Please Wake Up! (Hãy Bừng Tỉnh)
Poem written & recited by Supreme Master Ching Hai

O world, wake up and behold
Rivers and mountains are in tumult
Burnt forests, eroded hills, desiccated streams
Whither do the poor souls go in the end?

O great Earth, lessened be your agony
For these tears to wane with the persistent night.
O seas and lakes, cease not your melodies
Allowing hope for a morrow among humanity...

O sentient beings, have respite in the realm beyond
Though you departed without any utterance.
Let the throbbing of my heart abate
While I await Earthlings’ timely repentance.

O deep forests, preserve your true selves
Protect the human race in their moments of erring.
Please accept my heartfelt thousand teardrops
To nurture your majestic trees, leaves and roots.

O heart, relent your sobbing
For my soul to rest in long nights.
Tears dried up and I’m wordless
Weeping in sympathy for the tormented!

O night, please kindle your source of light
Shine the way for those human souls in darkness
Be serene for my mind to still
And enter emptiness with the miraculous celestial melody.

O day, stir not sudden unrests
For peace to repose in our very hearts
For humankind’s struggles to subside
For the true Self to gloriously shine!

O heart of mine, lament no longer
Like an insect writhing in the chilling winter.
Calmly wait for a perfect tomorrow
And the day the world turns into Paradise.

O, I cry, I plead, I pray, I beg!
O, infinite Buddhas,
Bodhisattvas, angels
Deliver souls straying from the True Path.
Wandering in the endless cycle of suffering migration.

O brother, wake up at once!
Proudly walk on great seas and rivers
Look straight at the flaming sun
And vow sacrifice to save all beings.

O sister, wake up this instant!
Arise from places of devastation
Together let’s renew our planet
For all to sing joyous songs of oneness.
For all to sing joyous songs of oneness.

Please Don’t Go (Hãy Dừng Lại)
Poem written & recited by Supreme Master Ching Hai

Don’t go, leaving an elderly mother and innocent siblings!
There’s no real hatred among us human beings.
Battlefields have but guns, swords and hostility,
While here a warm home welcomes your company.

Don’t go, wreaking suffering on others.
There’s no real animosity, only thirst for power!
Countless corpses lie shriveledto expand an empire,
Whereas here only love, peace and safety thrive.

Don’t go, deserting a gentle father and pious children.
There’s no real enmity, just trickery!
An entire nation destroyed for a few mortals to gloat,
While here carefree kites sail in the sky serene.

Don’t go further on the path
Of vengeful ghosts and shrieking demons.
A soldier’s life crushed  in the foreign land –
A soul lost in the dusty wind of murky realms!

O darling, please halt your steps!
Hold these hands of your loving wife:
Please feel for your family, country and the world
Why have the heart to sow misery and death?

Cease your grasp, won’t you please?
Don’t brandish the sword for vows that are so bloody.
Look again at your “eternal enemies” –
Are they not also humans, my love?

Sit by me, and calm your mind
Listen to the spirits astray wandering for thousands of lifetimes
In the howling wind and rain,
their heart-wrenching cries
Lamenting karmic debts in a war of bygone days!

Either we die or others perish
A vibrant future suddenly snuffed out in the prime of life!
All the affection, family and friends
Vanished with a spiteful heart in a pool of bitter blood.

A human existence full of vim and vigor,
Youthful dreams with sky-high aspirations,
Washed away with a stream of hot blood in one rushed instant
Chilly wind blows yellow dust on the ground of combat!

Please stay with me, together we can honor life.
Our neighbors, relatives and parents will be just nearby.
There are tender rice and succulent potatoes, romantic rivers and dreamy seas
A long levee bedecked with flowering fields.

Many heroes and heroines, present and past
Have saved myriad beings from bloodshed.
They’ve built peace and prosperity,
Replacing wars with wondrous truths since eternity.

Taking lives, we’ll have to pay with our own.
How can we rejoice in causing demise and separation?
Only boundless, lasting compassion
Shall make us great among all creation...