The troubled waters of Fukushima, Japan

The north western Pacific coast of Japan was subjected to double natural catastrophes of a major earthquake which also triggered gigantic Tsunami in March, 2011. In terms of lives lost and properties and infrastructures destroyed, it was the worst national disaster since World War II atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by America. However, this time the great nation of Japan and her heroic people rose gallantly to the challenges of epic proportion and somehow have dealt in the best possible way the aftermath damages and wounds of the tragic chaos.

It was, therefore, very saddening to recently come across news headlines, ‘Radiation level spikes at Fukushima’. Japan has been grappling with the consequences of the 3 damaged reactors at Fukushima Nuclear Plant since that fateful day and so far has not been successful in finding a permanent solution to deal with the resultant radioactive water. It is not that Japan does not have the national will or fiscal resources to tackle the task but it seems this melt down of a nuclear reactor is an immense problem that needs accumulative minds of all nuclear experts and agencies of the world. As a lifelong admirer and sincere well-wisher of Japan, I wish to humbly offer two prayers:

1. I pray that Japan overcome her engrained national reluctance to share her problem and seek out possible ways and means to overcome the radiation danger.

2. I reproduce herein a part of Sampa Lhundrup prayer that is appropriate to the task ahead, from a collection of Essential Prayers by Shechen Publications, New Delhi.

Original version:

ས་ཆུ་མེ་རླུང་འབྱུང་བའི་བར་ཆད་ཀྱིས༔         སྒྱུ་ལུས་གཡར་པོ་འཇིག་ལ་ཐུག་པའི་ཚེ༔         ཡིད་གཉིས་ཐེ་ཚོམ་མེད་པར་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས༔ ཨོ་རྒྱན་འབྱུང་བ་བཞི་ཡི་ལྷ་མོར་བཅས༔            འབྱུང་བ་རང་སར་ཞི་བར་ཐེ་ཚོམ་མེད༔         ཨོ་རྒྱན་པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས༔ བསམ་པ་ལྷུན་གྱིས་འགྲུབ་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས༔

English Translation: 

         

When through obstacles caused by the elements of earth, water, fire and wind

This illusory body suffers and risks destruction, If we pray unhesitatingly with single minded intensity, The Uddiyana Guru, with Goddesses of the four elements, Will surely pacify the elements, restoring them to equilibrium. We pray to you lotus born, Guru of Uddiyana,

Through your blessings may all wishes be spontaneously fulfilled!

Technically and financially, it is easily possible for Japan and so, if appropriate culturally, a statue of Guru Rinpoche and goddesses of the four elements could be installed facing the Pacific Ocean at the north western coast of Japan.

With my gratitude and respect for the immense goodwill of the People and Government of Japan for Bhutan and Bhutanese.