Sister Jina reads this poem from Call Me By My True Names - The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, republished here with the kind permission of Parallax Press.
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PLEASE 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
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
This poem was written in 1978, during the time of helping
the boat people. It was first read at a retreat in Kosmos
Center in Amsterdam, Holland, organized by Niko Tideman.
Daniel Berrigan was there.
After the Vietnam War, many people wrote to us in Plum
Village. We received hundreds of letters each week from
the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It was
very painful to read them, but we had to be in contact. We
tried our best to help, but the suffering was enormous, and
sometimes we were discouraged. It is said that half the
boat people fleeing Vietnam died in the ocean; only half
arrived at the shores of Southeast Asia.
There are many young girls, boat people, who were raped
by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many
countries tried to help the government of Thailand prevent
that kind of piracy, sea pirates continued to inflict much
suffering on the refugees. One day, we received a letter
telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped
by a Thai pirate.
She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and
drowned herself. When you first learn of something like
that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side
of the girl. As you look more deeply, you will see it
differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is
easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But
we can’t do that. In my meditation, I saw that if I had been
born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same
conditions as he was, I would now be the pirate. There is a
great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I can’t
condemn myself so easily. In my meditation, I saw that
many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds
every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians,
and others do not do something about the situation, in
twenty-five years a number of them will become sea
pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those
fishing villages, we might become sea pirates in twenty-five
years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all
of us, because all of us are to some extent responsible for
this state of affairs.
After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are
three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me.
Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each
other? The title of the poem is “Please Call Me by My True
Names,” because I have so many names. When I hear one
of these names, I have to say, “Yes.”