Call Me by My True Name

My intention with these posts, my Dear, Dear Friend, is to make your day a little brighter, to offer practice tools, and to focus on our inherent goodness and compassion.

But you might agree with me that some weeks, too many weeks, it seems lately, finding goodness in the world feels very, very difficult.

I still think it is a worthy goal. There are many people doing good, being good souls, and working to reduce suffering worldwide.

Each day, we get to choose where and how to place our focus and our energy. Do we choose to support hate, violence, and suffering? Do we choose to support it under the guise of "law and order? Or can we step up and actually be good and helpful people in the world? You get to choose what to support with your heart, thoughts, and actions each moment.

I spent the last week at a truly beautiful online retreat on cultivating Bodhicitta– the compassion and profound wisdom that is the keystone of Buddhism. It was a timely moment to reflect on how to be compassionate amid such hate-filled times. We were encouraged not focus our energy on struggling to send compassion to difficult people. We were instead encouraged to give at least as much energy to noticing the beauty, the magic, and the endless creativity and loving kindness in the world as we do to the breakdown and suffering.

So I ask you: How do you seek wonder in your world? In what ways do you find beauty, joy, magic, and creativity? Where do you turn to for inspiration and hope? How can you support people doing good deeds and making the world even just a little less difficult?

I enjoy reading and studying Thich Nhat Hanh's work. It is the combination of his wisdom in mindfulness, Self-awareness, and Buddhism, specifically informed by his experience of living through the Vietnam War, that I find particularly poignant. Thay (pronounced "tie" as he is known to his Buddhist community) lived through the atrocities of war and watched so many people in his community suffer the worst kind of pain humans inflict on each other. It would have been very easy for him to slip into hate. He openly writes about his inner work of compassion during that time.

He traveled the world and to the US to plead for an end to the Vietnam War. He was often met with more hate and violence while working to spread awareness and peace. And yet he remained poised and calm, always acting from compassion. To me, Thay was, and continues to be through his teachings, an incredible inspiration and model for how to be compassionate and engaged in difficult times and with difficult people.

Below you will find Thay's poem, Call Me By My True Name to inspire both enchantment and compassion.

Stay strong, and do kind things for others.

Poem: Please Call Me By My True Names

By Thich Nhat Hanh

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.

From Call Me By My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, published by Parallax Press.