Buddhist Reflections on the Hebrew Psalms: The McLeod Ganj Psalter RSV, Week 2

Buddhist Reflections on the Hebrew Psalms: The McLeod Ganj Psalter RSV, Week 2 September 2, 2022

The McLeod Ganj Psalter RSV, Week 2

Ken Ireland

(Ken was Ivy League and Jesuit trained, and for some years a member of the Society of Jesus. He currently lives in Dharamshala. Ken’s a long time Zen practitioner and a friend. He’s taken an interest in my current deep dive into the Psalms project, and it inspired a poem cycle. This is the second of the cycle, first published at Ken’s Buddha SJ blog and shared here by permission.)

Songs 8 – 10. It was a dark time and we stayed inside, repeating to ourselves as if we couldn’t understand. 

Song 8, On Being Mauled by a bear, a dirge

Song 9, Psalm 119:105: Thy word is like a heat seeking missile

Song 10, Psalm 84:5: The Highway to Zion was washed away last night

Song 11, Psalm 77: Hath God forgotten to be gracious?

 

On Being Mauled by a bear

 

Last winter
The bears came down
Below the snow line.
They were hungry.
Word got out that they were four,
One with cubs.

What went through these women’s minds
when the bear lunged at their face.
They also had a right to go about their business.
I wonder.
Astonished.
I ask myself if I would be brave.

One who lived is a friend of my cook’s wife.
She was up at the well early
To pump water for the day.
She claimed to have put up a fight.
The village was proud.
The strong survival reflex of these mountains.

The Tibetan woman on the kora was not so lucky.
The Dalai Lama should have sent a representative to her cremation.
Her holy work was his.

Psalm 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
Thy word is like a heat seeking missile

Are words paintbrushes or missiles?
In the hands of a poet, scientist, warlord or propagandist
The same word can kill or be a lullaby.

Take the word love,
Misuse it at your peril.
Count bodies on the battlefield
Myriads

Thy words

Hold words with care
Knowing that they can be weapons
Knowing that they will be weapons
When you cross swords
As you will
It’s certain

Cradle words
That will fly
Into the heart of someone
You love
Sling them

Croon words
Into a baby’s ear
With your own voice
Don’t wait for angels

Chant words
With your own breath while you can
At least one word
It will cease

Ponder words
Even in a nasty wrapping

Leave words alone
To do their own work
Without you

Rip up words that
Prop open a door
Onto some landscape
That now needs to fade away

Erase words
Spoken in anger
Or remember them
Until they lose their sting

Check words

That have many translations
Which may very slightly
Or even a lot
Even for you

Be generous.

Psalm 84:5

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.”

The Highway to Zion washed away last night

There are two roads to my house,
But only one that people take.
In 12 years I’ve taken
The road that loops through the army base
On the other side of the ridge,
12 times.

I don’t even think about the road
That winds straight up the hill.
It’s just there.

Then it wasn’t.

I woke up yesterday when Parveen called me to say that it had washed down the hill
All of it.
No more buses with kids coming back from school
No more taxis packing weekenders from the bus station
No trips to bank & grocery
For a few western items

We wonder how long before it will
Be repaired. Rebuilt actually.
A tall retaining wall
To support the weight of concrete against the
Steep ravine.

My Tibetan painter friend says
Two months.
His Holiness rides the road
He is old and can’t die while they wait
For the concrete forms to set
And dry
It is the Road to Zion.

He might die. He knows he will..

I say six months
Even working through the cold of winter.
Even for the Road to Zion.

It was there.
Now it’s not.
Hath God forgotten to be gracious?

Sonam Rinchen sprinkled
Stories of his flight into exile
When he lectured on Shantideva
Freedom is freedom

Geshe-la told us about his extreme acrophobia
Hanging from the cliffs as they crossed the Himalayas.
Knowing that the Chinese were close behind
They had to keep going
He closed his eyes
And with his fingers
Felt for the stone
Beyond the bridge

He said matter of factly
After long months in Tenzingang
Several Tibetans took their own lives
Tibetans never commit suicide
But they did

“The High God retires just the moment I need him.”
It makes no difference that your mother or your lama has
Taught you to smile and be gracious
The favor is not necessarily returned

Ruth didn’t want to translate fire and brimstone stories
Geshe-la insisted
He’d tread a treacherous mountain path
To the camp in Assam
He felt competent to talk about hell
He’d tasted freedom
Psalms 77:7-10 The Message (MSG)

Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare? Has his salvation promise burned out? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stomped off and left us? “Just my luck,” I said. “The High God retires just the moment I need him.”

 


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