Banner Quote by TNH

I thought I'd explain the quote at the top of this site. The quote is from Thich Nhat Hanh's poem, Please  Call Me By My True Names. I first encountered Thich Nhat Hanh's works through one of my first college courses, which focused on learning about mediation and Buddhism. One of TNH's central messages is to grow in compassion towards self and other. It is a very difficult message to practice, but I don't think I can overstate how much it has helped me. When I first read the poem, I thought his "identities" were jarring, even assuming or arrogant. But the more I read, the more I believe in his understanding of the emotions and experiences that link us. His messages are not diminutive or condescending, but a call to challenge the self. If you'd like to read more of TNH's works, please visit this page.



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 hinds. 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.