Beings Are Numberless

Yet I Must Save Them All

Photo by dbelgard

With every breath I take today
I pray to be awake.
And every step I take
I pray to take with a grateful heart,
So I may see with eyes of love
Into the hearts of those I meet —
To ease their burden when I can
And cause no harm or grief.

I published the earliest version of this gatha (meditation verse) in The Mindfulness Bell — the international journal of the Buddhist Tiep Hien Order — in the mid-1990s. It was intended mainly for recitation before early morning sitting meditation