Who remembers?

Who remembers the wanderings, the battles, the victories?
The doubts, the certainties, the questions, the memory?

Who remembers the sufferings, the tears, the games? 
The lives, the deaths, the young, the old?

Who remembers all the parents, the children, the friends?
The faces, the figures in light or crouched in the shadow?

Who remembers?

Time is passing and advancing, emerging and ceasing, 
The world is turning, the continents are moving, 
The stars are rising, then setting,

I am here, there, elsewhere, 
I rise, I live, I move, I bend, 
I see myself, I feel myself, I touch myself,

Men, women, children, 
Friends, enemies, the indifferent, 
Snakes, cats or flies,

Who remembers?

I have learnt here and there, 
In temples, in forests, in the wind, 
The difference between bad and better, 
Between yesterday, here and now,

Having been here a meditator and there a passer, 
In heights or in depths, 
In sorrow or fortune, 
Created or creator.

Through all the lives in time, 
through all the wars, light-hearted,
Through all the malevolent desires, 
What worth do you keep?

Who remembers?

At the dawn of each life, of each death, 
Don’t you understand that it’s high time, 
To stop inflicting all that torments,
To yourself and to others, to create troubles to others?

From beginningless time, 
What is there more to live and to try, 
Who has not yet been fed up with it
To suffer from it and to endure the stench?

Man, woman, child, of little faith, 
Isn’t it time to open your eyes,
To open your heart, your hand and to see better, 
To seek Refuge and not to stay without law?

Don’t you remember?

Isn’t there anything that resonates, that calls you, 
Deep down, in the memory, in the heart, 
The Clear and All-Knowing Voice of Reality?

The Pure Word that resonates, which comes back, 
That destroys and transcends all of the fears,
That cuts off everything restraining you.

Without doubt, with confidence, and without expectations, 
Beyond desire, sorrow and delusion, 
Understand that there is nothing more to take.

Always remember!

The sky, the earth, day or night, 
Pain, pleasure or noise, 
Don’t have a reality but for those who conceive them;

Friends, enemies, those we see, 
Those we detest or those in whom we believe, 
Exist like the moon reflecting in water.

And don’t forget,

Nothing is more precious than giving, 
Then forgetting ourselves without pretence, 
Then Love, than Compassion, 
Then service without waiting anything in return.

Written by Lama Shenpen Rinpoche.
Originally in French language, with rimes. Change the language to French to see the original version.

Publication by any means of those poems shall be subject to prior agreement.