The process of cognition ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

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End of Suffering - Thich Nhat Hanh

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Ego - Thich Nhat Hanh

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Warm Embrace - The Great Bell Chant

A Warm Embrace - The Great Bell Chant (The End of Suffering) from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.

Read by Thich Nhat Hanh, chanted by brother Phap Niem

* For smooth playback, let the video first load in its entirety by letting the bar fill up with grey. Press play, wait until you see the bar filling up and press pause. When the entire bar is grey, you can play the video.

If you want this chant to play repetitively, right click the video itself and click on 'video loop is off' and switch it to 'on'.




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Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly ~ A letter from Thich Nhat Hanh

Letter from Thay, March 7, 2010: “Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly”
Fragrant Source Hermitage

March 7th, 2010

Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly

Letter to my Bat Nha children and others near and far

My dear children,

The seven-day monastic retreat in Plum Village has ended, but its reverberation and its energy of joy continue. The monastic brothers and sisters from La Maison de L’Inspir’ in Paris and from the European Institute of Applied Buddhism in Walbroel have left to return to their home monasteries. In Plum Village, the community is practicing ten lazy days. Some are doing intestinal cleansing, some are fasting, some are on solo retreats, and some are writing or reading books. Thay hopes that wherever my children are, you can also follow the retreat, listen to the Dharma talks, the Question and Answer session, the Dharma sharings, the news, as well as the photos of the retreat. As you already know, the theme of the retreat was “Renewing the Mind of Love.”

The Queen Bee

Renewing the Mind of Love? Most likely, all of you feel that your Mind of Love is brand new. Last year’s events have helped us to reflect and see that our beginner’s mind is still whole; not only is it unscathed, but it has become even stronger. The beginner’s mind is so valuable; so long as we still have it, we still have everything. And we all still have the beginner’s mind and we all still have each other. We have each other as a Sangha even though we have been separated. Yet because the beginner’s mind is still there in each one of us, we do not have the feeling of being separated. The beginner’s mind is the Queen Bee. Thanks to the Queen Bee, all the bees always have the opportunity to come back to each other, one way or another, under one form or another. Thay is not worried, and Thay does not want you to be worried either. Smile and see that this is an opportunity to grow up.

The Flowing Stream

In the retreat, the Sangha listened and practiced the Dharma Door “Seeing that we are a flowing stream.” When we touch the earth, we can be aware of the presence in us of our mother and father, of the Buddha, the Patriarchs and our Teachers. Through them, we can touch the two streams of our spiritual and blood ancestors within ourselves. We are liberated from the confining shell of the ego created by ignorance and habit energy. We see that we are the continuation of our ancestors, that we are a flowing stream, not a pond or a lake stagnant in one place. We can also see the presence of our younger brothers and sisters in us as well as the presence of their children in us. We are transmitting ourselves to our younger brothers, sisters, and to the young people whom we are teaching and caring for, whether they are monastic or lay. We see them in us and us in them. We have the opportunity to transmit to them what is most beautiful and healthy in ourselves, bringing us great joy and fulfilment. Each touching of the earth, each breath, each step, and each smile have the value of transmitting and receiving, helping us see that we are a flowing stream. In moments like that, non-self is not a notion, but it is a living reality: we, our ancestors, and our children are unifying into one flowing stream. There is no separation, no regret, and no isolation. And we feel free-flowing, spacious, at ease and healthy.

The Cherry Tree

This morning while doing walking meditation by the Fragrant Source, Thay realized that we can also practice as a cherry tree, an apple tree, or a grapefruit tree. In Fragrant Source Hermitage, there are no grapefruit trees, but there are apple and cherry trees. And they will blossom in a few weeks. When the community celebrated Tet [Vietnamese lunar New Year], it was still very cold, and there was still a lot of snow. Now the daffodils in the Upper Hamlet have begun to bloom and the magnolia buds at Fragrant

Source are getting bigger. The cherry blossoms are white and the apple blossoms are pink. We can practice as a cherry tree or an apple tree. When doing sitting meditation, walking meditation, breathing, working, Dharma sharing, we nourish ourselves as the cherry tree does — receiving sunlight, warmth, rain, air and nutrients from the earth so that it can prepare to make leaves, flowers and fruits – so that we can have the flowers and fruits of mindfulness, understanding and love to transmit to future generations. It is a process of receiving, offering and transmitting. The cherry tree does that, and we also do that — and, like the cherry tree, we enjoy doing it. Looking at the bright apple tree with thousands of pink blossoms preparing for the birth of heavy, round apples, we hear the apple tree’s song. Looking at a spiritual practitioner who is receiving and transmitting the flowers and fruit of his or her practice, we see that a practitioner’s life is also a song.

Standing still by the fence,
You smile a wondrous blossom.
I look at you silently, and I am shocked
To hear you just singing.
Your song is eternal.
I get down on my knees and bow.



This poem was written by the young poet Quach Thoai, whom Thay met for the first time at Giac Nguyen Temple, Khanh Hoi, in 1949. The poem is entitled The Thuoc Duoc Flower. Thay visualizes his children as flowers smiling by the fence of our motherland, singing the song of Right Dharma. What’s important is that the flower never stops singing.


Now We See Each Other’s Face Clearly

In June 2008, Thay ended the visit and teaching tour in our homeland by living and practicing with his Bat Nha children for three weeks. During these three weeks, beginning at the end of May, Thay and Thay’s Bat Nha children had the opportunity to live and practice together at Bat Nha Monastery. In content, this was truly a diligent monastic retreat: every morning, there was sitting meditation, a Dharma talk, walking meditation, and a silent meal in the Garuda Wing Meditation Hall. In the afternoon, there was always Dharma sharing or tea meditation. About thirty monastics from the United States and Europe were present with Thay and the Bat Nha Sangha — there were about 450 of us practising together as a spiritual family. We did not call it a retreat, but it was the most diligent, profound retreat, full of love between brothers and sisters, students and teacher.

