I had searched in vain for a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh that I had cut out from a magazine and kept, many years ago, and despaired about not finding this. Yesterday, voila, there it was, ensconced inside the pages of Sri Aurobindo's Savitri.
The Enemy
The enemy is not a person
If you kill people with whom will you live?
The enemy's name is cruelty
The enemy's name is lack of conscience
Its name is hatred, its name bitterness.
The enemy wears a coat of doctrine
The enemy wears the pretence of freedom
It wears hypocrisy, it wears twisted words.
The enemy is not a stranger
It lies inside of each of us.
The enemy's name is false accusation
The enemy's name is ignorance
Its name is ambition, its name is envy.
The enemy's name is covetous eyes
The enemy's name is arrogant head
Its name is a lonely heart, its name is a narrow mind.
The enemy is not a person.
If you kill people with whom will you live?
The enemy is not in the stranger
It lies inside of each of us.
Image: © Yamil Saenz.
2 comments:
"If you kill people with whom will you live?"
Of course the answer is, "You'd have to live with yourself."
It reminds me of a statement made by Abraham Lincoln:
"When I lay down the reins of this administration, I want to have one friend left. And that friend is inside myself."
Happy BlogDay 2008!
I listed your blog as one of my five recommended blogs for BlogDay 2008 at this link.
Keep up the great job! Greetings from Los Angeles.
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