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Merry Christmas

http://www.toto-cgi.com/holiday/download/H...h/toto2001.html

Please Call Me By My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply; I arrive in every second

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile,

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,

in order to fear and to hope,

the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death

of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the

surface of the river,

and I am the bird, which, when spring comes,

arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond,

and I am the grass-snake who, approaching

in silence, 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 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 in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills

all four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear

all my cries and laughs 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.

by Thich Nhat Hanh


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