Singapore Medicine Buddha Dharma Music Concert
Introduction
This is a collection of songs from Rev. Heng Sure’s released and to-be released albums prepared for the 2024 Singapore Medicine Buddha Dharma music concert.
Download Music
Click the following button to download the music collection of eight songs.
The file size is 93 MB.
Visit Good Karma Music
This collection of music is part of the Good Karma Music project where people around the world submit their stories of good deeds they do. In return, we offer our music for them to download.
Visit Good Karma Music to read stories of good deeds and submit your story.
Notes and Lyrics of the Songs
Music: Rev. Heng Sure
Lyrics: Elder Master Xuyun’s Enlightenment Verse translated and adapted by Rev. Heng Sure
During a twelve-week Chan meditation session in 1896, late at night, a tea cup fell from a monk’s hand, and shattered on the floor. Instantly, the monk, Elder Master Xuyun (Empty Cloud), “lit up his mind and saw his inherent nature,” Buddhist jargon for the experience of spiritual enlightenment. He wrote these three stanzas to memorialize the event. One verse is “True Emptiness,” staring directly into the Void, where the Universe holds no sympathy; the other verse mirrors “Wonderful Existence,” full of compassion and life. The melody is an attempt to place this iconic experience in a Western musical setting.
杯子撲落地，響聲鳴歷歷， 虛空粉碎也，狂心當下歇。
燙著手打碎杯，家破人亡語難開， 春到花香處處秀，山河大地是如來.
Beizi pu luo di, xiangsheng ming lili Xukong fencui ye, kuangxin dangxia xi.
The cup hit the floor with a ringing sound, That echoed in the air,
Empty space broke to bits,
And my mad mind stopped right there.
Burned my hand, shattered my cup,
Broken for good, my mind,
Like my family it’s lost, the people are gone, Words are hard to find.
Spring is here, the flowers breathe, Their fragrance to the sun; Mountains, rivers, the earth itself, Are just the Thus Come One.
Music and Lyrics: Rev. Heng Sure
I researched the question, “what do enlightened people do after they wake up?” The answer, inspired by gratitude; they look for their parents, to return their abundant kindness. The stories of enlightened men and women make it clear that once you wake up you feel deep gratitude and a wish to repay.
People ask me, “What did you get from your meditation?
Are you enlightened, have you ended your frustration?”
The wise men and women who woke up, all those I reviewed, Say the highest state is a wish to repay, a heart of gratitude.
Thank you to the universe, thank you to the earth and sky, I may not repay my parents’ kindness, but every day I try.
How many years did I waste, waiting for my prize?
For my ship to finally come in? For my payoff to arrive? But joy comes not from getting, but from giving it all away, Sages say “Once you wake up you feel a wish to repay.”
Thank you to the universe, thank you to the earth and sky, I may not repay my parents’ kindness, but every day I try. I may not repay my teacher’s kindness, but every day I try. I may not repay the planet’s kindness, but every day I try. I may not repay my parents’ kindness, but every day I try.
Music and Lyrics: Rev. Heng Sure
While meditating at Buddha Root Farm, a summer camp in the coastal mountains of Oregon, I witnessed deforestation, “clear-cutting” of the forest. This terrible practice harms the entire ecosystem; the land can no longer support the myriad species that depend upon it to survive. Humans are a part of the whole; when we level the forest, we tear away the lungs of the planet and destroy our own Earth household.
We sing lullabies to send children to sleep; this song was written to apologize to the eagles, the deer, the salmon, the insects and the trees.
My tall fir trees touched the sky, Where eagles raised their young. Timber wolves would serenade, When sundown’s song was sung; Salmon swam home to their streams, Each year you’d find them there, Redwoods like cathedrals,
Every breath was like a prayer.
Turtle island lullaby,
Song for the end of day.
To ease us into twilight,
And send us on our way.
We are all related,
On this planet that we share. Have we learned any lessons? Small blue marble in the air.
You wasted all my topsoil, You fished my waters dry. You clear cut my green trees, I can’t breathe and I can’t cry. What about your children? How far can you see?
What we do to our neighbors, Becomes our destiny.
Turtle island lullaby,
Song for the end of day.
To ease us into twilight,
And send us on our way.
We are all related,
On this planet that we share. Have we learned any lessons? Small blue marble in the air.
Goodnight to the salmon, Goodnight to the seals, Goodnight to the turtles, May your spirits be healed.
No one owns the fire,
No one owns the air.
No one owns the water, The Earth’s a gift to share. Life itself is sacred,
May we all one day be healed. May we find our great compassion, When our kinship is revealed.
Turtle island lullaby,
Song for the end of day.
To ease us into twilight,
And send us on our way.
We are all related,
On this planet that we share. Have we learned any lessons? Small blue marble in the air.
Music and Lyrics: Jennifer Berezan
This song was written by Canadian-American artist, songwriter and Berkeley neighbor, Jennifer Berezan. Of all the songs written about Guan Yin Bodhisattva, the Awakened Being of Great Compassion, this one touches more hearts than any other. I’ve sung it with audiences from Shanghai to Sydney, from Berkeley to Boston and no matter where, the scope of Guan Yin’s vows seems to unlock the spirit of kindness in our hearts. Guan Yin wants to carry us to the other side of trouble, fears, affliction and pain.
Visit https://jenniferberezan.com for more information about this song and Jennifer Berezan’s music.
She is a boat, she is a light,
High on a hill, in the dark of night,
She is a wave, she is the deep,
She is the dark where the angels sleep, When all is still and peace abides,
She carries me to the other side.
She carries me, she carries me,
She carries me to the other side. (x2)
And though I walk through valleys deep, And shadows chase me in my sleep,
On rocky cliffs I stand alone,
I have no name, I have no home,
With broken wings I long to fly, She carries me to the other side,
She carries me… (x2)
A thousand arms, a thousand eyes,
A thousand ears to hear my cries,
She is the gate, she is the door,
She leads me through and back once more, When day has dawned, when death is nigh, She carries me to the other side.
She carries me… (x2)
Lyrics and music: Rev. Heng Sure
Earth Store Bodhisattva (Ksitigarbha) has the greatest vows among the Bodhisattvas in the Buddhist pantheon. He vows to go down to the hells and not return until they are empty of sufferers. “I return and rely on the Bodhisattva King of Great Vows” means I go for spiritual refuge to the Awakened Being, Earth Store Bodhisattva.
To end her mother’s misery was her quest,
To end her mother’s misery was her quest.
Her vows she professed, a filial child so blessed; To end her mother’s misery was her quest.
I return, I rely, on the Bodhisattva King of Great Vows; I return, I rely, on the Bodhisattva King of Great Vows.
He makes his home deep in the hells,
He makes his home deep in the hells.
Well, it’s deep in the hells that this Bodhisattva dwells, He makes his home deep in the hells.
I return, I rely…
Music: WIlliam Walker “Amazing Grace”
Lyrics: Traditional Buddhist verses translated and adapted by Rev. Heng Sure
This wonderful song is traditionally sung only on Buddha’s Birthday, during the full moon in May. I translated it and added three verses hoping to make it available to sing year-round.
Upon the earth, below the sky, the Buddha has no peer, In Ten Directions everywhere, he is beyond compare.
He’s gone beyond duality, he’s never born again,
With wisdom bright he blesses me, he knows my joy and pain.
He walked the Noble Middle Way, with strength and purity, In dark of night and light of day, his kindness touches me.
He’s not divine, but he’s awake, he’s neither come nor gone, I find him in each blade of grass, he is the wisdom sun.
I’ve searched around this whole wide world, and now I can declare, You’ll never find a wiser one, than Buddha anywhere.
You’ll never find a wiser one, than Buddha anywhere.
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
He dispels calamities and lengthens life
Namo, Namo
He dispels calamities and lengthens life
Namo, Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Buddha of Lapis Lazuli Light
Namo, Namo
Buddha of Lapis Lazuli Light
Namo, Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Medicine Master Thus Come One
Namo Namo
Content
Music: Loreena McKennit: “The Dark Night of the Soul.” From the Quinlan Road CD The Mask and Mirror. Published by Quinlan Road Music Ltd (SOCAN/BMI). www.quinlanroad.com
Lyrics: Traditional Buddhist hymn, translated from the Chinese by Rev. Heng Sure and Bhikshu Heng Lyu
This song was composed at Our Lady of Grace Benedictine Convent, in Beech Grove, Indiana, eight days after the World Trade Center towers fell in New York. The song has a healing quality and has been adopted by religious communities — Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant — around the world.
May every living being,
Our minds as one and radiant with light,
Share the fruits of peace,
With hearts of goodness, luminous and bright. If people hear and see,
How hands and hearts can find in giving, unity, May their minds awake,
To Great Compassion, wisdom and to joy.
May kindness find reward,
May all who sorrow leave their grief and pain; May this boundless light,
Break the darkness of their endless night. Because our hearts are one
This world of pain turns into Paradise
May all become compassionate and wise,
May all become compassionate and wise.
