A Prayer in Honor of Service Personnel Killed in Action

By Category: PrayersTags: ,

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!
With sadness, pride, and gratitude,
We would like to honor service personnel
Who have given their lives to save others.
We have seen them file onto ships, climb into
The cockpits of fighter jets, and
Join long convoys.
With a final salute, they disappeared
From our vision, and from our lives.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!
In order to save the country and its people,
These troops sacrificed themselves.
Their lives and heroic spirits will go down in history.
In order to complete their missions,
They engaged in dangerous action with bravery and loyalty.
The undaunted courage and wisdom left in their wakes
Are enough to startle the universe and move all beings.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!
These service personnel sacrificed their lives for their homeland.
Please bless them with your loving-kindness.
May they be reborn in the upper realms.
May they return to the earth by taking vows.
May their bereaved families receive proper support.
May their descendants learn of their brave deeds.

Oh Buddha!
We want to eulogize the aspirations
Of the brave service personnel who gave their lives.
Yet, we must also denounce those
Who attempt to expand their domination,
And bring great suffering to people.
We condemn the actions of those who drive their ambitions
Over the lives of innocent victims.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha!
We pray that we learn wisdom of your teachings.
May all humankind coexist peacefully.
May all sentient beings in all dharma realms be as one family.
In the future, may the world
See no tyrants who burn, kill, and plunder,
And create no warriors to face each other across vicious weapons.
In the future, may the world
See only compassionate, generous people,
And consist only of beings who enjoy peace and happiness.

Oh great, compassionate Buddha,
Please accept our sincere prayer!
Oh great, compassionate Buddha,
Please accept our sincere prayer!

This was originally published in Pearls of Wisdom: Prayers for Engaged Living II, written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun.

Image from Pixabay.


A Moment and an Eternity of the Mind
What is the fastest thing in the universe? Of course, everyone knows it is light, which moves at three hundred thousand kilometers per second. However, in Buddhism, the fastest thing is not light but a person’s mind. The speed of mind is several hundred times faster than light and is not limited by time and space. In a flash you can think of Li Bo, Read more
Friendship
In the Buddha’s teachings, there are four kinds of friends: friends who treat you like a flower, friends who act like a balance, friends who are like the mountains, and friends who are like the earth.Friends who treat you like a flowerWe all enjoy flowers, especially when they are fresh. We put them in vases to decorate our homes, we give them to our loved Read more
Walking, Standing, Sitting, and Resting
“Walk like the wind, stand like a pine, sit like a bell, and rest like a bow.”This basic etiquette not only applies to Buddhists; everyone should practice it as well in daily living.When we first meet a person, we can tell the level of his/her education and cultivation by his/her manners. We know how refined a person is by the way he/she speaks and conducts Read more
Make Buddha Images in This Very Mind
Why should people create Buddha images? Did the Buddha really want everyone to make images of him and worship his body?In truth, the purpose of creating the Buddha images is not to create symbols for worship. Buddha images are reminders that “the mind is the Buddha,” and that everyone has Buddha nature. Buddha images also remind us to frequently recollect the virtues of the Buddha Read more
Ridding Ourselves of Stress
In this modern world, people are constantly saying, “Life is too stressful!” Why are people so stressed out? How can we rid ourselves of stress? Students feel stressed because of heavy schoolwork; parents feel stressed because they have too many chores and family obligations; policemen feel stressed because they have too much work; and workers feel stressed and are unhappy because their work hours are Read more
Greed: The Cause of Suffering
Though the worlds that we see are fundamentally a product of our own minds, they usually do not appear this way to us. Like images in an intense dream, our perceptions appear to be wholly real to us, and not to have been generated by our own mental activity. For this reason, the Buddha taught many ways to help us comprehend the true nature of Read more
I Am Not a Monk “Sponging Off” Buddhism (III)
It is my hope that our Buddhist monks will all become monks who give support in all directions and not become monks who live off all directions. Whoever it may be, the monastic followers or the lay disciples, although we have not yet attained enlightenment, we can still broadly make affinities with others first, so as to become aspiring bodhisattvas who will ensure that “Buddhism Read more
Music and Buddhism
Music gives us the capacity to express deep emotions. Whether through holy hymns or chants of praise, music is capable of uplifting the mind to an almost sublime state. As such, it has a significant role in the promotion of religion.All Buddhas and bodhisattvas are very skilled in utilizing music to teach the Dharma and guide sentient beings to enlightenment.Music has a very important function Read more
Repentance
It is only through loving-kindness and compassion that we can find room in our hearts to forgive others. It is only through our willingness to let go of resentment that we can find a way to magnanimity.  Read more
Keeping Distance
We sometimes see signs on the highway warning: “Keep a safe distance.” Actually, it is not only in driving that we need to keep a distance. For safety reasons, any person and anything in the world needs to keep a distance.Take, for instance, the human body. Our eyes, nose, and mouth all need to keep a distance from one another. Our internal organs all have Read more
Patience and Persistence
Being patient is an art, and being persistent is a kind of hope. Influenced by today’s instant culture, modern people tend to expect instant results in anything they do. Practitioners want to have attainment in this life, scholars want to become instant laureates in their fields, and entrepreneurs want to gain a huge fortune overnight. As the saying goes, “A flower picked before its time Read more
Transformed by the Precepts
The Buddhist precepts are here to protect us from wrongdoing, lead us away from what is bad, and towards what is good. Vinaya Master Daoxuan of the Tang dynasty composed the Simplified and Amended Handbook of the Four-Part Vinaya [Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshi Chao], in which he analyzed the precepts in terms of their “rules,” “essence,” “practice,” and “characteristics.” When one puts the actual rules Read more