There were signs letting Thay know that this was the last time Thay would live and practice with his children at Bat Nha. So Thay lived wholeheartedly with Bat Nha and with the Sangha at Bat Nha. Thay thought that perhaps within only a very short time, the sangha would have to leave Bat Nha. But in fact, they were not able to expel us until fourteen months later. During each walking meditation session at Bat Nha, Thay was attentive to every rock, every jackfruit tree, every shrub, knowing that this would be the last time Thay would see them. Thay smiled with every and any thing he saw and was in touch with. Thay felt regret. Not for himself, but for the Venerable Abbot Duc Nghi and for the trees and forests and mountains there, because they would no longer have the fortune to be the home for such a Sangha as the Bat Nha Sangha. Brother Phap Kham reported that the day Thay Duc Nghi refused to sponsor his visa renewal, Thay Duc Nghi lay on his bed facing the wall without saying anything. It was one of the signs letting Thay know we would not be able to continue at Bat Nha. Thay already knew that Bat Nha would become a legend.

Bat Nha Is In our Hearts

During the time the Bat Nha monks and nuns took refuge at Phuoc Hue Temple in Bao Loc, the Bat Nha novices were still able to publish an edition of their novice magazine Moon on the Front Porch, with the title “Refuge Seeking Season”(Mua Loan Lac). One of the articles talked about two young monastics who missed Bat Nha so much that they secretly went back to visit Bat Nha without the permission of the Sangha. They were local people, so it was not difficult for them to get back there. But as soon as they arrived they felt lost and sad. It was the same place, but so lifeless, vacant and dilapidated! It was just like the moment in the epic poem‘‘Story of Kieu,’’ when the young man Kim Trong returned to visit the house of his beloved Thuy Kieu, after attending his uncle’s funeral. Kieu had already sold herself, and had been taken to foreign lands. Her parents and two siblings had moved to another place, sowing and writing to earn a living.

Hurriedly, he went to Kieu’s garden looking around.
The place was entirely different:
The garden overgrown with grass,
Cold moonlight on the window sill,
Walls fallen apart from the rain -
No one to be seen anywhere.
Last year’s Cherry blossoms were still smiling in the East wind.
Birds circled the vacant upper floor,
Weeds spread on the ground,
moss covered the foot prints.
Thorny shrubs crawled over the end wall.
Returning here to this trail of yester-year,
Everything was now vacant and silent.

With this turmoil in my heart, who can I turn to now?





The young sisters met Brother Dong Hanh that day. He was busy harvesting tea and coffee. The young sisters realized that Brother Dong Hanh was not their Brother Dong Hanh of the other years, just as the monastic living quarters Warm Hearth, Cloud Over Mountain, and Fragrant Palm Leaves were no longer the monastic living quarters of last year. The Buddha sat alone in the Garuda Wing Meditation Hall, in which there was nothing left, not even the mats and cushions, nor the fish drum, the bell or the incense. The Buddha altar was not even there. Bat Nha was no longer Bat Nha. The soul of Bat Nha, the Bat Nha Sangha, had left the corpse Bat Nha. Bat Nha now is only a corpse without soul. The young sisters felt regret. They returned to look for Bat Nha, but they could not find Bat Nha, even though Bat Nha was standing right there in front of them. It would have been better not to return. It turns out that Bat Nha is not outside of us, but in our hearts.

Regret and Yearning


One Bat Nha young monastic came to ask for Thay’s advice about the practice of Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment, saying that her regret and yearning for Bat Nha were still so deep that she could not truly benefit from the joy available in the present moment. Thay looked at her with a lot of compassion and said: You are someone very fortunate because you have something to regret and long for. There are those much more unfortunate than you who have nothing to regret and long for — they only have suffering, attachment and hatred.

While taking refuge at Phuoc Hue Temple, my Bat Nha children practiced wholeheartedly in order to fully live your days there. You followed the schedule diligently, even though you knew the situation was uncertain, and that you could be forced out of Phuoc Hue any day just as you had been from Bat Nha. Instead of doing sitting meditation twice a day, you sat four times. The abbot of Phuoc Hue Temple, realizing the value of your practice, loved you and protected you with his whole heart. Because you had come to take refuge in his temple, he had the opportunity to know who you were, far more accurately than the unclear notions he had about you before. That is what ‘understanding is love‘ means,. It is the greatest fortune to have a chance to understand and to love. And if we want to understand, we have to release our preconceived notions and our grasping. We’re human, we have the right to regret and to long for something, but we can go further. We can ask ourselves: I miss such and such because it is no longer there, but while it was still around, did I live wholeheartedly with it ? For most of us, our shortcoming is not cherishing and living wholeheartedly with what we already have, whether it be a person, a place or an opportunity. When impermanence arrives, we regret what has gone. But it is too late: that person is already gone or dead; that place no longer is. Thay does not have any regrets about Bat Nha because during the three weeks living with you at Bat Nha, Thay lived wholeheartedly. Thay contemplated every flower, every bamboo grove, and asked: Are we seeing each other’s face clearly? Because of this, Thay does not have regret. Regretting is wishing things had gone differently — that’s all. If you had lived wholeheartedly with Bat Nha as Thay did, you would not regret and yearn for Bat Nha to the point that you are unable to live happily and peacefully in the present moment. In our practice, we should ask ourselves that question: Did we live wholeheartedly with Bat Nha during the moments Bat Nha was manifesting? We will gain many insights when we ask ourselves that question.

This path of Yester-year


The next question is: The place where we are living now, is it a kind of Bat Nha? Where are you sitting? In the South, North or Centre of Vietnam, in Deer Park, Blue Cliff, France, Germany, the United States, Thailand, Hong Kong or India? Perhaps you are sitting in a Bat Nha with brothers and sisters, with your beloved. If in this moment you are not living truly and wholeheartedly, if you are not cherishing what you are having, then you know that later, you will regret this moment, this place and the people who are present with you right now. You will regret this moment, because this moment will become a legend.

