Dear ones,

Asked yesterday to reflect on the election from a Buddhist perspective—same broad prompt as 2020, but a far more torturous process in 2024—this piece emerged.

I’d almost forgotten that I wrote an analogous piece four years (a lifetime?) ago, but this past weekend, after watching Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan’s jaw-dropping performance of 13 TONGUES, prompted to share poetry at the online Roots & Refuge gathering lovingly held by Holly Hisamoto, I reached once more for Hojoki: Visions of a Torn World.

If I could have chosen the image to accompany “Metta is not for Wimps,” with its Aaron Lee–inspired title, I wouldn’t have picked a solitary Guanyin statue, but a group of people cloaked in iridescent robes, moving in ways human and more-than-human, earth-bound and heaven-bent and everywhere in between, screaming and laughing, weeping and silent, mad and curious, chanting and yelling, alone and together, changing their world stage with every sound and gesture...

In the rawness of this week, these lines from Hojoki have been an anchor:

My heart knows
my strength’s limit
and makes me rest when I am tired.
I work again when ready.

May you be supported by those who celebrate your strengths and honor your limits. May you rest when you need, and work when it enlivens.

With love and gratitude,

~Chenxing