Santhosa Wenna Lyrics by Saman De Silva

Be happy, be joyful,
come, my friends…
Why do the few of us who are here
fall into division like this, oh why…

Caught up in jealousy and anger,
no one has ever won in this world…
This leopard, that cat,
quarrelling like this, no, no, never…

This is mine, this is yours,
whose then is this world of ours…
We come with nothing, we leave with nothing too,
so until that day, live well together…

Be happy…/

This is a song with a message, the kind an older, wiser voice sings to gather everyone in and remind them how to live. It opens like a call across a courtyard, come, friends, be happy, be glad. Then comes the gentle scolding underneath it: there are so few of us here, so why do we keep splitting apart over nothing? That is the whole heart of the song, a plea to drop the small wars we carry against each other.

The middle verse names what poisons us, jealousy and anger, and says plainly that no one has ever come out ahead by holding onto them. The image of the leopard and the cat is the clever turn here. In Sinhala these stand for the big and the strong against the small and the weak, the powerful and the ordinary. A leopard and a house cat snarling at each other is a picture of how pointless our quarrels are, the mighty and the meek both end up fighting over scraps, and neither truly wins. The song waves it all away, no, no, never, like an elder shaking his head at children squabbling.

The last verse reaches for the deepest idea, one that runs straight through Buddhist thinking. We carve up the world into mine and yours, but whose is any of it, really? We arrive with empty hands and we leave with empty hands, so the things we cling to and fight over were never ours to keep. There is a quiet truth in it about impermanence, that holding on so tightly is foolish when none of it lasts.

What the song leaves you with is not heavy though, it is warm. Since we are only passing through and nothing belongs to us anyway, the only thing worth doing is the simplest thing: until that day comes, live well, live kindly, live together. Be happy. It is less a sad song than a hand on your shoulder, telling you to let the grudges go while there is still time.