1. Creating thousand hands, with weapons
armed was Mara seated on the
trumpeting, ferocious elephant Girimekhala.
Him, together with his army, did the
Lord of Sages subdue by means of generosity and other virtues. By its grace may joyous victory be thine.

2. More violent than Mara were the
indocile, obstinate demon Alavaka, who
battled with the Buddha throughout the
whole night. Him, did the Lord of Sages
subdue by means of His patience and
self-control. By its grace may joyous
victory be thine.

3. Nalagiri, the mighty elephant, highly
intoxicated was raging like a forest-fire
and was terrible as thunder-bolt.
Sprinkling the waters of loving-kindness,
this ferocious Beast, did the Lord of
Sages subdue. By its grace may joyous
victory be thine.

4. With uplifted sword, for a distance of
three leagues, did wicked Angulimala
run. The Lord of Sages subdued him by
His psychic powers. By its grace may
joyous victory be thine.

5. Her belly bound with faggots, to simulate
the bigness of pregnancy, Cinca, with
harsh words made foul accusation in the
midst of an assemblage. Her, did the
Lord of Sages subdue by His serene and
peaceful bearing. By its grace may
Joyous victory be thine.

6. Haughty Saccaka, who ignored truth, was
like abanner in controversy, and his
vision was blinded by his own
disputation. Lighting the lamp of
wisdom, Him did the Lord of Sages
subdue. By its grace may Joyous victory
be thine.

7. The wise and powerful serpent
Nandopananda, the Noble Sage caused
to be subdued by the psychic power of
his disciple son (Thero Moggallana). By
its grace may joyous victory be thine.

8. The pure, radiant, majestic Brahma,
named Baka, whose hand was grievously
bitten by the snake of tenacious heresies,
the Lord of Sages cure with His
medicine of wisdom. By its grace may
joyous victory be thine.

9. The wise one, who daily recites and
earnestly remembers these eight verses
of joyous victory of the Budhha, will get
rid of various misfortunes and gain the
bliss of Nibbana.

To all Buddhas everywhere throughout all realms of time,
I take refuge and offer up my life.
May all beings discover this supreme source of blessings,
and deeply enter the Buddha’s way.

In the still brightness of the Dharma’s pure nature;
I take refuge and realize sublime prajna,
May all beings discover the treasury of sutras,
and fully fathom the depth of the wisdom sea.

With Samantbhadra, Manjusri, and the entire great assembly,
I take refuge and join in virtuous harmony.
May all beings be nourished by this great assembly;
and faithfully revere the holy sangha.

Taken from: http://www.buddhadharma.com/

WHAT… is Truth? A difficult question; but I have solved it for myself by saying that it is what the voice within tells you. How then, you ask, [do] different people think of different and contrary truths? Well, seeing that the human mind works through innumerable media and that the evolution of the human mind is not the same for all, it follows that what may be truth for one may be untruth for another, and hence those who have made these experiments have come to the conclusion that there are certain conditions to be observed in making those experiments…

It is because we have at the present moment everybody claiming the right of conscience without going through any discipline whatsoever, and there is so much untruth being delivered to a bewildered world. All that I can in true humility present to you is that Truth is not to be found by anybody who has not got an abundant sense of humility. If you would swim on the bosom of the ocean of Truth, you must reduce yourself to a zero.1

Truth and Love–ahimsa–is the only thing that counts. Where this is present, everything rights itself in the end. This is a law to which there is no exception.2

Sovereign Principle

For me truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only truthfulness in word, but truthfulness in thought also, and not only the relative truth of our conception, but the Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God. There are innumerable definitions of God, because His manifestations are innumerable. They overwhelm me with wonder and awe and for a moment stun me.

But I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him. I am prepared to sacrifice the things dearest to me in pursuit of this quest. Even if the sacrifice demanded be my very life, I hope I may be prepared to give it. But as long as I have not realized this Absolute Truth, so long must I hold by the relative truth as I have conceived it. That relative truth must, meanwhile, be my beacon, my shield and buckler. Though this path is strait and narrow and sharp as the razor’s edge, for me it has been the quickest and easiest. Even my Himalayan blunders have seemed trifling to me because I have kept strictly to this path. For the path has saved me from coming to grief, and I have gone forward according to my light. Often in my progress I have had faint glimpses of the Absolute Truth, God, and daily the conviction is growing upon me that He alone is real and all else is unreal.

