The Day the Earth Shook: The tide of suffering and death tsunami Asia

Christopher Titmuss

Please e-mail to as many as possible
the contact information below to encourage all your e-mail contacts
to make donations.

The day the earth shook

We have shed enough tears to fill the great ocean,
a huge wave of sorrow has been let loose
and a tide of terror has swept across
our populated earth,
the sea has unleashed an innocent brutality
casting from life untold numbers of souls.

Only despair and death haunt survivors
who hugged the sea that swept them away
- a cathartic outpouring choking out lives.

Plagued by natural forces, the frenzy
crashed upon every living thing in sight,
and when the earth shook, so our hearts
shook in its wake.

Our beings quivered with anguish,
as we also became exposed to our own vulnerability
as small sentient creatures living
in the shadow of titanic forces.

We are humbled in the face of an unprecedented tragedy
not knowing how to respond
when the Earth shook to its core
and our heads shook with horror.

Are we not all a human family,
a sangha of vulnerable souls
on our collective journey through
birth, ageing, pain and death?

Isn’t everybody our mother, father,
brother, sister, son and daughter?
Are we remembering the tide of death
will come one day to sweep us away?

Bronze leaves tremble in the autumn wind,
the candle flame flickers by the open door,
the bird gets pulled along the air currents
while the fearful tremble on the edge of unrelenting sorrow.

Are we allowing ourselves to shake
in the core of our being,
Are we willing to experience the pain of others?
- or will we quickly slip back into an indifferent,
mundane and self-enclosed existence?

Let the inner core’s powerful inner forces
transform us, purify our perceptions
to show that human nature has power too
- to meet the tide of terror
with the tide of generosity

It is only when we act that
we recover our humanity.

Then and only then something in
the core of our being forces us
realise that we are all
in this together.

AN APPEAL TO YOUR HEART

Can you help?
What can you offer?
Here are some useful contacts.
Find out in what way you can make a contribution
in your area, region or country.

Please send donations to:

1. OXFAM, the internationally respected charity, founded in Oxford, England that works on behalf of the world’s poor.
http://www.oxfam.org/eng/oxfam_sites.htm
http://www.oxfam.org/eng/oxfam_sites.htm
to find your country or the Oxfam home page.

2. Make cheque payable to DEC Tsunami Earthquake, PO Box 4420, London W17 7QX or telephone Medecins Sans Frontieres in England at 0800 200 222.

3. For information about how you can help some of the Buddhist organizations in Asia that are responding to this crisis, please visit the webpage below. We will update this information as we hear more details from friends and colleagues in Asia.
www.bpf.org/html/whats_now/events/tsunami.html
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
e-newsletter editor
email: newsletter@bpf.org
4. Foundation for the People of Burma, a US based non profit, which provides humanitarian aid to Burmese refugees and people within the Burmese borders. The Foundation operates quietly within Burma without the involvement of the government.

Foundations for the People of Burma
909 Montgomery Street, Suite 500
San Francisco, CA 94113
www.foundationburma.org
or contact director, Heather Graham
heather@foundationburma.org

5. Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka works in conjunction with donor agencies and foreign aid and is one of the largest grassroots organisations in Asia, founded in 1958 by Dr. Ariyaratne, a member of the international advisory board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

For Foreign remittance
http://www.lanka.info/sarvodaya/donate.html
Account Name Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Sangamaya (Inc.)
Account No Acct. No 159000 8015
Account Currency US Dollars
Bank Commercial Bank of Ceylon Ltd.
Branch Moratuwa
Address No.116, Galle Road, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
SWIFT CCEY.LK.LX
Contact Details:
Sarvodaya HQ
No98, Rawatawatta Road,
Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
Phone +9411 2655 255
+9411 2655 110
Fax +9411 2656 512

Web: http://www.sarvodaya.lk/

6. Sarvodaya USA, the non-violent peace force, has offered to accept contributions through its secure website and will forward all relief funds directly to Sarvodaya in Sri LaNKA without a handling fee.
Send a cheque to Sarvodaya USA, 5716 Manchester Avenue *3, Los Angeles
www.sarvodaya.org