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Poetry: Embracing the Sun, Grain by Grain
“Từng Ôm và Mặt Trời Thường Hạt” begins with the image of sunlight and poetry blending together: poetry creates sunlight, and sunlight gives rise to poetry. Poetry is present in the bitter melon of summer, kept in the refrigerator and then rising like steam from a bowl of soup in winter; it follows the wind to the poor thatched roof by the riverbank; it is in every drop of spring rain, in the glowing ember, in the fragrant heartwood and the warm smoke; in the dance of bees and butterflies, in the sweat of the farmer falling upon the furrow; and at the end of the day, as the sun sets by the river, the hesitant evening shadow, poetry follows the horizon to the blanket of clouds. Poetry is also present in the basket of green vegetables, the bowl of fragrant, sticky rice, the eyes of children, the sun-darkened skin, and the hands tending the salty, sour fields—demonstrating that the sun is not only out there, but is always hidden within every small thing.
The poem weaves together three dharmas—sunlight, poetry, and space—and leads into the system of the Hundred Dharmas of the Dharmalakṣaṇa school, divided into five categories, of which there are three main types:
- Mind dharmas, including the eight consciousnesses (ālaya, manas, etc.)
- Mental factors, including 51 mental formations such as contact, feeling, perception, volition
- Form dharmas, including the five sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body) and the five sense objects (form, sound, smell, taste, touch)
There are also:
- Dharmas dissociated from mind—24 dharmas such as name, phrase, word, number
- Unconditioned dharmas (the six unconditioned dharmas), such as Suchness and space
This expresses the interbeing of mind and form, of phenomena and the ontological ground. One dollar or one euro can provide 25 malnourished children with a glass of milk each day—illustrating that poetry is not only in words but also in concrete acts of loving kindness.