Archive | Reflections on Practice

“Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye, recipient of many literary awards, describes herself as a “wandering poet.” Born to a Palestinian father & an American mother, she grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem & San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas & experiences traveling the world, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. Hear her read this poem.

“Hokusai Says” by Roger S. Keyes

Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying.

He says everyone of us is a child,
everyone of us is ancient,
everyone of us has a body.
He says everyone of us is frightened.
He says everyone of us has to find
a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive–
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.

Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

The poem refers to prolific Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), whose famous wave woodblock print many will recognize. Roger Keyes is an art historian & curator of Japanese art as well as a poet. For almost 50 years, he has devoted himself to study of Hokusai’s prints & ‘translated’ what he read in Hokusai’s paintings into this poem. See more of Hokusai’s wonderful work.

Forward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to “The Buddha’s Teachings on Social & Communal Harmony”

Well-known scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi has collected & translated the Buddha’s teachings on conflict resolution, interpersonal & social problem-solving, and the forging of harmonious relationships in the 2016 book “The Buddha’s Teachings on Social & Communal Harmony“ from Wisdom Publications. The Suttas, drawn from the Pali Canon, deal with such topics as quelling of anger, good friendship, intentional communities, settlement of disputes & the establishing of an equitable society. The Buddha’s teachings on community relationships, attitudes, behavior & the practices to make it all work harmoniously come directly out of real life experience & observation within his monastic communities & within lay communities he & his monastic community interacted with.

We share an excerpt from the book’s forward …

FROM HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA….

The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, lived, attained enlightenment & taught in India more than 2,500 years ago. However, I believe that much of what he taught so long ago can be relevant to people’s lives today. The Buddha saw that people can live together freely as individuals, equal in principle & therefore responsible for each other.

He saw that the very purpose of life is to be happy. He talked about suffering in the context of ways to overcome it. He recognized that while ignorance binds beings in endless frustration & suffering, the development of understanding is liberating. The Buddha saw that every member of the human family, man & woman alike, has an equal right to liberty, not just in terms of political or even spiritual freedom, but at a fundamental level of freedom from fear & want. He recognized that each of us is just a human being like everyone else. Not only do we all desire happiness & seek to avoid suffering, but each of us has an equal right to pursue these goals.

Within the monastic community that the Buddha established, individuals were equal, whatever their social class or caste origins. The custom of walking on alms round served to strengthen the monks’ awareness of their dependence on other people. Within the community, decisions were taken by vote & differences were settled by consensus.

The Buddha took a practical approach to creating a happier, more peaceful world. Certainly, he laid out the paths to liberation & enlightenment that Buddhists in many parts of the world continue to follow today, but he also consistently gave advice that anyone may heed to live more happily here & now….

We human beings are social animals. Since our future depends on others, we need friends in order to fulfill our own interests. We do not make friends by being quarrelsome, jealous & angry, but by being sincere in our concern for others, protecting their lives & respecting their rights. Making friends & establishing trust are the basis on which society depends. Like other great teachers the Buddha commended tolerance & forgiveness in restoring trust & resolving disputes that arise because of our tendency to see others in terms of ‘us’ & ‘them.’

Cultivating & Supporting a Resilient Heart-Mind

“Resilience: recovering strength, spirits, good humor, buoyancy, flexibility”
JOY FOR/JOY WITH
Explore the teachings of MUDITA…

Joy is wired into our genes, brain circuits & biology. It’s an integral part of our health equation. And in times like these, it matters more than ever.

This past spring at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC, the Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun” started up every time a coronavirus patient was discharged or recovered enough to breath without the help of a ventilator. A doctor at the hospital shared, “For those on the front lines of critical care, it’s like a war zone. The work is relentless. To hear this song on the loud-speaker is brilliant. It’s just what people need, a reminder that patients are recovering. You feel good for a moment.”

Mudita, the practice of sympathetic, empathetic, contagious joy & happiness, matters more during dark times. These qualities of heart/mind give us the resilience to get through these challenging times… through the physical, emotional, environmental & cultural crises that are occurring daily. We need to focus on joy & happiness more now, not less.

We begin Mudita practice reflecting on good things we’ve done, just a few moments ago or some years ago… the wise choices we’ve made, ways that we’ve helped others & times that we’ve acted out of a true feeling of generosity. We’re cultivating self-respect & love through acknowledging & honoring the goodness in our nature, our healthy humanbeingness. This nurtures our capacity to feel joy, happiness & delight in relationship to another’s happiness, success, health, brilliance & beauty, as well as delight in the magnificence of this planet & all the sentient beings who share it with us.

Mudita is a response from the heart. It’s a warm sense of connection rooted in kindheartedness & empathetic understanding. And of the four Divine Abidings – unconditional loving-kindness, compassion, Mudita & Equanimity – it can be the most difficult to cultivate. Mudita practice can bring to the surface many of the conditioned beliefs & reactive habit patterns that we identify as ‘ourself’… such as the learned belief that we are inadequate in some way or the learned attitude that we are better than. These learned self-identities create a constant underlying sense of uncertainty, tension & stress within our heart/mind & body. This ‘conceit of self’ usurps the vitality that comes with being fully present, blocking our potential to experience the shared contagious joy of simply being present with ‘what is’ in relationship to other beings & in relationship to our ourselves.

Joy opens us physically, mentally & emotionally – it’s an experience of expansion. Whereas fear, resistance & judgement are experiences of deep contraction. Cultivating joy is an important component of resilience, as it increases our capacity to face difficulties. Every time we stretch our capacity to experience Mudita, we increase our capacity to ‘stretch’ more without breaking. Joy energizes us. It makes the heart/mind light, pliable, open, generous & relaxed. In these moments we often feel unbound, healed.

Take a moment now to experiment with the feeling of joy in a very simple way with the words “I am here”. The emphasis isn’t on the sense of “I” or “am” but on “here.” Joy moves us into presence & breaks down our patterns of grasping at experience to validate our sense of who we are. Within this immediate experience of presence, we are free to pour our energies into the activity of life itself… no comparing or competing. We’re free to purely rejoice in/with another being’s delight, success, health, brilliance & beauty.

Summer morning Finches
singing their heart out
and into mine.
Marcia

The Delights of Dana by Ajahn Pasanno

In the late 1980s, the Thai monk Ajahn Suwat was teaching a ten-day retreat at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) with Ajahn Geoff (Thanissaro) as his translator. Ajahn Suwat had been in America for some time but he hadn’t taught a retreat to Westerners before. After several days, Ajahn Suwat asked Ajahn Geoff, “Why do the students seem so unhappy? They’re meditating. They’re here. But they seem so grim & not at all like they’re enjoying themselves.” After thinking about it, Ajahn Geoff said, “They know how to meditate, but not how to practice dana.” He saw a direct relationship between the lack of happiness & the lack of a foundation in dana.

In Thailand, where I lived for many years, generosity & giving are a child’s first teachings in Buddhism. Pregnant women go to the temple, offer food & dedicate merit: “May my child be healthy & happy.” When children are little, they get up early with their families to make offerings to the monastics walking by on almsround. Someone helps each child put a spoonful of rice in the alms bowl, and everyone claps & says, “Great!” Children get the idea: Wow, giving is good. They grow up associating generosity with pleasant feelings because it is a cultural value.

There are many different translations of the word dana. Basically, it is the quality of generosity in which we give physically and from the heart. Hearts with dana are generous, open-palmed & liberal in terms of willingness to give, share, be present & help others. All of those qualities lead us away from me & my needs, me & my preferences, me & my demands, me & my expectations, me & my desires, me & my firm place in the center of the universe.

At the root of generosity is the perception that there is always something to share. In fact, you don’t need a lot in order to give…. Sometimes we have a lot, but we feel it’s not enough & that we have to protect what’s there. We don’t even think about sharing what we have. That’s a state of lack & of being truly poor. On the other hand, giving & sharing come from a place of wealth.