Quest for Truth

…The further conviction has been growing upon me that whatever is possible for me is possible even for a child, and I have found sound reasons for saying so. The instruments for the quest of Truth are as simple as they are difficult. They may appear quite impossible to an arrogant person, and quite possible to an innocent child.

The seeker after Truth should be humbler than the dust. The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after Truth should so humble himself that even the dust could crush him. Only then, and not till then, will he have a glimpse of Truth.

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mine of truth the richer the discovery of the gems buried there, in the shape of openings for an even greater variety of service.

I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that certainty and hitch one’s wagon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.

In the march towards Truth, anger selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way, for otherwise Truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by passions may have good enough intentions, may be truthful in word, but he will never find the Truth. A successful search for Truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such as of love and hate, happiness and misery.

Vision of Truth

To see the universal and all-pervading spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.

My uniform experience has convinced me that there is no other God than Truth… The little fleeting glimpses… that I have been able to have of Truth can hardly convey an idea of the indescribable luster of Truth, a million times more intense than that of the sun we daily see with our eyes.

In fact, what I have caught is only the faintest gleam of that mighty effulgence. But this much I can say with assurance, as a result of all my experiments, that a perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of ahimsa.

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth.

Absolute Truth

It is not given to man to know the whole Truth. His duty lies in living up to the truth as he sees it, and in doing so, to resort to the purest means, i.e., to non-violence.

God alone knows absolute truth. Therefore, I have often said, Truth is God. It follows that man, a finite being, cannot know absolute truth.

Nobody in this world possesses absolute truth. This is God’s attribute alone. Relative truth is all we know. Therefore, we can only follow the truth as we see it. Such pursuit of truth cannot lead anyone astray.

Truth and I

I have in my life never been guilty of saying things I did not mean–my nature is to go straight to the heart and, if often I fail in doing so for the time being, I know that Truth will ultimately make itself heard and felt, as it has often done in my experience.

Let hundreds like me perish, but let Truth prevail. Let us not reduce the standards of Truth even by a hair’s breadth for judging erring mortals like myself.

In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas,

Where is there a wretch So wicked and loathsome as I? I have forsaken by Maker, So faithless have I been.

My Errors

I may be a despicable person, but when Truth speaks through me, I am invincible.

I am devoted to none but Truth and I owe no discipline to anybody but Truth.

I have no God to serve but Truth.

I have no strength except what comes from insistence on truth. Non-violence, too, springs from the same insistence.

I am a humble but very earnest seeker after Truth. And in my search, I take all fellow-seekers in uttermost confidence so that I may know my mistakes and correct them. I confess that I have often erred in my estimates and judgements… And inasmuch as in every case I retraced my steps, no permanent harm was done. On the contrary, the fundamental truth of non-violence has been made infinitely more manifest than it ever has been, and the country has in no way been permanently injured.

I am a learner myself, I have no axe to grind, and wherever I see a truth, I take it up and try to act up to it.

I believe that, if in spite of the best of intentions, one is led into committing mistakes, they do not really result in harm to the world or, for the matter of that, any individual. God always saves the world from the consequences of unintended errors or men who live in fear of Him.

Those who are likely to be misled by my example would have gone that way all the same even if they had not known of my action. For, in the final analysis, a man is guided in his conduct by his own inner promptings, though the example of others might sometimes seem to guide him. But be it as it may, I know that the world has never had to suffer on account of my errors because they were all due to my ignorance. It is my firm belief that not one of my known errors was willful.