‘‘Returning here to this path of yesteryear.’’ If we walk this path with our brothers and sisters, and with Thay, and enjoy it fully, we won’t have any regrets. Tomorrow, even if we come back to this path, it will not be the same path anymore. Our brothers, sisters and Thay will not be there. Even we will not be there, even as we walk it again. We will be unable to recognize the path — it will have already passed into legend. It will be just a corpse without a soul.

If in reading these words, you are startled and you wake up, then you will see that Bat Nha is still there, that it has not become a legend, and that it is still alive in you. You are carrying Bat Nha in your hearts and the place where you are sitting, standing, and looking deeply in the present moment is also Bat Nha. Whether the place you are sitting is in the Center or the North, the United States, France, Germany, Thailand, and so on, our Bat Nha is very beautiful, my dear children, and no one can take it away from us, no power is strong enough to do it.

If you can wake up, your present place of residence will immediately become a Bat Nha, even if next to you there may only be three brothers or sisters. The Buddha taught that a Sangha must have at least four people. You have learned how to build the Sangha, so you will certainly be able to build a Sangha that has the practice, learning, joy, aspiration, and brotherhood and sisterhood. When Thay left our homeland in 1966, Thay went alone. Going alone is very dangerous. If we are separated from the Sangha, we will dry up like a bee that cannot find its way back to the beehive. We will die like a cell being taken out of the body. However, Thay did not dry up, and Thay did not die. It was because Thay carried the Sangha in his heart. Thay left to call for international awareness to help end the war in Vietnam. Because of that, Thay was forced in exile, and he was not allowed to return home. Suddenly, Thay was separated from all of his friends, his work and his community. When Thay realized he had fallen into that situation, Thay immediately found a way to build a Sangha. Thay looked around to recognize the elements which he could use to build a Sangha. In the end, Thay was able to establish a Sangha, and that Sangha is now present in over 45 countries.

You are Thay’s continuation. Thay trusts that you will be able to build Sangha everywhere by one way or another, with one name or another, as long as it is a true Sangha, with mindfulness, with brotherhood and sisterhood, and with the aspiration to help living beings. Thay trusts in the young people, and this is one of the elements that brings Thay great happiness. In a true Sangha, the Dharma will be present, the Buddha will be present and Thay will also be present.

The Paradise of Brotherhood and Sisterhood

During this last monastic retreat at Upper Hamlet, most of our activities took place in the Still Water Meditation Hall. This meditation hall, in its form as well as in its content, contains so much brotherhood and sisterhood. At our last meal together one brother from the Upper Hamlet said, ‘‘Respected Thay, instead of calling this meditation hall Still Water Meditation Hall, we should call it Still Water Paradise.’’ [In Vietnamese, the words ‘meditation hall’ (Thiền đường) and ‘paradise’ (Thiên đường) only differ from each other by one diacritical mark over the letter ‘e’]. He’s right! This is a paradise of brotherhood and sisterhood. If we really want it, paradise can be available to us right in the present moment. Paradise is now or never. Here is the Pure Land. The Pure Land is here.

Bat Nha was also a paradise, because we lived there happily together as teacher and students. The Garuda Wing Meditation Hall could also be called the ‘‘Garuda Wing Paradise” because there we also enjoyed happy moments full of brotherhood and sisterhood. Many of us have written to Thay to share that it was in the Bat Nha environment that you were able to live with your true selves for the first time. We did not have to hide our thoughts or feelings anymore. We could speak truthfully and directly with our brothers and sisters. They had the capacity to listen and understand us, and we were not afraid to be judged as dissidents [literally, ‘‘losing our ground’’] or as reactionaries [or 'diversionists' - literally, ‘‘having ideas contrary to the set path’’]. We were accepted. Out there in society, in school, at work and even in our own family, we could not live true to ourselves. Yet at Bat Nha we could feel at ease.

The second condition for our happiness at Bat Nha was the healthy environment. There was no alcohol, no drugs, gambling or sexual misconduct, no corruption, power abuse, hatred or jealousy, nor toxic entertainments and games. Yet we didn’t feel we were missing out on anything. On the contrary, we felt very safe and nourished. The Bat Nha environment was the healthiest environment we’d ever encountered, and living in such an environment we were no longer afraid or worried.

The third condition for our happiness at Bat Nha was the brotherhood and sisterhood. That’s right – brotherhood and sisterhood! Many of us hungered for brotherhood and sisterhood before we found Bat Nha. It was the brotherhood and sisterhood that was the most attractive thing at Bat Nha. Once we’ve found it, how can we walk away from it? Who does not need love to survive, to be loved and to love? Brotherhood and sisterhood is healthier and more lasting than all other kinds of love.

But that’s not all. Coming to Bat Nha, we discovered the ideal path young people are searching for. We found practices that had the capacity to transform and heal. We had the chance to help others who came to us to practice transformation and healing, including so many young people. It was at Bat Nha that we witnessed many relationships — between fathers and children, between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters – in which, thanks to the practice, people were able to re-establish communication and reclaim their happiness. Some retreats would have over a thousand people. We saw happiness on everyone’s faces when they practiced successfully. We had a beautiful path — the beautiful path that is our life’s deepest aspiration. We had an opportunity to serve, and our lives began to have meaning and purpose.

Bat Nha provided us all these conditions of happiness. That is why Bat Nha was our paradise. We saw, heard, felt and lived with the Bat Nha paradise. Bat Nha is truly in us, not outside of us. If Bat Nha is inside us, then wherever we go, we have Bat Nha. Wherever we go, we can establish Bat Nha. Thay was able to do that, and Thay has the confidence that all of you will be able to do that. Fragrant Palm Leaves as well as Bat Nha are in our hearts, because we have seen, heard, felt and lived with them.

