{"id":1326,"date":"2026-06-26T06:31:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T06:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aeris.baby\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:56:12","slug":"beauty-against-domination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aeris.baby\/?p=1326","title":{"rendered":"Beauty Against Domination"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only thing worthy of you is compassion—invincible, limitless, unconditional.
<\/strong> Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine.

– “Recommendation,” Thích Nhất Hạnh (1965.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nhất Chi Mai, a Vietnamese Buddhist nun, taped a reading of this poem and left it for her parents before lighting herself on fire in protest of the Vietnam War. The funeral procession was five kilometers long.

Not everyone needs to burn to achieve change through awe, but perhaps they would not risk burning if they didn’t believe it would light the capacity for compassion – invincible, limitless, unconditional <\/em>– within us.

When I think of awe, I normally recall times I’ve spent staring at the night sky and seeming to, myself, dissolve into the stars as the grass around me recedes into darkness. But there are many forms of awe. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s poem situates suffering, love, and vast moral courage within a larger continuity of existence. Moral beauty shows us what we may become.

In both forms, there is a blurring of the boundary between oneself and the world.

I’ve heard some anarchists – and Marxists – claim that art is “bourgeois” and beauty is only wasteful. Imagine, though, standing before a rainbow or standing beside grey, stone barracks. Which one will make you feel curious to become part of the world?

I was motivated by awe from something as simple as artwork in a card game I play. Cresselia, the embodiment of the crescent moon, uses its power to dispel bad dreams. A little girl, small in her pajamas, reaches into the night sky to receive its light. Her bedroom and the cosmos are rendered in the same sparkling glow, with no real boundary between them. Sometimes, a small act of compassion is large when our vulnerable heart is open to receiving it fully.

Even though Cresselia is a weak card on the field, my spirits lifted each time I played it. I was happy to lose the match, at times, if it meant we could both leave the match having witnessed something beautiful together. When I had Cresselia in the active spot, another player that could have easily knocked it out forced me to switch cards instead. It made me smile.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cresselia,