Indeed, what may appear to be an obvious error to one may appear to another as pure wisdom. He cannot help himself even if he is under a hallucination. Truly as Tulsidas said: ‘Even though there never is silver in mother o’ pearl not water in the sunbeams, while the illusion of silver in the shinning shell or that of water in the beam lasts, no power on earth can shake the deluded man free from the spell.’ Even so must it be with men like me who, it may be, are labouring under a great hallucination. Surely God will pardon them and the world should bear with them. Truth will assert itself in the end.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Life is an aspiration. Its mission is to strive after perfection, which is self-realization. The ideal must not be lowered because of our weaknesses or imperfections. I am painfully conscious of both in me. The silent cry daily goes out to Truth to help me to remove these weakness and imperfections of mine.

No Abandonment of Truth

Believe me when I tell you, after 60 years of personal experience, that the only real misfortune is to abandon the path of truth. If you but realize this, your one prayer to God will always be to enable you to put up, without flinching, with any number of trials and hardships that may fall to your lot in the pursuit of truth.

Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must, therefore, continue to bear testimony to Truth even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth.

A man of faith will remain steadfast to truth, even-though the whole world might appear to be enveloped in falsehood.

When it is relevant, truth has to be uttered, however unpleasant it may be. Irrelevance is always untruth and should never be uttered.

“Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find “‘tomorrow” on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday’s defeats and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, ”If I had my life to live over again. ”Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day! Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe,loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.”

Og Mandino
“Birth, aging, sickness and death are the inescapable realities of life, and the eternal questions humankind has attempted to resolve. How can we create the greatest value amidst a reality that is impermanent and in constant flux? It was the search for answers to these questions that led to the birth of Buddhism.”

Daisaku Ikeda
These quotes are more meaningful this year than last, as I have lost a total of 10 family members and friends over the course of the year. Needless to say the experience has impacted my awareness of my eternal surroundings. Half of those individuals were either very young or not yet in their prime and the close of the curtain on their last act was quite unexpected. Perhaps like myself, you may think of living each day as if it were your last in the spirit of Og Mandino. What can be more devastating than losing a friend or family member after your last interchange with them was harsh words that did not reflect what was in your heart. What could be worse than postponing that visit to the relative in a nursing home, day after day, week after week believing you will have time next month after this big project is completed, only to lose them tomorrow.
Time can be both a blessing and a curse. Every morning we wake up is an opportunity. As encouragement to live a fulfilled and happy life from today onward some Buddhists members have been encouraged to create a list inspired by the movie “The Bucket List” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Initially, it seemed like a fun activity or akin to a corporate team spirit project; something to kickstart those forgotten dreams. Having lost so many friends and family this year, however, causes one to reflect on the seriousness of the matters of life and death. In the world of Buddhism it is not the dying that is the serious matter but the living; as is quoted in my favorite movie line of all time from “Shawshank Redemption” by my favorite actor Morgan Freeman, “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

Taken from: http://www.examiner.com/x-2029-Miami-Buddhist-Examiner~y2009m4d13-Live-each-day-until-you-kick-the-bucket

With a wish to free all beings
I shall always go for refuge
To the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha,
Until I reach full enlightenment

Enthused by wisdom and compassion,
today in the Buddhas’ presence
I generate the Mind for Full Awakening
For the benefit of all sentient beings

As long as space remains,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world

Bonnie Myotai Treace, Sensei received Dharma transmission from John Daido Loori, Roshi in 1996, becoming his first dharma heir and a second generation Zen teacher in the Mountains and Rivers Order. She was the spiritual director of the Zen Center of New York City from 1993 to 2004. She is presently teaching independently in New York City. For more information, go to Hermitage Heart.

Threshold
What is the gate of Zen? Is there a way to live in the threshold of every moment? Pablo Neruda writes in the opening stanzas of his verse, “Poetry”:
And it was at that age… Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know,
I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence but from a street
I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone, there I was
without a face
and it touched me.

In practice, we explore this threshold, this place where old and new meet in a body. We explore the “liminal” — the realm in which we’re touched beyond personality, beyond the limits of what we understand or have assigned ourselves as our life. A practitioner of Zen is most basically one whose life is awakening each moment to that threshold, the still point where all the possibilities exist. To practice is to release oneself from the momentum of the past, the karma of what seems to be indicated as the only next step. It is to turn one’s face towards the unknown as a way of life.

