"The Deep Root of Your Being"
Bamboo Grove, The Hill Country, Maymyo, B.u.r.m.a., April 2009
photo by shamash
The truth of these words by my favorite 13th century Persian mystic cuts me to the core:
There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
The Guest House
"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."
by Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
original image by shamash
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
Poetry by Rumi.
Photo: Logic of the Birds by Shirin Neshat, 2001 via Moon River
Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), a Persian mystic who excelled at the rubai (the four-lined poem) wrote the following lines. I found this poem on p. 60 of one of the books I'm reading: a Coleman Barks translation of Rumi's poems: Birdsong.
"If you want money more than anything,
you'll be bought and sold.
If you have a greed for food,
you'll be a loaf of bread.
This is a subtle truth:
whatever you love, you are."
