In Tang Dynasty China in the year 755 C.E., a rebellion broke out against the emperor. Eventually, armies marched across China, and society broke down into cycles of war, famine, pestilence and sickness. Reportedly two out of every three people in China died during this period (755-763 C.E.).
During this period, a poet, Du Fu, escaped to the city of Chang'an. He was exhausted, physically diminished, and unable to leave the city, but he wrote a nine-line poem, the first two lines of which were, "The nation is shattered, Mountains and rivers remain."
Roshi Joan Halifax of New Mexico's Upaya Zen Center invoked these lines in a talk shortly after the U.S. 2024 presidential election. She also recalled Zen Master Keizan's later statement, "Do not find fault in the present." The present is just as it is. The present is what we're able to bear witness to, and living beyond delusion means to not separate the truth of what is from our frames of reference or our mental conceptions (samskara).
Putting these lines and statements together, we can arrive at a poem to help guide us through the difficult years the apparently lie ahead.
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