Mar 12, 2017
Sister Mai Nghiem shares her practice of recognizing, embracing and transforming suffering. She also shares the teaching of the noble eight fold path, the four nutriments, including how different types of relationship are nutriments.
Sister's Mai Nghiem poem:
☀ Why i don t want to be call an ally,
☀
Ally
From the moment i first heard the word, i got allergic to
it...an ally allergy.
Why?
Well, the first thing is that in my french brain, "les alliés",
as we call them, are the good Americans and British soldiers
coming to save us from the evil Germans.
Word of war, violence, and partisan conflicts.
But deeper than that, my brother, if you call me an ally, i'll
get offended.
Why?
'cause i expect you, to have a higher expectation of
me.
I expect you to expect me to fully embrace who i am.
I expect you to expect me to break open,
I expect you to expect me to show my shit with no
shame
This is why i do not want to be an ally
'cause i don t wanna help
I don t wanna be the "good intentionned white folk" feeling so
bad about it all
...and yet so disconnected...
For as long as i don't understand how ignorant i am
There is no hope
As long as i don't see myself as a slave merchant, a fanatic
missionary or a murderer
There is no hope
As long as i refuse to understand how an entire society can see
going on a "picnic" as being a pleasant family outing
There is no hope
As long as i shut my body and mind to the unspoken, unknown,
unfelt yet raging pain of a human whipping an other human to
death
There is no hope
For as long as i keep greed, money, power, fame and sex
as the only gods in my life
There is no hope
No hope for any of the rainbow children on our beautiful
Blue Mother
I heard the Earth whisper one day, that "Fearlessness is not
the absence of fear but the willingness to walk into it".
This is what my white ancestors are asking me to do:
"Walk right into the darkness,
Right into the thick mist of whiteness
And free us from our ignorance
Heal our ancestral wounds....
Centuries of hatred, pride, discrimination, fear and
violence.
Who will hear our cries for help if not you?
Who will quench our thirst for true amendment if not
you?
Who will deliver our souls from the chains of guilt if not
you?
For as long as true healing isn't taking place,
Suffering will remain the world's pace".
This is the voice of the ancestors begging for our courage and
love,
Echoing the Angel's song
"It is the willingness to offer our best,
claim responsibility for our worst and
fold it all into the continuous moment to moment practice
of
simply being present to what is,
that promises to deliver our future".
That's why i don't wanna be an ally
...I wanna a be a healer
I am grateful for your poem, Sister Mai. This morning I read it before sangha and was overcome with tears of joy and the heartfelt way you shared your desire to be a healer much more than an ally. Merci beaucoup!