calm their quarrels.

– (My rough translation of a verse in the dhammapada, based on Buddharakkhita)

I like, in typical nerd fashion, how Sammati (the singular third person verb found above in its plural third person “sammanti“) can be from the Sanskrit verbal root √śam or √śram, each with its particular, yet related, meaning.

Sammati [śam

Sammati1 [śam; Dhtp 436=upasama] 1. to be appeased, calmed; to cease Dh 5; Pot 3rd pl. sammeyyuŋ S i.24. — 2. to rest, to dwell D i.92; S i.226; J v.396; DA i.262 (=vasati); pp. santa. — Caus. sāmeti to appease, suppress, stop, A ii.24; It 82, 83, 117, 183; Dh 265.

Sammati [śram

Sammati2 [śram; Vedic śrāmyati Dhtp 220=parissama, 436=kheda] to be weary or fatigued. (from here)

There is a poetic appreciation of the sense that it is only when we are weary or fatigued that we really are appeased, calmed, or ceasing [in our otherwise typical hedonic pursuits]. All the more fitting as this section of the Dhammapada employs some military/violent imagery.

And of course this also gets my mind bouncing along toward Sammā, a word familiar to many Buddhists; any at least who have heard the Noble Eightfold Path enumerated in the Pāli. Each “spoke” in that path is about getting things “right” or sammā. However, I have long-since preferred to translate sammā as “balanced” in opposition to micchā as “unbalanced,” which has its own 8-fold path.

… and that reminds me of the movie everyone must see: KOYAANISQATSI: Life Out of Balance.

Which brings us, of course, back to the start of the thought-thread of the night: life. climate. change. words. action. balance. life… words…