THAY

I have encountered Thich Nhat Hanh for the first time through his poetry.

One of his most famous poems "Please Call Me by My True Names", is still one of my favorite poems. I did not forget a fragment:

" 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".

Those verses touched me. Though to some of the readers, this may sound just like a non-sensical contradiction, for me, it leads towards the conclusion of the poem:

" 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."

Recently, I mentioned Thay's name to a friend. The reaction was quite critical, the person telling me that his writing was lame. I was surprised. I did not jump to defend him, because I felt he was great enough not to be necessary to be defended. His life and work stood for themselves.

I recalled at that moment that he risked his life to save many lives during the Vietnam war. That is the most well-known fact from his youth deeds. I could not say any word neither about that nor about Plum Village, the community he established in the South of France. I just mentioned this poem. I felt it was more than enough to make you sensitive. I was imagining at that point how easy or hard would be for any one of us to put ourselves in the shoes of the person whom we hate or despise the most in the present moment of our lives. Could we recognize our nature in him or his nature in us?

Could we look one in each other's eyes, and recognize each other's humanity? Could we say, together with Thay, or alone, by ourselves, when we hear one of those hateful or despiteful names, to say ...Yes, I recognize myself in him.

It is very difficult for each one of us. I am aware of it. Only when we are fully honest and try to grasp each other‘s situation, in our own solitude, we can understand both its difficulty, as well as its value. Though, sometimes, it is not quite handy to put yourself in the position of doing it. Maybe, it is because, we are so used not to being concerned with the circumstances of the “evil one”, in our daily lives, we do not even look for it. Most of us do not walk around feeling that we are missing something when we are missing compassion. I am quite confident, that this was not the case for Thay.

I understand this through my own experience. I do not want to talk about my daily experience, now, but about the way I approached compassion through my work. The closest to this topic I was while doing some photograms – exhibited in the show A Peculiar Tiny Drop. More precisely, I made some landscape-like images, starting from some bits and pieces of matter, of wheat milk for example.

For us, is quite common to give to babies or small children this food made from wheat and milk. I always thought that the softness mothers add to this food, makes it so special. In a very simple analogy, I would say that it is the same about compassion. Its softness makes it so special.

COMPASSION - from the exhibiton A PECULIAR TINY DROP, 2018

In my work, I juxtaposed those images with an embroidered quote from another Buddhist master, Lama Tsongkhapa: " the milk we have drunk from our mothers it is greater than the water in the oceans. "

Maybe it is this particular softness that mothers share with their babies, the quality that nurtures us for the rest of our lives, isn't it?

Maybe that softness was mis-recognized by my friend and improperly called lame. I do not know till today. For me, that softness was easy to recognize in Thich Nhat Hanh's books, such as " The Art of Power" or " Peace is Every Step". I always felt that it is a kind power.

I recognized that softness while I listened once to a dialogue between Thay and a sad little girl who lost her dog. It died. He very beautifully told her, that she could find her dog, if she looks carefully, in the whiteness and softness of the clouds, or the warmth of her cup of tea.

I would say that most of the time, is handier to me to be rather critical, towards others or myself. I need to remind myself in those moments that the power I have, want or need, does not necessarily lie in my harsh speech or judgment. In those moments, am I able to recognize myself in the other, or even properly to see myself? What insight I would gain if I would be able to put myself into the other's shoes? What would be an insight? Insight, in Thich Nhat Hanh's words "is a sword that painlessly cuts through all kinds of suffering, including fear, despair, anger and discrimination." ( The Art of Power -2007: 24).Maybe, I can gain some insight while walking into the other one's shoes, and I can understand that I could have been quite alike.