Category: Community of Practice (CoP)

Community of Practice (CoP), Poems, Resources & Networks

Poem that Reconnects: “Please Call me by my True Names”

Joanna Tomkins

by Thich Nhat Hanh

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 tells the story of the poem:

After the Vietnam War, many people wrote to us in Plum Village. We received hundreds of letters each week from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It was very painful to read them, but we had to be in contact. We tried our best to help, but the suffering was enormous, and sometimes we were discouraged. It is said that half the boat people fleeing Vietnam died in the ocean; only half arrived at the shores of Southeast Asia.

There are many young girls, boat people, who were raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries tried to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continued 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 can’t 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, I would now be the pirate. There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I can’t condemn myself so easily. In my meditation, 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 might become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all of us, because 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 title 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.”

Note by Joanna Tomkins:

After Thay’s death, in 2022, I listened to the podcast hereunder, a conversation between Joanna Macy, founder of the Work that Reconnects and presenters of the podcast “The Way Out is In: the Zen Art of Living” Brother Phap Huu and Jo Confino. Here is the link if you want to listen too:

Community of Practice (CoP), Practices, Resources & Networks, Work that Reconnects (WTR)

Who Are You?

Joanna Tomkins

(60 minutes)

Practice extracted from the book Coming Back to Life

This process in pairs serves to move us beyond constricted notions of who we are and what can happen through us. Of a metaphysical bent, it was originally inspired by followers of the Hindu sage Sri Ramana Maharshi. In their enlightenment intensives, persistent inquiry helps participants to free themselves from socially constructed self-definitions and attain a realization of the inherently unlimited nature of consciousness. In our workshop the process is condensed and less ambitious. We use it to remind ourselves that we are not our social roles or skin-encapsulated egos so much as participants in a larger encompassing awareness — or the awakening consciousness of Earth.


METHOD

Each pair sits close enough together and far enough from the others to avoid distraction. The partners take turns querying each other for 30 minutes each way, without comment.
This is a strenuous mental exercise. It can produce extraordinary insights, sometimes with bursts of laughter, but it can feel relentless. It must be undertaken gently and with respect.
Here are the instructions to Partner A, which are repeated to B later:”

“Partner A, you begin by asking B, “Who are you?” You listen. You ask again, “Who are you?” Again you listen, then repeat the question, “Who are you?” Rest assured that the answers will be different. You can vary the question, if you wish, with “What are you?” but you say nothing else. This continues for about ten minutes, until I ring the bell.
Remember, you are not badgering your partner. You’re not suggesting that his responses are wrong; you’re helping him go deeper. You are in service to your partner. The tempo and tonality of your questions will vary; you’ll know intuitively when to ask again quickly and when to pause in silence. Now before you begin, bow to your partner — and to the essential mystery at the core of this being.
After the first ten-minute bell, give the next instruction:

Now shift to a second question, “What do you do?” For the next ten minutes, you listen to those answers and keep repeating the query, “What do you do?” You can also phrase it, “What happens through you?”
After ringing the bell, give the third instruction:”

“Please revert now to the first question, “Who (or what) are you?”
Partner A bows to B once more when the cycle of questions is over. As the partners change roles, let them stand and stretch, without talking. Then repeat the process with B querying A.
At the end of the entire practice, which takes an hour, allow plenty of time for people to digest what has happened for them. They may want to journal or talk quietly with their partners. Then, if there is time, bring them back together in the large group so that they reflect on the process.”

Community of Practice (CoP), Extracts from Active Hope, Practices, Resources & Networks, Uncategorized

Seeing with New and Ancient Eyes Home Practice: Listening to our World

Joanna Tomkins

Adapting the words of Active Hope facilitator Madeleine Young

Choose – or create – a space that you can repeatedly go to – a place where you can be quiet and receptive and listen to the world. Ideally this will be a spot in Nature, but it is more important that it is a place that is easily visitable by you, and it is entirely possible to create your ‘Nature spot’ inside your home. Make it somewhere that you feel safe and can relax.


There are many ways to refer to this place – it could be your listening spot, your Nature spot, your Gaia spot, your sit-spot, or whatever feels right for you. This is your place to acknowledge the greater whole that you are a part of.
Set aside an amount of time that you are going to spend at your spot. We suggest starting small, to make it achievable that you spend time there each day.
Each time you arrive at your spot, relax, breathe, feel yourself in your body, and practice
engaging your senses – look, listen, feel, smell (possibly even taste, if you have chosen a spot where edible things are growing!) – be receptive to all the details.
If you feel fidgety or unsettled at first, or your mind is full of thoughts, just observe this, without judgement, and keep gently bringing yourself back into your senses. This practice is about building up receptivity and relationship over time and not about seeking to come too readily to clarity.
Whilst at your spot, you could try slowing your movements right down, as this is a great way to signify to yourself that this is a space outside of your everyday. Allow yourself to be playful – let your imagination be wide open, like a satellite dish, and let your critical rational mind take a back seat while you are here. As much as you can, let go of expectations, as communication from the greater whole may come in unexpected ways.


Let your relationship with your spot develop over time – returning as regularly as you can. Just as with any relationship, you will need to get to know each other first and may start off ‘making small talk’ – with invested time together, your intimacy will begin to deepen. This practice is all about making ourselves available, being quiet, and listening.
If it feels useful, you could try out sentence starters, like these, while listening at your spot:
If our world could speak to me, what it might say is…
If the collective intelligence of our world were to guide me, what it might invite me to consider is…


Personal Reflection
There is the doing of this practice – actually turning up, repeatedly, at your spot – but, also, there’s a potential for reflection on the practice, enabling any guidance to ripple out by exploring it further in different ways.
Journaling, drawing or doodling, can be a great tool here – either whilst at your spot, or after. Let your hand take over and create whatever feels to come without overthinking it- colours, or mandalas can be particularly powerful to play with.


Background
The “Listening to Our World” practice is situated within the third stage (or station) of the spiral of “the Work that Reconnects”. In the first stage, we developed strong roots through experiencing and expressing our gratitude and appreciation for life. One aspect of experiencing such appreciation is a deeper knowing of our interconnectedness. This knowing is deepened further still in stage 2 of the Spiral of the WTR, when we honour our pain for the world – welcoming it as a sign of our ability to feel with this world – a world that we are an integral part of.
This third stage: ‘Seeing with New and Ancient Eyes’, is all about inviting in a fresh perspective. In a way, by experiencing this integrated nature of our human experience, we have already been ‘seeing with new (and ancient) eyes’. Living with an awareness of our interconnectedness is a radical shift in perspective from the separate view of ourselves that is encouraged within ‘business as usual’. As we step into stage 3 of the spiral, we are deepening this shift in perspective.
In this practice, we are encouraged to begin to dedicate some time and space, within our daily lives, to receive guidance. This is based on an understanding that we are part of a complex living system and that there will be aspects of this system that may wish to emerge through us. By ‘listening to our world’ we begin relating to Nature, like a good family member – acknowledging our belonging, and cultivating an understanding of it by just being quiet and letting insights
surface.