The Richest Person on Earth

Below is a poem I come back to again and again. I can be a real complainer at times. I can walk around in a daze lost in circular thoughts. I can be a real glass-half-empty person all along thinking I was always looking at an overflowing cup!

But I can see the incredible beauty in life, I can realise that I have all the conditions for happiness I could ever dream of! I can walk outside and be overwhelmed by the winter branches etched on the empty sky and not need a single thing more in that moment!

There is a bit of both. How wonderful it would be to shake off the complainer, the dazed thinker, the one who lives in lack instead of abundance. How wonderful it would be to live in happiness and wonder all the time!

I think it’s possible. This poem is about all that, it’s as if someone had given me the list of instructions that makes everything completely clear…

Our True Heritage, by Thich Nhat Hanh

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.
Each moment you are alive is a gem,
Shining through and containing earth and sky,
water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting,
see the flowers blooming,
the blue sky,
the white clouds,
the smile and the marvellous look
of your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging for a living,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
We should enjoy our happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms.