Pic credit: Shared Google image from Taringa.net

What The Buddha would have said....
(If he was among us today)
by Renton de Alwis

"Vikarai, Ananda, vikarai"!*

Is this a birthday treat for me,
to celebrate
what they imagine
to be me,
and the message
of the Dhamma
I shared?

waste galore....
they sing, they dance
they eat, they drink
they collect, lavish
pay themselves, rob,
swim in the muddy waters
of Kamasukallikanu yoga.

leave the sick,
poor and old
on the lurch, beyond
this Vesak week,
all in my name
blind, blinded
forgetting, forgotten.

I am bought
I am sold
like a branded good
even your brethren
charge lucre to spread
the Dhamma I taught,
for the well being of all

I am bewildered,
sad and broken
whatever happened
to the meaning,
right practice
of the Dhamma
I preached?

What a show, it is Ananda,
"Vikarai, Ananda, Vikarai".

* This line and the inspiration to write this is drawn from a verse written in Sinhala and published in the Facebook by Sureka Samarasena.