The Heart Of The Bitter Almond Hedge Sutra

This beautiful book broke open my heart. Thanissara’s poetry rips the civilized veneer off the lives we are living and reveals them for what they are: a brutal lie we have--to our shame--grown accustomed to. A lie that started, at least in this epic poem, with the planting of a bitter almond hedge to keep “us” white settlers apart from “those” Africans.From this bitter hedge, South Africa’s cancerous apartheid system grew. But, as Thanissara gently points out, we can't simply point fingers at South Africa, because “the ultimate apartheid is the mind’s own division against the heart.” And that apartheid lives everywhere—everywhere we can destroy the earth without feeling; destroy each other without feeling; betray ourselves without feeling so that we can “get along.”Through the voices of bushmen, through images of wild Africa, through the heartless terrors of warfare, genocide, and ecocide upon which our modern lives are based, Thanissara makes us feel how much we have lost, and makes us grieve our own cold callousness. And then she calls us to wake up.“There is no suffering, no origin of suffering, no end of suffering, and no path,” the Buddha teaches. So “Allow the cries that tumble across/the peaceful vast veldt/of mountainous struggles/to flow through you. Let the hot sun melt your shield/as you walk the dusty street/of warm, black, skin softly smiles/where the boy with satchel and dreams/wanders the thin, wishful highway/of no jobs.” Is this so hard?It is the haunting images of this beautiful book that will stay with me. I love how Thanissara juxtaposes them—often heartbreakingly—with the words of the indigenous people who speak before each chapter. And I love how she ultimately calls us to courage: “Move beyond your walled pastimes/to join the Awakening./Time yourself out/from the needle of craving/and boogie down with intense/flamenco, disciplined passion/so we can crash the machine.“Soar over the edge/on the breath of our heart’s sorrow/and make a beloved circle/outside the wall/where the storehouse of untamed dreams/will decolonize our mind.” May we do so before it’s too late.

I find I keep reading the poem many times, in parts, as well an a long read of the whole of it. I encourage anyone interested in Buddhism, Africa, or how to mindfully practice with the ills of the worlds to see yet deeply into life's beauty, or for the love of poetry, to read this book.

beautifully written

Thanissara has written a beautiful book, mixing Buddhism, poetry and South African history with striking images, poignant almost heart-breaking as Apartheid becomes a symbol for the divide in our deepest selves, in which we are severed from our essence. Her introduction was stunning, and gripped me with amazement as Thanissara so clearly laid out the truths I have come to see in my own practice. Here is an example:"But the ultimate apartheid is the mind's own division from the heart. This heart, which is deeper and more aware, and which intuitively knows the 'intimacy of all things' is constantly pulled into the tyranny of the proliferating mind that tends to generate a fractured and incoherent world."

This is a deep and profound work. I have had it for several months now and have re-read it several times. For me it points to my own bitter almond hedges, and what lies around, within and beyond them. It reminds the personal heart that what defends it is also cuts it off from its connection with all things, and contributes to the creation of bitter hedges everywhere. Piercingly honest, beautifully evocative, it is a poem for anyone who loves the Dharma, who loves Africa, who is concerned about the presence of separation in their communities, or who wants to see over their own spikey hedges.

Beautiful book od poetry.