The world is not the same but the dictators seem not to understand it. Otherwise they would not be dictators. This is what they do: oppress their people. This inability to see and embrace the change will also sooner or later lead to their own fall. Meanwhile we can express our solidarity with the brothers and sisters in Burma by demonstrating and sending our thoughts to those in Burma and all over the world that have the courage to walk the streets and ask for a dialogue with the regimes that are notorious for lack of tolerance. Today for the first time though my thoughts went to those young men and boys aiming weapons at the defenceless crowds and the words of the inspiring human being and Buddhist teacher slowly started settling inside me:
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 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
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
By Thich Nhat Hanh
From Call Me By My True Names, The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh
The world is not the same but the way I look at what is happening around is still often stale and prejudiced. I seem to know which side to take but boiling with indignation in the face of injustices seem to forget something master Thich Nhat Hanh talks about: there are no sides. May we all be well!
