Thich Nhat Hanh: You are the Victim and the Attacker

This is a very wise poem by Thich Nhat Hanh. I listened to a teaching today about conflict resolution. It talked about two monks having conflict. He shared a method 2,500 years old. The two monks both have a senior monk appointed to them. The senior monks talk to the community. The two monks are face to face, and the first step is to smile at each other. Then the monks speak of the conflict fully with all details. They listen to each other. The problem between the monks is worked out and the community decide if they consent to the verdict or solution. Both monks must be in agreement about the solution. They cannot come back later and renege, otherwise their voice has no substance. I really liked the fact that they started by smiling at each other. That is very hard when animosity is there. I also like the fact that the community is involved. What was interesting was to be an impartial mediator, to not take sides was the clear point when dealing with conflicting parties. So often, we are quick to judge people in conflict but in truth, the process is about working out solutions.

I found myself on the net and I found his poetry. My goodness, it is great. The story he tells is shocking and everyone reading this would want to take out their anger on the pirate, but what the poem shows us deeply if we are walking in their shoes, we would be them. This philosophy enables the independent mediator to be neutral and to feel compassion for both. This is very evolved.

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.

~Thich Nhat Hanh