I am away from my own family right now, teaching in Mississippi. But every day I am ever away, they are never far from my mind. Then along comes a tragedy like this one in Moore, and I just have a need to be with them, hug them, and reassure them. Every interview I see on television, every story of another loss is touching. Even more so to me, for obvious reasons, I grieve along with the parents who lost their young children. I can't begin to fathom what they must be going through right now and I can only pray that they can find strength and hope.
I didn't have anything close to being poignant in this kind of situation, but I am reminded of the passage "Flowers", from The Dhammapada:
Who shall conquer this worldAnd the world of death with all its gods?Who shall discoverThe shining way of dharma?You shall, even as the manWho seeks flowersFinds the most beautiful,The rarest.Understand that the bodyIs merely the foam of a wave,The shadow of a shadow.Snap the flower arrows of desireAnd then, unseen,Escape the king of death.And travel on.
Keep them all in your prayers.
