The Nature of Self

　　by Thich Nhat Hanh

　　Dharma Talk given on July 21, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

　　Good morning, my dear friends, my dear Sangha. Today is the 21st of July, 1998, and we are in the Upper Hamlet. I would like to tell you the story of Blanche. Her Vietnamese name is To, which means "white," and today we call her Blanche. Blanche was a little blind girl who lived with her father and her mother in a little house, at the foot of a mountain where there was a large forest. Her father was a very loving father, and he had made her a flute from bamboo. Blanche played the flute very well. She was a very talented young girl, and she had discovered how to play the flute by herself. Before she was blind, she did not play every day, but after she became blind she would go to the forest and play every afternoon.

　　Blanche was blind because of a chemical that was sprayed on the mountains and the forests in Vietnam, during the war. Guerrillas hid themselves in the jungle and on the mountains, and the pilots could not see them; therefore they flew airplanes over the mountains and the jungle to spray the forest with Agent Orange. After a week all the leaves would fall, and the trees become bare, then the movement of troops could be seen from an airplane, in order to bomb and kill the enemies. And one day when Blanche was playing her flute in the forest, an airplane came and sprayed the chemical, and it fell on her, and that is how she became blind.

　　One day she heard that her father died as a soldier in a battle. She could not believe it. How could a person die

　　 She didn”t know what death was, except that one day she had seen a little bird dead, close to her house, and no matter what she had done the little bird could not be revived. She was not going to see her father again, because her father was like the dead bird. So she lived only with her mother. When she heard that her father had died, she was very sad; and that was why she played the flute every day, in order to relieve her sorrow. She was crying, and telling every one, every tree, every cloud, every insect in the forest of her pain and her suffering, and that is how she got relief. Playing flute was her every day practice to gain more peace, more calm and so on. No one could help her, except the flute. Her mother had to cut wood, and transport it to the nearby market to sell, so that she could buy the things she needed. Blanche used to accompany her to the market, pulling the wooden cart, so that her mother wouldn”t have to push too hard. After she became blind, she was still able to help her, and she went with her mother to the market to sell wood. Her mother always bought something in the market for her to eat before they went home, a cake wrapped in banana leaves, or something like that.

　　One day when Blanche was playing the flute in the forest, she heard someone approaching. She stopped playing, and asked, "Who”s there

　　" There was no answer, and she asked again, "Who”s there

　　 What is your name

　　" There was still no answer, but she knew that there was some one very close to her. Finally, she heard someone walking close to her, and then someone began to speak in a very funny way—it seemed that that someone did not know how to speak. "My…my…my name is…Peter." It was a little boy about eleven or twelve. His Vietnamese name is Thach Lang; translated into English, that is "Stone Boy," and that is why I use the name Peter, because Peter or Pierre also means "stone boy."

　　"Where did you come from

　　 How old are you

　　" She kept asking him that question. When she had heard a few words from Peter she knew already that this was a young person, a boy. Although she could not see, her way of listening was wonderful and she could already visualize the young man. He was very silent. H…

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