There’s an old story about the difference between heaven & hell. The hell realms are filled with people who sit at long banquet tables piled high with all sorts of delicious foods & drinks. But everyone is completely miserable & hungry because the utensils are too long to maneuver. No matter how hard they try, they can’t put the food into their mouths. The heavenly realm is the same: the tables are laden with the same delicious foods & drinks & with the identical long utensils. But the people are happy & bright because they use the utensils to feed one another. There is no hunger or frustration, only fullness & well-being within the identical conditions. Giving & sharing is what turns a hell realm into a heavenly one.

One of the doorways out of suffering is generosity. It’s important to realize that dana is not just about material giving. It also involves service & keeping one’s eyes open for what needs to be done. How can I help? Who is in need of assistance? In order to feel comfortable helping others, we have to leap over the hurdle of self, of me & mine. Acts of service invite us to step out of the conditioned boundaries that we set up for our imaginary selves.

Excerpted from article in Inquiring Mind Fall 2007 Vol.24 #1

Ajahn Pasanno is a senior disciple of Ajahn Chah who for many years was the abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat International Forest Monastery in Thailand. In the late 1990s, he moved to California to head the new Abhayagiri Monastery. Ajahn Pasanno stepped back from the role of abbot in Spring 2018 but continues as an anchor of wisdom & guidance for the community.

Compassionate Awakening

“Compassion lies at the heart of what it means to be fully human. It allows us to be at peace in the midst of pain & turmoil. Compassion is an energetic response rather than a mental idea”

Awakening is not a separate state of being that comes into existence without the cultivation of the heart & the mind. We live in a time, a place & a culture in which the cognitive functioning aspects of the brain & mind have been elevated as the pinnacle or place to operate from, where greed, aversion & delusion have been the primary seeds of thought & actions. This has been at the loss & exclusion of understanding the great wisdom & contribution that the heart brings.

We have become acutely aware in this moment that we have been imbalanced for a very long time, even beyond the inception & manifestation of the conditions existing in & on these lands of the America’s. I posit that these conditions have been a fundamental struggle for humankind to transform. What might have been if we had been inclusive & holistically oriented? What might have gone into understanding & discovering who we are as human beings if, instead of separating the heart & mind, we had integrated the two? What might evolve if we lead with the heart of compassion?

If one connects into the compassionate heart, it’s going to, at times, bring one to a place where you have to be present with personal suffering & the suffering in the world. And that can be a place that oftentimes is so difficult that we find all these ways to turn away from it. The only way we can actually meet each other & meet the world & what’s happening is by strengthening the heart. Compassion becomes an embodied way of moving towards awakening as opposed to this “above the neck” disembodied place of understanding awakening & freedom.

There are many people that have a great deal of compassion. However oftentimes when self-compassion is not developed & cultivated, we become fairly quickly under-resourced & unable to continue to move forward & be fully present with our own embodied experience as well as with other embodied beings that we move through this life with. The way to know suffering in someone else is to recognize & know it yourself — to be aware of what it feels like, tastes like, smells like, looks like, sounds like. So self-compassion actually can act as a bridge between understanding compassion, having compassion, generating compassion, being compassion & offering compassion to others.

(Adapted from an interview that originally appeared on spiritrock.org)

DaRa Williams is a trainer, meditation teacher & psychotherapist who is committed to the healing of intergenerational trauma. A meditator for the past 25 years, she is a graduate of the Community Dharma Leaders 4 training through Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society Teacher Training Program & is a guiding teacher at IMS. She is the program manager & a core teacher in the current IMS Teacher Training Program. Dara is also the Program Manager & teacher in the Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy & Complex Trauma (IFOT) training programs in the United States. She & Kamala Masters will be teaching a People of Color retreat at The Mountain Hermitage in October 2020.

“It is my belief that vipassana meditation & the dharma are ideal for transforming suffering, particularly the trauma of oppression & its many vicissitudes – where the chains around our minds & hearts can be broken through & dissolved. Awareness & wisdom become the vehicle for freedom & transforming lives.”

The Healing Power of Compassion….

