by Laurence Musgrove
AI generated graphic from Shutterstock
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This evening, the Buddha and I sat and scrolled through our phones before retiring for the night. I read to him about the latest retaliation strikes in Syria and Iraq, and he read to me about our deportation flights of refugees deep into Mexico designed to discourage their return and the hopes of those now streaming to our razor-wired border. “It was Thich Nhat Hanh,” he said, “who wrote our enemies are not people, but our ideologies, fears, and attachments to views that justify our ignorance of cause and effect with absolutely no guarantee of freedom or peace. The fires we spread always burn us, too.”
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Laurence Musgrove is the author of three poetry collections Local Bird, The Bluebonnet Sutras, and A Stranger's Heart. He teaches creative writing and literature from a Buddhist perspective at Angelo State University in West Texas.
We should all get a message from the Buddha each evening.
“…the Buddha and I sat and scrolled through our phones…” great line!