Childhood Friends (4)

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe

Vincent Van Gogh

Put your vileness up to a mirror and weep.

Get that self-satisfaction flowing out of you.

Satan thought, I am better than Adam,

and that better than is still strongly in us.

Your streamwater may look clean,

but there is unstirred matter on the bottom.

Your guide can dig a side channel

that will drain that waste off.

Trust your wound to a teacher's surgery.

Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,

those flies of your self-protecting feelings,

your love for what you think is yours.

Let a teacher wave away the flies

and put a plaster on your wound.

Don't turn your head. Keep looking

at the bandaged place.

That is where the light enters you.

And don't believe for a moment

you are healing yourself.

Childhood Friends (3)

Women Mending Nets in the Dunes, Vincent Van Gogh

He took the mirror from his robe

where he was hiding it.

What is the mirror of being? Non-being?

Always bring a mirror of non-existence as a gift.

Any other present is foolish.

Let the poor man look deep into generosity.

Let bread see a hungry man.

Let kindling behold a spark from the flint.

An empty mirror and your worst destructive habits,

when they are held up to each other, that is when

the real making begins. That's when art and crafting are.

A tailor needs a torn garment to practice his expertise.

The trunks of trees must be cut and cut again,

so they can be used for fine carpentry.

Your doctor must have a broken leg to doctor.

Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested.

Whoever sees clearly what is diseased in himself

begins to gallop on the way. There is nothing worse

than thinking you are well enough. More than anything, 

self-complacency blocks the workmanship.

Childhood Friends (2)

Starry Night over the Rhône, by Vincent Van Gogh

Then Joseph began questioning his friend,

What have you brought me? You know a traveler

should not arrive empty-handed at the door

of a friend like me. That is like going

to the grinding stone without your wheat.

God will ask at the resurrection, Did you bring me

a present? Did you think you wouldn't see me?

Joseph keeps teasing, Let's have it.

I want my gift.

The guest began, You cannot imagine

how I have looked for something for you.

Nothing seemed appropriate. You don't take gold

down into a goldmine, or a drop of water

to the Sea of Oman. Everything I thought of

was like bringing cumin seed to Kirmanshah

where cumin comes from. You have all seeds

in your barn. You even have my love

and my soul, so I cannot bring those.

I have brought you a mirror.

Look at yourself and remember me.

Childhood Friends (1)

Peasant and Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes, by Vincent Van Gogh

A close childhood friend came once to visit Joseph.

They had shared all the secrets that children

tell each other when they are lying on their pillows

at night before they go to sleep. These two

were completely truthful with each other.

The friend asked, What was it like when you realized

that your brothers were jealous and what they planned to do?

I felt like a lion with a chain around his neck,

not degraded by the chain, and not complaining,

just waiting for my power to be recognized.

How about down in the well, and in prison,

how was it then? Like the moon when it is

getting smaller, yet knowing the fullness to come.

Like a seed pearl ground in the mortor for medicine

that knows it will now be the light in a human eye.

Like a wheat grain that breaks open in the ground,

then grows and gets harvested, then crushed

in the mill for flour, baked and then crushed again

between teeth to become a person's understanding.

Lost in love, like the songs the planters sing

the night after they sow the seed.

A Basket of Fresh Bread (2)

There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,

yet you go door to door asking for crusts.

Knock on the inner door. No other.

Sloshing knee-deep in clear streamwater,

you keep wanting a drink from other people's waterbags.

Water is everywhere around you,

but you see only barriers that keep you from water.

A horse is moving beneath the rider's thighs,

yet still he asks, Where is my horse?

Right there, under you. Yes, this is a horse,

but where's the horse? Can't you see? Yes,

I can see, but whoever saw such a horse?

Mad with thirst, he cannot drink from the stream

running so close by his face.

He is like a pearl on the deep bottom

wondering, inside the shell, Where is the ocean?

His mental questionings form the barrier.

His physical eyesight bandages his knowing.

Self-consciousness plugs his ears.

Stay bewildered in God and only that.

A Basket of Fresh Bread (1)

If you want to learn theory,

talk with the theoreticians. That way is oral.

When you learn a craft, practice it.

That learning comes through the hands.

If you want dervishhood, spiritual poverty,

and emptiness, you must be friends with a sheikh.

Talking about it, reading books, and doing practices

do not help. Soul receives from soul that knowing.

The mystery of spiritual emptiness

may be living in a pilgrim's heart,

but the knowing of it might not yet be his.

Wait for the illuminating openness,

as though your chest were filling with light.

Do not look for it outside yourself.

There is a milk fountain inside of you.

Do not walk around with an empty bucket.

You have a channel into the ocean,

yet you ask for water from a little pool.

Beg for the love-expansion.

The Qur'an says, And he is with you. (57:4)

The Far Mosque

The place that Solomon made to worship in,

called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth

and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom

and mystical conversation and compassionate action.

Every part of it is intelligent and responsive

to every other. The carpet bows to the broom.

The door knocker and the door swing together

like musicians. This heart sanctuary

does exist, though it cannot be described.

Solomon goes there every morning

and gives guidance with words,

with musical harmonies, and in actions,

which are the deepest teaching.

A prince is just a conceit,

until he does something with his generosity.