Night of Prayer

This is a chant recorded by Sister Chan Kong and Thich Nhat Hanh based on the poem Night of Prayer by Thây Thich Nhat Hanh.

Night of Prayer (poem)

In that moment,

the wind was still,

the birds silent.

Seven times the Earth shook

as immortality traversed

the stream of birth and death.

The hand on the wheel

in the mudra of peace

bloomed like a flower in the night.

In that moment,

the flower of immortality opened

in the garden of birth and death--

the enlightened smiles:

words and similes.

He has come

to learn man's language.

That night in Tushita Heaven,

the gods looked down,

saw Earth, my homeland, brighter than a star,

while galaxies inclined, worshipping

till East turned rose,

and the Lumbini gardens became a soft cradle

welcoming Buddha, newly born.

Tonight, tonight

on Eath, my homeland,

men look up.

Their tear-blind eyes turn towards Tushita Heaven.

The cries of pain are everywhere,

as Mara's hand bears down in violence and hatred.

In darkness Earth, my homeland,

yearns for the miraculous event

when eternity parts its curtains,

shadows dissolve,

and Maitreya comes to my land.

The sound of being echoes again

in the singing of a child.

Tonight the moon and the stars bear witness.

Let my homeland, let Earth pray

for Vietnam--

her death and fires,

grief and blood--

and Vietnam will rise from her suffering

and become that soft, new cradle

for the Buddha-to-come.

Let Earth, my country, pray

that once more the flower blooms.

Tonight we hope

that our agony will bear the fruit;

that birth and death will cross

the stream of immortality

and love's spring bathe ten thousand hearts;

and man will learn the language of the inexpressible.

Then the babble of a child

will teach the way.

Written in 1964 and printed in Hai Triêu Am weekly. Music composed in Tokyo in 1968.

Translated into English and published in 'Call me by my true names' Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh - Parallax Press https://www.parallax.org