Your Suffering is My Suffering (Máu Chảy Ruột Mềm)

While being expelled, betrayed and threatened, those of us who knew how to breathe and come back to Bat Nha within ourselves still had peace. Many young monks and nuns were able to do that at Phuoc Hue and other temples such as Tu Duc, Dinh Quan, Dieu Nghiem. Thay recalls the years of 1969 and 1977, and the times when Thay was persecuted, harassed and forced out, exactly as Thay’s Bat Nha children were persecuted, harassed and forced out from Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue. For example, at the end of 1971, while Thay was still in Washington D.C. to call for peace, Thay was told by a journalist of The Baltimore Sun that the Vietnamese government [on the American government side] had just sent an official document to the governments of the United States, France and England to inform them that they had annuled Thay’s passport and to request these countries to not accept it anymore. Thay’s intention was to travel around the world to call for a ceasefire and going towards reconciliation and peace. The journalist suggested Thay go underground and hide himself to avoid deportation and imprisonment for daring to call for peace. Back then, Thay had a friend who was also working for peace like Thay; he had been imprisoned, and he also had to go on hiding at different times. That was Father Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit, who was also a famous writer and poet. Together with his friends, he engaged in non-violent resistance actions such as encouraging others to burn their draft cards, going to places where atomic boms were produced or stored and using red paint as fake blood to pour over those fatal weapons, and so on. They were acting according to the Bible’s teaching: Take the sword and make it into a plough. Father Berrigan went to France to visit, stay and practice three months with Thay at the office of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation in Paris (Sceaux) and in Fragrant Cloud Hermitage (Fontvannes). He also went back several times after that. In Paris, Thay gave him Thay’s room, and Thay slept next door. He had a chance to read the Lotus Sutra in English on Thay’s bookshelf.

Thay did not listen to the journalist of The Baltimore Sun. Thay did not want to stay in the United States and seek asylum there because the United States was involved in the war in Vietnam. Thay decided to go to France to ask for political asylum. To avoid deportation at Paris, Thay telephoned his friends in Paris, so that they organized to meet with Thay and to have a press conference at the airport. If necessary, we would request for asylum right at the airport. At that time, Sister Chan Khong was giving talks and calling for peace in Costa Rica, Central America. She was also asked to return to Paris to prepare for the press conference. Fortunately for Thay, not only France did not deport Thay, but they also granted Thay asylum after that.

In 1976, while directing the program Máu Chảy Ruột Mềm (literally, ”Your suffering is my suffering”) to save the boat people, Thay was discovered by the Singapore police and ordered to leave Singapore within 24 hours. They surrounded Thay’s office at two in the morning, came inside and confiscated Thay’s passport, saying that they would only return it to Thay when Thay left their territory. Meanwhile, the two boats Leapdal and Roland were full of boat people, and the plan to take them to Australia for refuge had been revealed by the press’s curiosity. The boat Saigon 200, which was responsible for providing water, food and medicine to the boat people, was also captured. Furthermore, a storm was raging out at sea, and the two boats full of Thay’s boat people (over 589) were not allowed to stop in the harbour to avoid the gale. That night, Thay had the feeling that he was floating out there in the waves and the wind with all the boat people. Thay did sitting meditation and walking meditation the entire night to look for a solution. Thay had confidence in the Three Jewels, in the Sangha, and in the end, Thay found the solution. Thay waited until the morning to ask the French ambassador, Mr. Jacques Gasseau, to intervene with the Singapore government to enable Thay could remain for another ten days to complete the program. It was that night Thay meditated on the Koan ‘‘If you want peace, you will be peace.” If we truly want peace, and then there is peace. Peace is in the midst of danger. Thanks to the Sangha, the Three Jewels, the path, the brotherhood and sisterhood, Thay was able to overcome the difficulty.

Your elder brother Nhat Tri and many brothers and sisters in the Order of Interbeing in the Youth for Social Service Program in the old days also went through periods like that, just as you have gone through the experiences of Bat Nha, Phuoc Hue and now. Thay trusts that, no matter the situation, you have the capacity to practice “If you want peace, you will be peace.” We have been able to do that at Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue, and we can do it now; our Sangha is still whole, and each one of us carries the Sangha within us.


Sadness and Loneliness


Just recently, about ten days ago, in a dream Thay saw his friend, Father Daniel Berrigan. He is now over 90 years old. Sitting next to this courageous monk, Thay recognized that he was worthy of all respect and reverence, even though he did not have the outer form of a Buddhist Most Venerable. Thay suggested that the community touched the earth before him. Before the community could do so, suddenly Thay saw that he was sitting alone with Father Berrigan in an open space, and he opened his arms to embrace Thay. Thay also opened his arms to embrace his friend with all his heart in the true spirit of the Plum Village practice of hugging meditation. At first, there was only happiness and the peace of brotherhood, but soon an unsettled energy arose in Thay. It was the energy of sadness, pain and loneliness. It felt strange, but Thay was able to recognize and accept these mental formations. Thay had thought that those mental formations had already been transformed, and if their energy still existed, it would be minimal.

But it was not so. Thay’s whole being quaked with the feeling. Thay’s arms were transmitting to the person he was embracing the energy of sadness, pain and loneliness. Thay felt clearly that the other person was also receiving it and responding to it. The time of our embrace was quite long, and Thay allowed himself to express those pains naturally and sincerely. Waking up, Thay knew the dream had helped Thay’s wellbeing, because he’d had the opportunity to recognize and share his sadness and pain with a dear friend who had the capacity to touch and understand that sadness and pain, having gone through similar difficulties, sadness and loneliness. Thay thinks that in our lives, those with whom we can share like that are few, even within our own tradition. When we embrace a brother, a sister, a friend or a disciple, we only want to transmit the energy of peace and love, and the other person may believe that we only have such beautiful and peaceful energy. But we are still human, and even though the energy of sadness and pain may be under control and transformed, it is still there in our human nature. If it would sleep quietly, we would be peaceful enough. But its presence is also very important. Thanks to it, we can recognize and understand other people’s suffering and pain, and we also can acknowledge the good fortunes and wonders available in the present moment in us and around us.

