Let the Beauty We Love

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Don't open the door to the study

and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Bu'l-Hasan and the Snow

After Bestami died, it happened as he said

that Bu'l-Hasan became the sheikh for his community.

Every day Bu'l-Hasan would go to Bestami's tomb

to receive instruction. He had been told to do this

in a dream by Bestami himself.

Every dawn he goes and stands

facing the tomb until midmorning.

Either the spirit of Bestami comes and talks to him

or in silence the questions he has are answered.

One day a deep snow has fallen overnight.

The graves are indistinguishable.

Bu'l-Hasan feels lost.

Then he hears his sheikh's voice.

The world is made of snow.

It falls and melts and falls again.

Do not be concerned with the snow.

Come toward the sound of my voice.

Move always in this direction.

From that day Bu'l-Hasan began to experience

the enlightened state

he had only heard and read about before.

The Mill

 Mill Dam in Traunstein, William Stanley Haseltine

The heart is a wheatgrain. We are the mill

where this body is a millstone

and thought, the moving river.

The body asks the river why it runs on so.

The river says, Ask the miller who made

the millrace that directs my falling

that turns your stone.

The miller says, You that love bread,

if this turning were not happening,

what would you dip in your broth?

So a lot of questioning goes on

around the milling of wheat,

but what really is this breadmaking work?

Now let silence ask about wheat and the river,

about the miller and the stone

and the taste of bread dipped in soup,

and this listening we do at the mill.

*The mill is one of Rumi's images for the process whereby individual grains get crushed to make something less separate, more communally useful (bread). Thought (the riverwater) and the body (the millstone) are part of this work, as are the miller (creative intelligence) and the customer (desire), who wants a piece of bread for his soup. (Note by Coleman Barks)

The Gift of Water

Someone who does not know the Tigris River exists

brings the caliph who lives near the river

a jar of fresh water. The caliph accepts, thanks him,

and gives in return a jar filled with gold coins.

Since this man has come through the desert,

he should return by water. Taken out by another door,

the man steps into a waiting boat and sees

the wide freshwater of the Tigris. He bows his head,

What wonderful kindness that he took my gift.

Every object and being in the universe is a jar

overfilled with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris

that cannot be contained in any skin. Every jarful

spills and makes the earth more shining,

as though covered in satin.

If the man had seen even a tributary of the great river,

he would not have brought the innocence of his gift.

Those that stay and live by the Tigris grow so ecstatic

that they throw rocks at the jugs, and the jugs

become perfect. They shatter. The pieces dance,

and water . . . . Do you see?

Neither jar nor water nor stone, nothing.

You knock at the door of reality, shake

your thought-wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.

The Night Ocean

Study of the Head & Shoulders, etc., by Jan Lievens

We are the night ocean filled

with glints of light. We are the space

between the fish and the moon,

while we sit here together.

Backpain

Muhammad went to visit a sick friend.

Such kindness brings more kindness,

and there is no knowing the proliferation from there.

The man was about to die.

Muhammad put his face close and kissed him.

His friend began to revive.

Muhammad's visit re-created him.

He began to feel grateful for an illness

that brought such light.

And also for the backpain

that wakes him in the night.

No need to snore away like a buffalo

when this wonder is walking the world.

There are values in pain that are difficult

to see without the presence of a guest.

Don't complain about autumn.

Walk with grief like a good friend.

Listen to what he says.

Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave

give the opening we most want.

A Piece of Wood

I reach for a piece of wood. It turns into a lute.

I do some meanness. It turns out helpful.

I say one must not travel during the holy month.

then I start out, and wonderful things happen.