These are the collected poems of a woman whose reputation is already firmly established among Buddhist practitioners in the United States trained in the path of Thich Nhat Hanh. Sister Dang Nghiem is a disciple of Thay and first wrote about this nearly twenty years ago in a memoir called Healing: A Woman’s Journey from Doctor to Nun. (This poet is also a medical doctor.)
There is a memoir quality to this book, as well. Many of the poems are meant to reveal the poet’s experiences, and there are eight pages of black-and-white photographs in the middle of book showing the poet at different stages in life, from early childhood in Vietnam to the present day, including a glowing one of her with Thay as a fresh novice immediately after her ordination in May 2000.
But the poems themselves are also a spiritual practice. She writes that her mindfulness practice is why she now writes. She explains: “We write poems called ‘insight gathas,’ verses that convey our deepest aspirations and point the way toward happiness.” She intends her insight gathas to “share a way out of suffering.”
The first 50 pages of the book are poems written in the decade before her monastic ordination — before, she explains, her commitment to healing her suffering and the suffering of others began. These early poems have moments of beauty in description, an economy of words, and scenes of family and strangers that feel like universal human moments and experiences.
But it is the poems of the last two-thirds of the book that appealed most to us. Here, the subjects expand to include reflections on the meaning of freedom, breathing, singing, “love awakened,” the problem of “the grasping mind,” what (not who) the Buddha is, and “Searching for the One” — a two-line poem that goes like this:
"I search for the one who loves me in my every step, every breath.
I search for the one whom I love in the thousand paths coming home."
Contentment, wholeness, and interdependence are all here too. Sometimes there is a quotation from Thay in a poem.
Sister Dang Nghiem wants every person — monastic ordination not required — to follow a path out of suffering into love and compassion. This is emphasized poignantly and pointedly in this short poem:
“Don’t Wait
“If you want a spiritual life,
Then live is right now.
Don’t wait till tomorrow,
When your body is weary.
Don’t wait till tomorrow,
You’ll be ashes.”
See the excerpt accompanying this review for another poem — about the spiritual practice of transformation.
