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Call Me By My True Names

15 Feb ’10 Leave a Comment Written by Juliet Bennett

This is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh taken from: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

Can we recognise ourselves in each other?

Please call Me By My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
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,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
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 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 in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs 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 so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

…

This is the essence of “interbeing,” the innerconnectedness of all things.

Peace
Ecology
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  • Rachel says
    A Sufi story I Loved reading this, hopeful and realistic at the sam..
  • Motewolonisq Art says
    I have had love for this post in 2012. Since then, my mind has expan..
  • Ricardo Eguia Valderrama says
    Cuando se tiene conciencia del espacio-tiempo (miles de millones de ..
  • Juliet Bennett says
    Hi Desmond, sadly, I did not get an answer to my last email :(
  • Juliet Bennett says
    Thanks Alexander! Very much Watts-inspired, but I believe I put them..
  • Juliet Bennett says
    Hi Molefe, I'm still on this journey of learning! You could start wi..
  • alexander Kesselaar says
    Accept your self, just as you are. Accept the world, just as it is...
  • molefe phillip seshabela says
    my name is Molefe phillip Seshabela,i am 34 year old , from Limpopo ..
  • Desmond Sequeira says
    From another lover of Lndt chocolate: Just read your blog on Lindt ..
  • Daftar Tembak Ikan says
    Hi there, yup this paragraph is genuinely nice and I have learned lo..

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Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

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