Dear Mother Earth, a Lunar New Year prayer

Dear Moth­er Earth, we see that we and all our an­cestors are your chil­dren. With your pa­tience, sta­bil­i­ty, en­durance and cre­ativ­i­ty you have nour­ished us and guid­ed us through many life­times. You have giv­en birth to count­less Great Be­ings, Buddhas, Saints, and Bod­hisattvas. You are the great Earth, you are Ter­ra, you are Gaia, you are this beau­ti­ful blue plan­et. You are the Earth Re­fresh­ing Bod­hisatt­va—fra­grant, cool, and kind. We see that al­though we and our an­ces­tors have made many mis­takes, you have al­ways for­giv­en us. Each time we re­turn to you, you are ready to open your arms and em­brace us.

Due to our wrong per­cep­tions and dis­crim­i­na­tion, we have lived a life of sep­a­ra­tion, ha­tred, lone­li­ness, suffer­ing, and de­spair. This year has brought new and unforeseen chal­lenges. The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic contin­ues to rage across the globe, and in its wake we strug­gle to re­main calm and free from delu­sion. We have allowed in­di­vid­u­al­ism to pre­vail, and it has caused se­vere dam­age and hard­ship to you and to our­selves. By con­tin­u­ing to run af­ter fame, wealth, pow­er, and sen­su­al plea­sures—for­get­ting that these pur­suits can nev­er bring us true hap­pi­ness—we neglect to heal and trans­form our own suf­fer­ing and the col­lec­tive suf­fer­ing. Without such heal­ing and transfor­ma­tion, fear and racism en­grained deeply in the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety and its in­sti­tu­tions will con­tin­ue to com­pound old wounds with fresh wounds…………..Read further in English.
Read the entire prayer in Vietnamese.