Lotus in Our Hearts


Over the last four decades, Thay had the opportunity to befriend a number of people Thay considers kindred spirits. Some were not at all known, and some were very famous. Amongst them were Bertrand Russell, Martin Luther King, Heinz Kloppenburg, Hannes de Graaf, Alfred Hassler, Arthur Miller, Heidi Vaccaro, etc. They worked hand in hand with Thay in the struggle for peace, for human rights, and for the future of the earth. Thay has not had the opportunity to embrace the Dalai Lama, but if there were one, and they were not surrounded by a crowd, then while embracing him, Thay would also have a chance to share that energy of sadness, because Thay knows the Dalai Lama has also gone through similar sadness and pain. The Buddha also had his deep suffering, and he embraced it and transformed it with his energy of great understanding and great compassion. The Buddha’s life of teaching also had many difficulties, and the Buddha was also wrongly accused, rejected and oppressed. After King Prasenajit passed away, the new king brought his army to destroy the Buddha’s homeland and killed the Sakya family line mercilessly, simply because the king had too much hatred and ignorance. The Buddha did everything he could to stop it, but to little effect. The patriarch Linchi spoke about the interbeing between the Buddha and living beings, and we have heard the teaching ”Buddha and living beings are not two different entities”. As human beings, we have the chance to become Buddhas, and once we have become Buddhas, we can still be human beings. Therefore, the path of the Buddha is truly humanistic.

The Buddha had friends and disciples who understood him deeply. The Buddha was not alone. The Dalai Lama is also like that. King Tran Thai Tong was also like that. Thay’s Bat Nha children have been denounced, discriminated against, attacked and persecuted, but you have responded as true children of the Buddha, without hatred, discrimination and despair in your hearts. People in our country and our friends all over the world have been fortunate to witness that, and they have come to love you and vowed to protect you. We are not alone. We are known about, understood and loved. Intellectuals, humanitarians, young people, workers, business people, as well as Venerables all raised their voice on your behalf. You have inspired and offered confidence in the future of Buddhism to our country and to the world.

Bat Nha has become an immortal lotus in the hearts of the people. Each of us is carrying this lotus in our heart. No power can destroy it. It will help manifest Bat Nha everywhere, in the future as well as in the present. This lotus is brotherhood and sisterhood, it is aspiration, happiness, love between fellow countrymen and human love. The Buddha was not alone and the Sangha on the Vulture Peak was not alone, even though King Asajit had not woken up. You know very well that in the end, the King Asajit woke up and found his way back to the Buddha. The Dalai Lama is not alone even though his homeland has not yet reclaimed her dependency. The path of the Buddha is also the path of compassion, loving kindness, non-violence, and brotherhood/sisterhood. The Dalai Lama also has the Bat Nha lotus in his heart. He spoke up to protect the Bat Nha Sangha. Certainly, the mental formations of sadness and pain have also manifested in him at times, but he knows how to recognize and embrace them, so that in the end, they nourish his aspiration and determination. My children also need to practice like that.

Do not be saddened that the path ahead is without kindred spirits.

In this world, who would not know about us?



If you need a few minutes to feel the regret, yearning, sadness and pain, then allow yourself those few minutes. We recognize, embrace and smile with that human substance in us. But after that, we must go forward, because we also have the Buddha nature in us. If those bright fresh lotuses need mud to manifest, then our sadness and pain can also nourish our Mind of Love, our Beginner’s Mind. Thay knows that your Beginner’s Mind is very strong, and Thay feels very assured.

Dream or Reality?


With the Bat Nha lotus in your hearts, you can smile and return to the present moment. You will see that Bat Nha is available right where you are sitting. You will cherish everything you are in touch with in this moment. This is the miracle of mindfulness. With mindfulness, life may be more beautiful than dreams. About a month ago, Thay had a dream that was very ordinary but beautiful. Thay dreamt that he woke up in a temple or in a practice center that seemed very joyful. Thay asked someone nearby, ‘‘What’s happening that’s so joyful, my child?’’ The person replied: ‘‘Dear Thay, some brothers and sisters just came back. We are cooking a pot of rice to enjoy it together.’’ Thay sat up, walked to the court yard of the temple, did walking meditation, acknowledged each orchid, each bamboo, and his heart was full of joy like a festival. What was there really? It was just a few brothers and sisters coming home. A small dream, simple, but it made Thay happy for many days. Is this but a dream? It is a reality. Teacher and disciples, we have each other. Brothers and sisters, we have each other. Regardless of what may happen, that brotherhood and sisterhood is never lost. It is our paradise. We only need to look carefully at the brother or sister who is present. We only need to look carefully at the orchid, the bamboo, and read the mantra written by the great poet Nguyen Du: Now we see each other’s face clearly. Seeing each other’s face clearly today, tomorrow will never become a dream again.

Your Teacher,

Nhất Hạnh
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Monastic Path of Service

Thich Nhat Hanh - Monastic Path of Service from Brother Stream on Vimeo.

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The Moment is Perfect

By Thich Nhat Hanh

No matter what we experience when we’re meditating, it only has meaning when we take it out into our daily lives. There is nothing we experience—from the simple act of eating to the complications of work and relationships—that we cannot approach with the mindfulness and compassion we develop in our meditation.


Take the time to eat an orange in mindfulness. If you eat an orange in forgetfulness, caught in your anxiety and sorrow, the orange is not really there. But if you bring your mind and body together to produce true presence, you can see that the orange is a miracle. Peel the orange. Smell the fruit. See the orange blossoms in the orange, and the rain and the sun that have gone through the orange blossoms. The orange tree that has taken several months to bring this wonder to you. Put a section in your mouth, close your mouth mindfully, and with mindfulness feel the juice coming out of the orange. Taste the sweetness. Do you have the time to do so? If you think you don’t have time to eat an orange like this, what are you using that time for? Are you using your time to worry or using your time to live?

Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditating. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves.

The quality of our practice depends on its energy of mindfulness and concentration. I define mindfulness as the practice of being fully present and alive, body and mind united. Mindfulness is the energy that helps us to know what is going on in the present moment. I drink water and I know that I am drinking the water. Drinking the water is what is happening.