Hermitage Heart
A scent of woodsmoke and incense, wind wrapping itself around a small hut, the quiet presence of a settled, generous spiritual friend: to sit with the poems of the Buddhist nun Rengetsu is to allow a teacher into the depth of one’s mind. Over the winter, this has been my practice, taking up a few of Rengetsu’s winter-inspired waka verses from the John Stevens translation Lotus Moon and staying with them, committing myself to let them inform whatever teaching happens during this time.

Trusting Mind
A seemingly very simple koan from the Mumonkan collection: Yunmen asked his community: “The world is vast and wide. Why put on your robe at the sound of a bell?” That’s the whole koan, nothing more or less than that statement and question. Like all the best koans, it doesn’t argue or explain much, but expresses instead what we might call an uncanny trust. The koan trusts our capacity to realize vibrantly and uniquely the truth of our essential freedom. Unfortunately, because trust is such a rare experience nowadays, many of us don’t know how to receive it. We get squirmy, or vaguely angry that- we’re not being given the answer. Something’s not right here, we’ll quietly insist; something’s missing. We hunger for “the teaching,” as if it were dead meat, not the living beast. But Yunmen is regarded as a kind of spiritual genius in the history of Zen, largely because of his “live words”—the way he teaches without giving us anything. Why doesn’t he give? Because we’re not lacking. He trusts that this is so because he’s experienced it, and knows the same experience is directly available to us.

Anxiety: Startling Suchness
Dogen’s inclusion of even negative states such as anxiety within suchness seems designed to shake us from our notions of having to improve ourselves in order to be whole. We are called to wake our hearts from the dark dreariness of never being good enough—a pretty startling call for anyone not suffering terminal arrogance. Since most of us suffer an oddly modern mix of anxiety and arrogance, there are few among us who make it through our lives without some hours (years, decades…) in that dark, self-doubting territory where anxiety defines the very air itself. That we are whole, and home, and needed by all of life is where Buddhism begins, in a sense. Most of us, though, have to take quite a journey to arrive where we’ve always been. Like the love that has no opposite or end, suchness is unconditional, in that it reaches absolutely every condition of experience. “We intrinsically have the countenance of the person of suchness”—nothing we can do or have ever done places us outside that embrace. Who could ever explain why sometimes that brings tears?

Song of Fools, From Master Dogen’s Zazenshin
In the spirit of April Fool’s day, I wanted to address the fools. Though Zen is a tradition that takes its integrity from the fact that it doesn’t “fool around” in terms of life and death, it also has a very noble and wild-haired fool’s tradition within it. Zen is serious in its intention and realization, but it also contains a teaching of delightful surprise. It’s the fool’s work to so willingly and sincerely be this, that when the next moment arrives and everything changes, the deep joke isn’t wasted on us. We are it. It reminds me of a certain street performer here in the city. You see a couple dancing, the man twirling his partner this way and that, doing all sorts of incredible, slightly unnerving dance steps. Then they turn and you realize that she’s a doll made out of cloth, not a woman. At that moment the experience is altogether different; you’ve been fooled. Reality is other than what you think. The work of opening to this continual transformation of reality lies at the heart of practice. And to encounter this turning of the moment without fear or anger is the path of the Zen fool.

One Thing, From Zuimonki
In an evening talk Dogen said, “Even people in the secular world must concentrate on one thing and learn it thoroughly enough to do it in front of others, rather than learn many things at the same time without truly accomplishing any of them. This holds all the more true for the Buddhadharma, which transcends the secular world and has never been learned or practiced from the beginningless beginning. We’re still unfamiliar with it. Also, our capacity is poor. If we try to learn many things about this lofty and boundless Buddhadharma, we’ll not attain even one thing. Even if we devote ourselves to only one thing, because of our capacity and nature, it will be diªcult to clarify Buddhadharma thoroughly in one lifetime. Students, concentrate on one thing.”

Will You Sit With Me?
Last night, around 1 or 2 o’clock, I got a phone call from a student in a hospital. The words between us were few, though the call lasted nearly an hour. His voice was so faint, but strong somehow, like hearing water running underground. He asked, “Will you sit with me?” and we began just breathing together. During my visit a week earlier, it had been obvious that he was close to the end of his life. He seemed paler than the sheets around him; there was that mild, acrid smell that circulates in hospitals, and uneaten food from several meals on the bedtable. It was good last night to sit with him, until he was able to let go, and turn to sleep.

