Cite Soleil

The Cite Soleil encampment was known to experience high levels of violence, often perpetrated, it was thought, by thugs hired by wealthy landowners or municipal government. The intention was to evict the residents there. “They are trying to erase us,” one person told us. “Their strength is in money, but we have the power,” said another.

Continue until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth, in the child starving, in the political prisoner. Practice until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket, on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop. Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy. See and listen with the whole of your being. If you are fully present, the rain of the Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your store consciousness, and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky, that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding will appear as a beautiful flower.

– Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love

The Self-Portrait Project is a project of 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor Fractured Atlas