Mindfulness brings concentration. When we drink water mindfully, we concentrate on drinking. If we are concentrated, life is deep, and we have more joy and stability. We can drive mindfully, we can cut carrots mindfully, we can shower mindfully. When we do things this way, concentration grows. When concentration grows, we gain insight into our lives.

When I join my palms to greet a child, or to greet an adult, I don’t do it simply to be polite. I do it because this is my practice. I am a living being who is bowing to a child or to a friend. Joining my palms, I make a flower. It’s beautiful in appearance and it’s beautiful on the inside. In joining my two palms, I realize the oneness of body and mind. My left hand is like my body, my right hand is like my mind. They come together, and in an instant I arrive at the state of oneness of body and mind. When mind and body come together, they produce our true presence. We become fully alive. Oneness of body and mind is the fruit of practice that you can get right away—you don’t have to wait.

The principle of the practice is simple: to bring our minds back to our bodies, to produce our true presence, and to become fully alive. Everything is happening under the light of mindfulness. In the Jewish and Christian traditions, we say, "We’re doing everything in the presence of God." That’s another way of expressing the same reality. When Jews have a shabbos dinner, they lay the table, pour the milk, and cook the food aware of the presence of the divine.

In Buddhism, God is mindfulness and concentration. Every single thing that takes place is exposed to the light of mindfulness and concentration, and that energy of mindfulness and concentration is the essence of the Buddha. Mindfulness and concentration always bring insight, and insight is the factor that liberates us from suffering, because we are able to see the true nature of reality.

All rituals are nothing if they are empty of the energy of mindfulness and concentration. We could call these energies the Holy Spirit. When a priest celebrates the Eucharist, breaking the bread and pouring the wine, it’s not the gesture and the words that create the miracle of the Eucharist. It’s the priest’s capacity to be alive, to be present at that moment, that can wake up the whole congregation. The priest can break the bread in such a way that everyone becomes aware that this piece of bread contains life. That requires strong practice on the part of the priest. If he’s not alive, if he’s not present, if he doesn’t have the power of mindfulness and concentration, he won’t be able to create life in the congregation, and in the church. That is why empty rituals don’t mean anything. For all of us—priest, monk, and layperson—our practice is to generate the energy of concentration and mindfulness.

When we do something deeply and authentically, it becomes a real ritual. When we pick up a glass of water and drink it, if we’re truly concentrated in the act of drinking, it is a ritual. When we walk with all our being, investing one hundred percent of ourselves into making a step, mindfulness and concentration become a reality. That step generates the energy of mindfulness and concentration that makes life possible, deep, and real. If we make a second step like that, we maintain that concentration. Walking like that, it looks like we are performing a rite. But in fact we’re not performing; we’re just living deeply every moment of our lives.

Even a daily habit like eating breakfast, when done as a practice, can be powerful. It generates the energy of mindfulness and concentration that makes life authentic. When we prepare breakfast, it can also be a practice. We can be really alive, fully present, and very happy during breakfast-making. We can see making breakfast as mundane work or as a privilege—it just depends on our way of looking. The cold water is available. The hot water is available. The soap is available. The kettle is available. The fire is available. The food is available. Everything is there to make our happiness a possibility. If we are caught in our worries and anger, or in the past or the future, then, although we’re making breakfast, we’re not there. We’re not alive.

If you are cutting carrots, you should invest one hundred percent of yourself into the business of carrot-cutting. Nothing else. While cutting the carrot, please don’t try to think of the Buddha or anything else. Just cut the carrot in the best way possible, becoming one with the carrot, becoming one with the cutting. Live deeply that moment of carrot-cutting. It is as important as the practice of sitting meditation. It is as important as giving or hearing a dharma talk. When you cut the carrot with all of your being, that is mindfulness. If you can cultivate concentration, and if you can get the insight you need to liberate yourself from suffering, that is because you know how to cut your carrots.

You can clean the toilet in the spirit of mindfulness, investing all of yourself into the cleaning, making it into a joyful practice. Do one thing at a time. Do it deeply. There are many wonders of life that are available in the here and the now. Without mindfulness, you may be angry that you have to clean the toilet or feel resentful, and neglect and ignore the wonders around you.

Many of us don’t allow ourselves to be relaxed. Why do we always try to run and run, even while having our breakfast, while having our lunch, while walking, while sitting? There’s something pushing and pulling us all the time. We make ourselves busy in the hopes of having happiness in the future. In the sutra “Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone,” the Buddha said clearly, "Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free."

How do we liberate ourselves in order to really be in the here and the now? Buddhist meditation offers the practice of stopping. Stopping is very important, because we’ve been running all our lives, and also in our previous lives. Our ancestors, our grandfather, our grandmother were running, and now they continue to run in us. If we don’t practice, our children will carry us in them and continue to run in the future.

A practitioner has the right to suffer, but a practitioner does not have the right not to practice. People who are not practitioners allow their pain, sorrow, and anguish to overwhelm them, and to push them to say and do things they don’t want to do and say. We who consider ourselves to be practitioners have the right to suffer like everyone else. It’s OK to suffer; it’s OK to be angry. We can learn to stop and stay with our suffering, attend to it with all of our tenderness and kindness, and take good care of our suffering.

Let’s try not to run away. We run because we’re too afraid. But if we can be present with our suffering, the energy of mindfulness is strong enough to embrace and recognize that pain and that sorrow. We suffer because we lack insight into our nature and into the nature of reality. The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration, and concentration always contains the capacity of seeing deeply and bringing insight.

To see deeply, we have to first learn the art of stopping. The Buddha is often portrayed as sitting on a lotus flower, very fresh, very stable. If we’re capable of sitting in the here and the now, anywhere we sit becomes a lotus flower—whether that is at the base of a tree, on the grass, or on a stone bench. When we’re really sitting, we’re free from all worries, from all regrets, from all anger. Many of us sit on the meditation cushion, but it’s like sitting on thorns because we don’t know how to enjoy the lotus flower.