You Can’t Leave Here
Without knowing what’s coming, the cricket sings beside the golden well. Shining for no reason, the moon before the shrine hall announces early autumn. If you can unite limitless worlds into a single speck of dust, and let every speck of dust be a great sea of enlightenment, if you can combine ten lifetimes into a single thought and let every thought be the day of release, then leave here like this, without taking roads, much less a staff or bundle or tightly woven shoes, and without leaving your footprints throughout the four quarters a thousand miles from home. If you think Zen practice means traveling across rivers and mountains in search of a teacher or [the Way], you’re just running around like lost fools. Even if you jump as high as the thirty-third heaven in the blink of an eye, or circle Mount Sumaru and its perfumed sea a million times…” Grabbing his staff and raising it, the master said, “You still can’t leave here.”

Dogen Cubed
Most of you are probably familiar with the phenomena called Necker’s cube: a way of drawing two squares and overlapping them so that the mind recognizes the configuration as a representation of a cube. As you engage it visually, there is a moment where you see the surface and depth one way, and then it seems to shift. What had been the surface drops back, becoming the depth. The longer you look at it, the more disturbing the fluctuation becomes. The only way to fix the cube in a perspective is to pay attention to one particular corner of the drawing. If you do that — which requires a kind of physical tension — for a moment you gain a sense of stability within your consciousness, but it’s difficult to maintain. This strikes me as similar to studying the teachings of Master Dogen, where he often forces an oscillation of consciousness between what we at first may think is obvious and superficial with what feels deeper and more sacred. As soon as our understanding begins to rest in any interpretation, the top sinks, the bottom rises, sacred becomes mundane, mundane becomes sacred.

Never Abandoned by the Sky
This koan addresses our sense of belonging, of being harbored and safe, as opposed to our fear of exclusion or abandonment, of being “outside.” It points to the vulnerability of our Dharma position, both interpersonally and in terms of the nature of things. Most of us want to feel connected with others, with the flow and flux of reality. We want to be intimate with our lives. To do this we join groups, we become communities, we want to feel guided by our intuition, by God, by our Buddha-nature. We may abuse drugs or alcohol and become connected with others who do likewise, or we may perform with excellence, thus connecting with those who are excellent. People seem to have a deep need to belong. We also have a paradoxical need to feel unique, to be of special significance. Sometimes that need is expressed positively by healthy means, at other times negatively by destructive means. We can all recognize the need to separate our life from the life of the crowd.

Taken from: http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/myotaitalks.php

Yet, there are few ideals as difficult to grasp as that of happiness. In our daily life we constantly experience happiness and unhappiness, but we are still quite ignorant as to what happiness really is.

A young friend of mine once spent a long time trying to work out what happiness was, particularly happiness for women. When she first thought about happiness she saw it as a matter of becoming financially secure or getting married. (The view in Japanese society then was that happiness for a woman was only to be found in marriage.) But looking at friends who were married, she realized that marriage didn’t necessarily guarantee happiness.

She saw couples who had been passionately in love suffering from discord soon after their wedding. She saw women who had married men with money or status but who fought constantly with their husbands.

Gradually, she realized that the secret of happiness lay in building a strong inner self that no trial or hardship could ruin. She saw that happiness for anyone – man or woman – does not come simply from having a formal education, from wealth or from marriage. It begins with having the strength to confront and conquer one’s own weaknesses. Only then does it become possible to lead a truly happy life and enjoy a successful marriage.

She finally told me, “Now I can say with confidence that happiness doesn’t exist in the past or in the future. It only exists within our state of life right now, here in the present, as we face the challenges of daily life.”

I agree entirely. You yourself know best whether you are feeling joy or struggling with suffering. These things are not known to other people. Even a man who has great wealth, social recognition and many awards may still be shadowed by indescribable suffering deep in his heart. On the other hand, an elderly woman who is not fortunate financially, leading a simple life alone, may feel the sun of joy and happiness rising in her heart each day.

