Call Me by My True Names, by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh recently passed on. He was 95. Known as the “father of mindfulness”, he was a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk. He taught countless individuals the power of profound presence. I’ve read that watching him walk a single step was completely transformative. Imagine, the power we humans all have to move mountains by how we treat one small, seemingly insignificant step. Paying attention is a rare quality. He wrote numerous books, poems, and texts. Below is one of his most well known poems. Parts of it are uncomfortable for me. I don’t want to be a sea pirate who rapes a child! I have been thinking a lot lately about what this poem means, especially the lines my mind chooses to push away. I think one of the messages is exactly that: what do we push away and reject, within ourselves and the greater picture? If we are each a fully contained universe, doesn’t that also include the horrors of life? This poem, to me, feels like an unattainable level of acceptance of the ugliness that exists, yet this human being attained it, which points to the limitless possibility we have to surprise ourselves over and over. The heart is so much bigger and stronger than the mind.

https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2088