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 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 in the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate

I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable...

...of seeing...

...and loving...

I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable...

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 laughter at once...

...so I see 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...

Thich Nhat Hanh