Please Call Me by My True Names

Sometimes the moment I open my eyes I feel that I am being bombed by so many examples of craziness, suffering, ruthlessness, negativity… And all of that seems to be floating around continuously in my country, as well as globally. It makes me feel angry. Sad. Frustrated. Helpless. … And judgmental. Very judgmental.

What kind of people (I say people here, but let’s be honest in my mental chatter I will probably use the word idiots, at the very least) can vote for this party? What kind of people can harm other human beings for no apparent reasons? What kind of people can fear everything and everyone which doesn’t come from their nation and religion? The list of questions goes on and on. But merely asking these questions and resenting all of those people changes nothing.

I read something by Eckhart Tolle recently, which really spoke to me deeply:

Violence and judgments can result only in more violence and judgments. You can’t plant an apple tree and hope for peaches, right? I mean, this approach hasn’t really worked for humanity thus far, and I’d say several thousands of years is a fair trial period.

I remembered a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh I once saw, posted on a notice board in a meditation center and I wanted to share it here. It explains everything I want to say far more elegantly and beautifully.

Please Call Me by My True Names

I have a poem for you. This poem is about three of us. The first is a twelve-year-old girl, one of the boat people crossing the Gulf of Siam. She was raped by a sea pirate, and after that she threw herself into the sea. The second person is the sea pirate, who was born in a remote village in Thailand. And the third person is me. I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn’t. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life – economic, educational, and so on – it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called “Please Call Me by My True Names,” because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say, “Yes.”

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 the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the 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 my 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 so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

Remember to be kind today. Especially to those who know how to push your buttons. :)