You can start by just appreciating your eyes. Breathing in, you are aware of your eyes; breathing out, you smile to your eyes. When you embrace your eyes with your mindfulness, you recognize that you have eyes, still in good condition. It is a wonderful thing to still have eyes in good condition. You need only to open them to enter the paradise of colors and forms. Those who have lost our eyesight know what it feels like to live in the dark and wonder at the capacity to see things.

We can just sit on the grass and open our eyes. The beautiful sunrise, the full moon, the orange, all these things reveal themselves to us when we are truly present. The blue sky is for us. The white clouds are for us, as are the trees, the children, the grass, and the loving faces of our dear ones. Everything is available to us because we still have eyes in good condition. Most of us don’t appreciate our eyes because we are not mindful. We may think that everything in us is wrong, but that’s not true. There are millions of things in us that are right.

When we cook, when we clean, when we walk, each movement can be made with mindfulness, concentration, and insight. With each step we take, we can touch the earth and become one with it. Our fear and loneliness dissipate. There is no other way. With every breath, we can generate mindfulness, concentration, and insight. Insight is our liberation. Insight liberates us from our fear, our ignorance, our loneliness and despair. It is this insight that helps us to penetrate deeply into the nature of no-birth and no-death, and the interconnected nature of all things. This is the cream of Buddhist practice—and we can do it by means of the very simple practices of breathing in and breathing out, being mindful of each step, and looking deeply.


Thich Nhat Hanh is a renowned Vietnamese Zen master, poet, and founder of the Engaged Buddhism movement. His most recent book is Nothing to Do, Nowhere to Go.


The Moment is Perfect, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambhala Sun, May 2008.


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This Silence is Called Great Joy

By Thich Nhat Hanh

A new teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh on the truth beyond our usual truths.


There are two kinds of truth, conventional truth and absolute truth, but they are not opposites. They are part of a continuum. There is a classic Buddhist gatha:

All formations are impermanent.
They are subject to birth and death.
But remove the notions of birth and death,
and this silence is called great joy.

This beautiful poem has only twenty-six words, but it sums up all of the Buddha’s teaching. It is one of greatest poems of humanity. If you are a composer, please put it to music and make it into a song. The last two lines should sound like thundering silence, the silencing of all speculation, of all philosophies, of all notions and ideas.

The gatha begins in the realm of conventional truth and ends in the realm of absolute truth. The first line describes reality as we usually perceive it. “All formations are impermanent.” This is something concrete that we notice as soon as we start paying attention. The five elements that make up our sense of personhood—form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness—all are flowing and changing day and night. We can feel their impermanence and so we are tempted to say that the first two lines of this gatha are true.

But the danger of this statement is that we may believe that formations are real and impermanence is an absolute truth. And we may use that kind of truth as a weapon in order to fight against those who don’t agree with our ideas. “Formations” is a notion, an idea. “Impermanence” is another notion. Neither is more true than the other. When you say, “All formations are impermanent,” you are indirectly confirming their permanence. When you confirm the existence of something, you are also implying the existence of its opposite. When you say the right exists, you have to accept the existence of the left. When you confirm that something is “high,” you’re saying something else is “low.” Impermanence becomes a notion that opposes the notion of permanence. So though perhaps it tried to escape, the first two lines of the gatha are still in the realm of conventional, relative truth.

To reach the absolute truth, the ultimate truth, you need to release the conventional truth found there. There’s a Chinese term that means halfway truths and another that means all-the-way, hitting-the-bottom truths. The first two lines are a halfway truth and the third and fourth lines try to remove what we learned in the first two.

When the notions are removed, then the perfect silence, the extinction of all notions, the destruction of all pairs of opposites, is called great joy. That is the teaching of absolute truth, of nirvana. What does nirvana mean? It is absolute happiness. It’s not a place you can go; it’s a fruit that you can have wherever you are. It’s already inside us. The wave doesn’t have to seek out the water. Water is what the wave has to realize as her own foundation of being.

If you have come from a Jewish or Christian background, you may like to compare the idea of nirvana, great bliss, with the idea of God. Because our idea of God may be only that, an idea. We have to overcome the idea in order to really touch God as a reality. Nirvana can also be merely the idea of nirvana. Buddha also can be just an idea. But it’s not the idea that we need; we need the ultimate reality.

The first two lines of the gatha dwell in the realm of opposites: birth and death; permanence and impermanence; being and nonbeing. In God, in nirvana, opposites no longer exist. If you say God exists, that’s wrong. If you say God doesn’t exist, that’s equally wrong. Because God cannot be described in terms of being and nonbeing. To be or not to be, that is not the question. The notions of being and nonbeing are obstacles that you have to remove in order for ultimate reality to manifest.

In classical Chinese, the third line of the gatha literally says, “But when both birth and death die.” What does it mean by “death dying”? It means you have to kill your notions of birth and death. As someone who practices the way of the Buddha, you have the sword of the Bodhisattva Manjushri, which is sharp enough to remove wrong perceptions and cut through all notions, including those of birth and death.

The true practitioner understands real rebirth, real continuation. There are two views concerning life after death. Quite a number of people, including scientists, believe that after we die, there’ll be nothing left. From being we become non-being. They don’t believe that there is something that continues after you die. That view is called nihilism. In this view, either there is no soul or the soul completely dies. After death, our body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are completely gone. The opposite view, eternalism, is that after we die, we are still here and we will continue forever. Our soul is immortal. While our physical body may die, our soul continues forever, whether in paradise or in hell. The Buddha called these two views just another pair of opposites.

Before you can answer the question, “What will happen to me after I die?” you need to answer another question, “What is happening to me in the present moment?” Examining this question is the essence of meditation. If we don’t know how to look deeply to what is happening to us in the here and the now, how can we know what will happen to us when we are dead?

When we look at a candle, we say that the candle is radiating light, heat, and fragrance. The light is one kind of energy it emits, the heat is another, and the fragrance is a third kind of energy it can offer us in the here and the now. If we are truly alive, we can see that we aren’t very different from the candle. We are offering our insight, our breath, our views right now. Every moment you have a view, whether about yourself, the world, or how to be happy, and you emit that view. You produce thought and your thought carries your views. You are continued by your views and your thinking. Those are the children you give birth to every moment. And that is your true continuation.

