Take our Hair
The melody is from “Can’t Help Falling in Love” . I wrote the lyrics when I was on a retreat at a Buddhist monastery a few years ago.
After the Buddha became enlightened hundreds of men shaved their heads and became his monks. However he refused to ordain women, saying the time wasn’t right
That changed when his stepmother, Mahapajapati, and his former wife, Yasodhara, walked barefoot to his monastery and sat outside in the rain, refusing to move until he ordained them.
In the end Buddha relented and started a monastic lineage for women, maybe because this song, sung by Mahapajapati, went viral?
Lyrics
Dear Buddha, I raised you.
Yasodhara raised your son.
We’re with 100 women.All asking to be nuns.
Dear Buddha, you say
Ordination’s just for men,
But we can’t help
Wanting enlightenment.
Like the drops of rain
Entering the stream
Dear Buddha, can’t you see—
Some things just ought to be.
Take our hair,
take our whole lives too
For we can’t help.
Wanting to be Buddhas too.
