Twelve Deeds of the Buddha
(Composed by the XIIth Kentin Tai Situpa): Lyrics

Because you could hear the saddening cries of suffering
And the calling of Your children from a ripening world,
To fulfil the hopes and wishes of those beings,
To bring them to happiness and show virtue´s worth,
With limitless love and fearless resolution
From the highest of Pure Lands You emanated to Earth.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Seeing Jambudvip, our planet, in extraordinary vision,
A mother who could bear you, a father a great king,
With courage that was born of the deepest conviction
In the benefit that your life as a human would bring,
Amidst miracles and wonders,
You entered the womb
Of noble Mahamaya, King Suddhodhana´s Queen.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Born painlessly from her right side in the grove of Lumbini,
With the special signs of a Buddha your body was marked.
You took seven steps in each of the principal directions
And at each step a lotus-flower sprang up from the earth,
The Lord of Gods came to make his humble prostration
As you declared yourself most high in the whole universe.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Understanding with precision the qualities of all things,
The play of phenomena, with insight so deep,
That your prowess transcended all human expectation
Whilst in all of the arts you were always supreme,
Also brilliant in each of the sciences you became
The most wise and gifted youth that man has ever seen.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

To fulfil the dreams of your father and your people
In the city of Kapila you took as your bride
King Suppa´s daughter, Yasodhara, Princess of the Sakyas,
A jewel amongst maidens, fit to stand at your side.
Tasting life´s riches with not the slightest involvement
A perfect prince with all the joys that the world could provide.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Seeing all that appears in Samsara´s three dimensions
As just the sadness of sickness, birth, old-age and death,
Knowing how worthless is all comfort and royalty
Preferring the calm of the forest in its stead,
Without an instant of clinging, you mounted Kantaka
And with heartfelt renunciation from the palace you sped.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

The river Neranjara is cool and slow-running
By its banks all majestic ease was cast aside.
With rock for a cushion, in the utmost simplicity,
You practiced absorption of body, speech and mind,
Sitting without moving in the shade of a tall tree,
For six years, enduring hardship, the highest truth to find.  
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

In the absolute sense, you were always the Buddha,
With nothing to purify, from all obscuration free
The perfection and union of all the finest qualities,
But to show, in the relative, the great necessity
Of developing virtue and wisdom, you went to
The noble Seat of Achievement, beneath the Bodhi Tree.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Being jealous of your power and your all-embracing wisdom,
Of your matchlessly-peaceful harmonious state,
Of the way you would lead us to all forms of happiness,
The forces of darkness boiled with anger and hate:
Subduing without malice their nightmarish onslaught,
In one instant of your love, all evil was tamed.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

On the full moon of Vesak beneath the tree at Bodh Gaya -
The very heart of our planet, of all places holiest,
In the splendour of the sunrise of that glorious morning,
The ultimate of everything you saw, just as it is,
Through your perfect awakening and total realisation
You became the peerless guide for all that lives.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

In the natural wild beauty of the forest near Benares
And in other worldly places, worldly beings heard you preach
The path you had travelled - eighty-four thousand dharmas,
Whilst in exceptional places the gifted heard you teach
The extraordinary truth of the transcendent meaning
Thus You revealed to humankind the profound path of peace.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA  

Though far beyond any notion of ´staying´or ´going´,
To clarify the wrong views of those who believed
In the eternal or in ´nothing´ you passed from the sight of
Those men whose good fortune to see you had ceased;
Laying Your right side to the earth of Kushinara
You dissolved into the vastness of universal peace.
GREAT IS THE BUDDHA