Multitudes will be liberated by that recognition;
and although multitudes obtain liberation in that manner,
the number of sentient beings being great, evil karma powerful,
obscurations dense, propensities o too long standing,
the Wheel of Ignorance and Illusion becometh neither exhausted nor accelerated.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
translation: Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup
“Free Tibet” your sticker tells me…
Yes, I think, perhaps I should—
and the noble thought compels me,
uninformed, half-understood.
Will their freedom help my Karma?
Upgrade my reincarnation?
(Soul who could not dare to harm a
fly… much less a Buddhist nation.)
Not to justify aggression
by the ever-brutal Commies,
let us grant no glib concession
to the Maoists or their mommies.
Slogans echo in the void,
shining in bardos of the dead;
stopped by the light, I am annoyed
impatient for the change from red.
A bumper crop of human woe
beams forth a mandate to my brain
while red Dakinis circle slow
in Buddhist hells of karmic pain.
The eastern concepts here diverge
and bow before brutality.
They make this driver long to merge
with incorporeality.
Then I glimpse a monkish fellow
swathed in saffron, calmly seated.
His, the cloud-borne sage’s pillow;
mine the traffic; stalled, defeated.
In his gaze of stern displeasure
I perceive the orient stars
calculating man’s mismeasure
trapped, exhausted, among the cars.
Flanked by Spirits wreathed in fire
he extends an accusing hand:
Western slave of base desire:
come and liberate my land !”
I meditate before the stop light:
am I ready for the task ?
Should I just refuse it outright
Can’t it be someone else ? I ask…
Must I free this mountain nation
from the Buddha, demons and Reds?
Shall your sticker’s declaration
shatter the yoke and raise their heads ?
Somebody ought to free Tibet,
and heed this Himalayan cry.
Maybe we should get upset…
The red light changes. Cars pass by,
predestined for benign events
and unconcerned for persecution;
oblivious to dissidents
awaiting execution.
CONNECT/HOOK 
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall arise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. And these are the beginning of sorrows…” -Matthew 24:6-8
As for the bumper sticker? (I hate being lectured by bumper stickers…) I think it says more about the person’s self-righteous but glib declaration of what an “aware” and enlightened being he thinks he is while understanding little to nothing about global dynamics. As unjust as it all is the same people who want to get out all wars in the Mid and Near East want to invade Tibet and/or China? Nice sentiment, stupid politics.
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Ha ha – exactly ! “Glib”.
The word sums up their values on so many simultaneous levels.
The more simplistic slogans on the bumper, the higher the glib factor ! Thanks for reading, Dave.
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