6/12/2020

True Name

Call Me By My True Names

"Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— 
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud
on a Spring branch, 
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, 
learning to sing in my new nest, 
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, 
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. 
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. 
And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. 
And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, 
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. 
And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, 
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped
by a sea pirate.
And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable 
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom
all over the Earth. 
My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names, 
so I can wake up 
and the door of my heart could be left open,
the door of compassion."

- Thich Nhat Hanh