So it is crucial to look deeply at your thoughts and your views. What are you holding on to? Whether you are an artist or a businessperson, a parent or a teacher, you have your views about how to live your life, how to help other people, how to make your country prosperous, and so on. When you are attached to these views, to the idea of right and wrong, then you may be get caught. When your thinking is caught in these views, then you create misunderstanding, anger, and violence. That is what you are becoming in this very moment.

When you are mindful of this and can look deeply, you can produce thoughts that are full of love and understanding. You can make yourself and the world around you suffer less.

You are not static. You are the life that you are becoming. Because “to be” means to be something: happy, unhappy, light or heavy, sky or earth. We have to learn to see being as becoming. The quality of your being depends on the object of your being. That is why when you hear Rene Descartes’ famous statement “I think, therefore I am,” you have to ask, “You are what?” Of course you are your own thinking—and your happiness or your sorrow depends very much on the quality of your thinking. So you are your view, you are your thinking, you are your speech, you are your action, and these things are your continuation. You are becoming now, you are being reborn now in every second. You don’t need to come to death in order to be reborn. You are reborn in every moment; you have to see your continuation in the here and the now.

I don’t care at all what happens to me when I die. That’s why I have a lot of time to care about what is happening to me in the here and the now. When I walk, I want to enjoy every step I take. I want freedom and peace and joy in every step. So joy and peace and lightness are what I produce in that moment. I have inherited it and I pass it on to other people. If someone sees me walking this way and decides to walk mindfully for him or herself, then I am reborn in him or in her right away—that’s my continuation. That’s what is happening to me in the here and the now. And if I know what is happening to me in the here and the now, I don’t need to ask the question, “What will happen to me after this body disintegrates?” There is no “before” and “after,” just as there is no birth and death. We can be free of these notions in this very moment, filled with the great joyful silence of all that is.


© Unified Buddhist Church. Used with permission of Parallax Press.

This Silence is Called Great Joy, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shambhala Sun, September 2007.

~End of Post~



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The Heart of the Matter

Thich Nhat Hanh answers three questions about our emotions.
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Michael S. Wertz for Tricycle

My desire for achievement has led to much suffering. No matter what I do, it never feels like it's enough. How can I make peace with myself? The quality of your action depends on the quality of your being. Suppose you’re eager to offer happiness, to make someone happy. That’s a good thing to do. But if you’re not happy, then you can’t do that. In order to make another person happy, you have to be happy yourself. So there’s a link between doing and being. If you don’t succeed in being, you can’t succeed in doing. If you don’t feel that you’re on the right path, happiness isn’t possible. This is true for everyone; if you don’t know where you’re going, you suffer. It’s very important to realize your path and see your true way.

Happiness means feeling you are on the right path every moment. You don’t need to arrive at the end of the path in order to be happy. The right path refers to the very concrete ways you live your life in every moment. In Buddhism, we speak of the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. It’s possible for us to live the Noble Eightfold Path every moment of our daily lives. That not only makes us happy, it makes people around us happy. If you practice the path, you become very pleasant, very fresh, and very compassionate.

Look at the tree in the front yard. The tree doesn’t seem to be doing anything. It stands there, vigorous, fresh, and beautiful, and everyone profits from it. That’s the miracle of being. If a tree were less than a tree, all of us would be in trouble. But if a tree is just a real tree, then there’s hope and joy. That’s why if you can be yourself, that is already action. Action is based on nonaction; action is being.

I am busy from early in the morning until late at night. I am rarely alone. Where can I find a time and place to contemplate in silence? Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you’re truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you’re silent and all around is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That’s not silence. The practice is how to find silence in all the activities you do.

Let us change our way of thinking and our way of looking. We have to realize that silence comes from our heart and not from the absence of talk. Sitting down to eat your lunch may be an opportunity for you to enjoy silence; though others may be speaking, it’s possible for you to be very silent inside. The Buddha was surrounded by thousands of monks. Although he walked, sat, and ate among the monks and the nuns, he always dwelled in his silence. The Buddha made it very clear that to be alone, to be quiet, does not mean you have to go into the forest. You can live in the sangha, you can be in the marketplace, yet you still enjoy the silence and the solitude. Being alone does not mean there is no one around you.

Being alone means you are established firmly in the here and the now and you become aware of what is happening in the present moment. You use your mindfulness to become aware of every feeling, every perception you have. You’re aware of what’s happening around you in the sangha, but you’re always with yourself, you don’t lose yourself. That’s the Buddha’s definition of the ideal practice of solitude: not to be caught in the past or carried away by the future, but always to be here, body and mind united, aware of what is happening in the present moment. That is real solitude.

I’m still afraid of losing my mother or another loved one. How can I transform this fear? We can look deeply to see that our mother is not only out there, but in here. Our mothers and fathers are fully present in every cell of our bodies. We carry them into the future. We can learn to talk to the father and the mother inside. I often talk to my mother, my father, and all of the ancestors inside me. I know that I am only a continuation of them. With that kind of insight, you know that even with the disintegration of the body of your mother, your mother still continues inside you, especially in the energies she has created in terms of thought, speech, and action. In Buddhism we call that energy karma. Karma means action, the triple action of thinking, speaking, and doing.

If you look deeply, you’ll see already the continuation of your mother inside you and outside of you. Every thought, every speech, every action of hers now continues with or without the presence of her body. We have to see her more deeply. She’s not confined to her body, and you aren’t confined to your body. It’s very important to see that. This is the wonder of Buddhist meditation—with the practice of looking deeply you can touch your own nature of no birth and no death. You touch the no-birth and no-death nature of your father, your mother, your child, of everything in you and around you. Only that insight can reduce and remove the fear.

From “Answers from the Heart” ©2009 by Thich Nhat Hanh







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Please call me by my true names

This poem by Thich Nhat Hanh embodies the essence of what he calls "interbeing," the innerconnectedness of all things.

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The tide of the poem is "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

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





~End of Post~





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