The Medicine Plant Sutra

Thus I have heard. That night the bodhisattva awoke and found herself surrounded by vines, branches, flowers, roots, sap, essence of the plant world, and the wildness of nature, all supplicating her for a teaching that would illumine their minds. The bodhisattva spoke: No, it is you, not I, who needs to speak; it is you, it is your voice that is needed to awaken the self-centered human species to the vast web of life and love and awareness that is the intimate birthright of us all. Your sap, your juices, your fibers, your chemistry. We ask that all of you speak through and to our species, blood and bone, in a language that is unmistakable, unfettered by the intellect we have come to value so highly. Speak to us of our interconnectedness, teach us how to hold each other in love, teach us how to experience our own primal essence, true nature, teach us how to know the essence of each sentient being, trees, grasses, rocks, mountains, stars, clouds, animals, insects, spirits, other realms of existence. We have lost our connection and wander here and there without center, unaware of the web that you sustain. It is from you that 1 learned from countless rebirths of the altruism of the natu¬ ral world. Teach us how to enter the stream, the stream of vows, the stream of wishes, the stream of the hearts and minds of our ancestors. It is you who came forth and affirmed my nature when on that perilous night, 1 touched the Earth and called you to witness . . . Yes! Yes! You are worthy and it was your grace and blessings raining down from the spreading, unfolding branches of the bodhi tree that sustained me on my journey; it was you, as the early morning star that affirmed my nature and the nature of all sentient life, all beings, just as they are, whole and complete, lacking nothing, soaked with wisdom and compassion. We bow before you and ask for your teachings.