Can You Hear Mother Earth?

In this special message from Sister Chan Khong, she asks, “Can you hear Mother Earth?

In this excerpt from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, we learn of the desperate situation we are in.

Monterey Bay Aquarium 2012, Photo © Jerome Freedman

Please wake up, my children, and see what you are doing. Your atomic bombs have laid waste to billions of precious lives, even the most fragile life forms and micro-organisms, across vast swathes of silent desert and open ocean. You have cut down and set fire to my forests, and poured toxins into my atmosphere and waters. You have sliced out my mountains and precious earth to search for fossil fuels, gold and bauxite.

Your nuclear power plants, and factories of chemicals and steel have released radioactive waste into my waters and poisoned my earth. My body reeking and twisting with pain has brought forth storms and tornadoes, floods and hurricanes. I am a living earth and my quakes and volcanoes express my life-force, and my pain.

Today I am suffocating in the deep waters off the coast of Viet Nam. Billions of fish, dolphins, sharks, shrimps, crabs, and exotic rare species from the depths of the ocean, have been washed ashore, dead and lifeless, across 140 miles of coastline in Vietnam, from Ha Tinh along the coast of Quang Binh, and the coasts of Thua Thien and Da Nang Quang Nam.

What terrible poisons have you poured in my waters? There is only one great ocean and poison in one ocean is poison in my whole body. The South China Sea is also the Pacific Ocean, it is the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

My dear children, please listen! These beautiful fish are also your brothers and sisters, they are also crying for your help. If living species in the oceans are dying, how long will you last? Please remember, my beloved ones, that you cannot take any steel, gold and bauxite with you when you die. [Read More…]

Sister Chân Không (Cao Ngọc Phượng)
Eldest Sister of the Order of Interbeing, on behalf of the 4,217 monastic and lay members of the Order

Won’t you please read the whole article on the Plum Village website and tell me what you think of the four calls to action at the end of the article?