Please Call Me By My True Names

Thich Nhat Hanh

Do not say I depart tomorrow - even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: I arrive in every moment,

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird with still fragilewings,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be 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 are alive.

I am the may fly metamorphosing on the surface of a river.

And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of the pond.

And I am also the grass snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

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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 laughs at once,

So that I can see that my joy and my 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 doors of compassion.