The last few weeks have been a time of seismic shifts in opening our hearts. For millions of people all over the world, it was heart-breaking to witness the suffering that George Floyd endured, and to see how much his family grieved. When the world grieved too, it caused a tipping and turning point. Our individual and collective hearts opened with compassion. The force of this compassion opened to the truth of deeply embedded structural violence and the social forces that have harmed our black communities for centuries. Of course, this also connects to all peoples everywhere, all genders, and all those who have been affected by this particular kind of systemic injustice. Although very painful, it also opened a widespread awakening to the truth of this kind of suffering, and the healing of it.

As Van Jones, news commentator and author said recently, “A miracle has taken place. A continent of common ground has emerged from beneath the waves.”

In the Dharma, it is said that compassion is a powerful healing force that reaches out to alleviate suffering. Reaching out with compassion can sometimes feel like the strength of courage to face what is difficult.

Reaching out can also feel gentle, like a soothing balm that offers some relieving kindness when we can sincerely say to someone, “I care about your pain.”

Sometimes it’s helpful to train the mind/heart in compassion during sitting meditation, so that it becomes a supportive habit pattern easily accessible in daily life. Traditionally, to practice compassion during meditation there is a progression of individuals that we offer to, and phrases that can be used (see Sharon Salzberg’s book, “Loving Kindness”).

In my own compassion practice, I keep it really simple. I choose someone who has shared their heartache with me, or whose difficulty is obvious. I take a few moments opening to how it is for this person, and at times compassion naturally arises. But there are times I need to use a phrase to help incline the mind/heart towards compassion, for example, “May you be free from your heartache,” repeating that phrase softly in a comfortable cadence.

There are times when we need to practice compassion for ourselves. However, sometimes we may feel so paralyzed, hurt, or upset that we can easily dismiss our own basic needs for self-care. Having raised four children, I remember this very well. It took time to establish a habit of offering compassion to myself. Some simple words would help to incline my heart towards compassion, “May my heart and mind be at ease.” Or even more specifically, “May I be more compassionate towards myself.” Even if it seemed impossible, I would rather repeat a wholesome intention than allow my unskillful thoughts to take over.

Knowing the terrain around compassion is important, so that we can be aware of what might be obstructing compassion. The far enemy of compassion is cruelty. This is when we strike out with angry words, actions, or even silently with our thoughts to hurt or harm.

The near enemy is apathy or indifference. It can manifest as not caring, a numbing distance, or a lack of empathy. Awareness is like a solvent; when the near or far enemies arise, awareness can dissolve any entanglement or identification with it, allowing compassion to arise.

May our deeper understanding and the power of compassion be forces of healing for all beings everywhere.

Kamala Masters is one of the founders & teachers of the Vipassana Metta Foundation on Maui. She teaches retreats in the Theravada tradition at venues worldwide, including being a Guiding Teacher & member of the Board of Directors at the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts. She & DaRa Williams will be teaching a People of Color retreat at the Mountain Hermitage in October 2020.

Paramis: The Ten Perfections – Reflections excerpted from Ajahn Sucitto

The Ten Paramis are the ten perfections of the heart to cultivate in one’s practice of the Dhamma. Ajahn Sucitto tells us, “These parami form a set of themes that are used in the Theravada tradition to this day. They provide a template for the mind’s energies & activities that isn’t an extra to all the other things we might have to do, but encompasses our talking & working, our relationships & interactions with others, our times of private introspection, our decision-making & the forming of our life directions. We practise morality, patience & all or any of the rest while we are engaged at work, or minding the children, or stuck in a traffic jam… The parami take spiritual practice into areas of our lives where we get confused, are subject to social pressure & are often strongly influenced by stress or stress- forming assumptions. Providing alternative ways to orient the mind in the stream of daily events, the ‘perfections’ can derail obstructive inner activities, & leave the mind clear for meditation. Cultivating parami means you get to steer your life out of the floods.”

The Ten Perfections (Parami)

Generosity/Sharing (dana) Recognizing the joy of sharing, & acknowledging that we all come into this world subject to pain, sorrow, sickness & death, I aspire to offer what I can in terms of resources, hospitality, healing & wise advice.

Morality/Integrity (sila) Recognizing the trust that develops from conscientiousness & fellow-feeling, I aspire to cultivate actions of body, speech & mind that turn away from hostility & harshness, & that cut off greed & manipulative behaviour.

