There staring at us bare is this truth -
Don’t window-dress it, friend,
this world is indeed of suffering made:

Birth is suffering,
And growing up,
Friendship is suffering,
And love and loss,
Time an affliction and
Ageing

There is a kernel of sorrow concealed in joy
Victory and defeat are two sides of a coin

We rise to fall and fall to weep

The rich man sleeps in his mansion on the hills
Because a urchin is awake empty stomached
Sweeping the street
A full belly here is a meal
Snatched from the hands of a child somewhere

We conscript and send to deaths young men and women
Ugly and blighted is ok as along as
we profit

And so we go seeking a moments joy
In this world of suffering

Face it bold don’t conceal it in hope
The sad truth of our suffering world

seek the roots of suffering deep