Happiness is not a life without problems, but rather the strength to overcome the problems that come our way. There is no such thing as a problem-free life; difficulties are unavoidable. But how we experience and react to our problems depends on us. Buddhism teaches that we are each responsible for our own happiness or unhappiness. Our vitality – the amount of energy or “life-force” we have – is in fact the single most important factor in determining whether or not we are happy.

True happiness is to be found within, in the state of our hearts. It does not exist on the far side of some distant mountains. It is within you, yourself. However much you try, you can never run away from yourself. And if you are weak, suffering will follow you wherever you go. You will never find happiness if you don’t challenge your weaknesses and change yourself from within.

Happiness is to be found in the dynamism and energy of your own life as you struggle to overcome one obstacle after another. This is why I believe that a person who is active and free from fear is truly happy.

The challenges we face in life can be compared to a tall mountain, rising before a mountain climber. For someone who has not trained properly, whose muscles and reflexes are weak and slow, every inch of the climb will be filled with terror and pain. The exact same climb, however, will be a thrilling journey for someone who is prepared, whose legs and arms have been strengthened by constant training. With each step forward and up, beautiful new views will come into sight.

My teacher used to talk about two kinds of happiness – “relative” and “absolute” happiness. Relative happiness is happiness that depends on things outside ourselves: friends and family, surroundings, the size of our home or family income.

This is what we feel when a desire is fulfilled, or something we have longed for is obtained. While the happiness such things bring us is certainly real, the fact is that none of this lasts forever. Things change. People change. This kind of happiness shatters easily when external conditions alter.

Relative happiness is also based on comparison with others. We may feel this kind of happiness at having a newer or bigger home than the neighbors. But that feeling turns to misery the moment they start making new additions to theirs!

Absolute happiness, on the other hand, is something we must find within. It means establishing a state of life in which we are never defeated by trials and where just being alive is a source of great joy. This persists no matter what we might be lacking, or what might happen around us. A deep sense of joy is something which can only exist in the innermost reaches of our life, and which cannot be destroyed by any external forces. It is eternal and inexhaustible.

This kind of satisfaction is to be found in consistent and repeated effort, so that we can say, “Today, again, I did my very best. Today, again, I have no regrets. Today, again, I won.” The accumulated result of such efforts is a life of great victory.

What we should compare is not ourselves against others. We should compare who we are today against who we were yesterday, who we are today against who we will be tomorrow. While this may seem simple and obvious, true happiness is found in a life of constant advancement. And the same worries that could have made us miserable can actually be a source of growth when we approach them with courage and wisdom.

One friend whose dramatic life proved this was Natalia Satz, who founded the first children’s theater in Moscow. In the 1930s, she and her husband were marked by Soviet Union’s secret police. Even though they were guilty of no crime, her husband was arrested and executed and she was sent to a prison camp in the frozen depths of Siberia.

After she recovered from the initial shock, she started looking at her situation, not with despair, but for opportunity. She realized that many of her fellow prisoners had special skills and talents. She began organizing a “university,” encouraging the prisoners to share their knowledge. “You. You are a scientist. Teach us about science. You are an artist. Talk to us about art.”

In this way, the boredom and terror of the prison camp were transformed into the joy of learning and teaching. Eventually, Mrs. Satz even made use of her own unique talents to organize a theater group. She survived the five-year prison sentence, and dedicated the rest of her long life to creating children’s theater. When we met for the first time in Moscow in 1981, she was already in her 80s. She was as radiant and buoyant as a young girl. Her smile was the smile of someone who has triumphed over the hardships of life. Hers is the kind of spirit I had in mind when I wrote the following poem on “Happiness”:

A person with a vast heart is happy.
Such a person lives each day with a broad and embracing spirit.
A person with a strong will is happy.
Such a person can confidently enjoy life, never defeated by suffering.
A person with a profound spirit is happy.
Such a person can savor life’s depths
while creating meaning and value that will last for eternity.
A person with a pure mind is happy.
Such a person is always surrounded by refreshing breezes of joy.

Taken from: http://www.ikedaquotes.org/what-is-happiness