Renunciation/Values-based Simplicity (nekkhamma) Recognizing the ease that arises with modesty & contentment, I aspire to relinquish needless acquisition & an imbalanced use of material resources.

Clarity/Wisdom (pañña) Recognizing the skill of clarity, I aspire to handle my perspectives with awareness & careful reflection, & thereby arrive at an unbiased understanding.

Energy (viriya) Recognizing my capacity for vigour, or for distraction & laziness, I aspire to use my energy for my long-term benefit & for the welfare of others.

Patience/Tolerance (khanti) Recognizing the value of tolerance & perseverance, I aspire to let go of getting my own way, cutting corners & being narrow-minded.

Truthfulness (sacca) Recognizing the wise relationships that can be established through my own veracity & through the honesty of others, I aspire to free my mind from biased perspectives & devious behaviour.

Resolution (adhitthana) Recognizing the potency of a firm heart, I aspire to hold intentions that are enriching, & to ward off vacillation on one hand & forceful goalseeking on the other.

Goodwill (metta) Recognizing the happiness of a warm heart, I aspire to cultivate empathy & compassion. Resisting mind-states based on fault-finding of myself or others, I will encourage goodwill rather than foster ideals of perfection.

Equanimity/Stability of Heart (upekkha) Recognizing the peace of even-minded acceptance, I aspire to let sickness & health, blame & praise, failure & accomplishment flow through my awareness without getting distracted by them.

Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto, currently based at Cittaviveka Monastery in Chithurst, West Sussex, has been part of a number of Theravada monasteries in Britain. The passages above on the Paramis are excerpted from his books “Parami, Ways to Cross Life’s Floods” and “Buddha-Nature, Human Nature.” Both are available on-line in PDF form at no charge.

Reflection on The Essence of Life….

As a human being we are endowed with a precious life. The human realm offers a mix of pleasant and painful experiences, there are opportunities for learning, doing good, or accumulating wealth. Many people strive to get as many pleasant experiences as possible, to accumulate material things, or to exercise power.

However, only few people reflect about the real essence of life. What essence can be extracted from one’s life? What is of benefit in this life for oneself and others? What is supporting one’s spiritual practice? Generally speaking, we are surrounded by material things, we have a body, and we have a mind.

Instead of accumulating material things or indulging in countless sensual pleasures – including food – we can share what we have with others. We can be generous and support others by offering food, building a well, sharing our time with a sick friend, or setting up a school.

Our manifold activities all day long and throughout our life are based on bodily actions and speech. We should make sure that they are guided by ethical principles; the base being not to harm or hurt others in any way. We should treat others with respect and dignity, be kind and compassionate. In this way, our body becomes a vehicle for virtuous behavior.

Due to confusion, distress, and negative habits in the mind we never attain the lasting happiness and peace of mind we so dearly wish for. Meditation is mental development of qualities such as kindness, compassion, patience, or equanimity and the cultivation of insight to see things are they really are. A well-developed mind is free from negativity and full of wholesomeness. Wisdom and compassion are the base of a liberated heart & mind.

The essence that can be extracted from our life to make it meaningful and beneficial is: dana, sila, bhavana – generosity, virtue, mental cultivation.

Every day we can aspire to be generous, virtuous, and cultivate our mind. In this way, we use our precious life – material things, body, mind – to extract what is essential.

Ariya Baumann was a nun in Myanmar (Burma) for many years where she assisted the Sayadaws by teaching & translation. In 2013, she disrobed & is now based in Switzerland. She continues to teach vipassana & metta meditation courses worldwide & is also a co-founder/president of ‘Metta In Action’ which supports a variety of social & medical projects throughout Burma, especially nunneries.

“Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal” by Naomi Shihab Nye

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

Photo at top of Naomi’s 95 yr old Palestinian grandmother by Michael Nye.

Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” Born to a Palestinian father & an American mother, she grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem & San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas & experiences traveling the world, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity. The recipient of many literary awards, she currently serves as Young People’s Poet Laureate in the U.S.

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