Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Within This Body
by Tulsi Sahib

English version by Ivan M. Granger

Within this body
breathes the secret essence.
Within this body
beats the heart of the Vedas.

Realize this, and you’ve found your freedom
      (while teachers trapped in tradition
      know only the mirage
            in the mirror).

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by vaticanus /

This poem really cuts right through the delusion of fundamentalism on the one hand—

Seers and sages perfectly parrot
the scriptures and holy books,
      blinded by knowledge.

–and being overly enamored with spiritual practices and rituals, on the other–

Their pilgrimage,
      and fasting,
      and striving
            but delude.

This is not to say that one should not study sacred texts or that we should ignore the value of spiritual practices. The problem is that it’s easy to forget what their true purpose is. Sacred writing, sacred striving, they are signposts that remind us to turn inward and discover the true heart that shines with the light of the universe.

Within this body
breathes the secret essence.
Within this body
beats the heart of the Vedas.

Within this body
shines the entire Universe,
      so the saints say.

If we just memorize words or pray in the mountains, even if we do it perfectly, we are idolizing the trappings of spirituality, without understanding, without making the real journey. This is one of the reasons why there is so much anger among fundamentalists in all the world’s traditions — they push to fit into an externalized idea of what it means to be perfect, yet they are not transformed, and they secretly know it.

Despite their perfect practice,
they discover no destination.

Unable to face the pain of that failure, they externalize it, and blame the imperfections of the world around them for holding them back. That pain becomes anger at the outer world, and that anger is reflexively attributed to God. Then that angry God is imagined to punish by withholding heaven from the individual until the whole world rigidly falls into order. The more desperate these individuals become for release from spiritual pain, the more violently they try to enforce their vision upon society in the hopes that they will finally appease God and find freedom.

So sad, when all that is necessary is to slip through that pain, let go of the ego’s self-importance, and discover the immense joy quietly glowing deep within. No one and nothing else holds us back.

Only the saints
who know the body’s heart
have attained the Ultimate, O Tulsi.

So Tulsidas is reminding us: Study, yes, and strive. But always more important is to yield and open and finally settle into the secret shining heart that awaits discovery. Those are the true fundamentals.

Realize this, and you’ve found your freedom

…Okay, Ivan will now step down from his soapbox. Have a wonderful weekend, and remember to take some sweet quiet time to settle within.

Recommended Books: Tulsi Sahib

Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	Songs of the Saints from the Adi Granth	Songs of the Saints of India	Tulsi Sahib: Saint of Hathras

Tulsi Sahib India (1763 – 1843) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Vaishnava (Krishna/Rama) Sikh

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Is there anyone in the universe
by Ramakrishna

English version by Lex Hixon

Is there anyone in the universe,
among heavenly or earthly beings,
who can understand what Kali is?
The systems of all traditions
are powerless to describe Her.
Is Mother a feminine being
or greater than Being itself?

Not even Shiva, prince of yogis,
can focus upon Her dancing Feet
without falling into trance.
Yet the worthless lover
who sings this mad song
aspires to conscious union with Her
during waking, dream, and deep sleep.

— from Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna, by Lex Hixon

/ Image by Chobist /

Happy Mother’s Day. It is worth remembering today that Mother’s Day was originally created as a day of international peace as a reminder to us all that every single person on all sides of every conflict has a mother who loves them. It was hoped that remembering this would make war difficult to justify.

It is also worth remembering today that we are all children of the Divine Mother.

In Hindu tradition and metaphysics, the Goddess represents many aspects of the Divine. The iconography we find in Hinduism gives us a fascinating kaleidoscope of meaning. The Goddess can represent Mother, the Great Source, the Void/Womb from which all are born, Manifestation, Creation, Vibration, Speech, Song, the Arts, Beauty, Darkness, Mystery, all of the World (and all its Illusions). But with birth, also comes death, with manifestation, also comes dissolution; anything with a beginning also has an end. Only the eternal is eternal. So the Goddess, Mother and Manifester, is also sometimes portrayed as Destroyer. She is Life and Death both. She is the Power that brings all into being, animates and enlivens the universe, and also draws it back into non-being. But even in Her fiercest aspect, the Mother Goddess is loving. For Her, death is merely the death of illusion and the return to Self.

This poem — I call it a poem, but it is more of an ecstatic utterance by the great Ramakrishna — plays with a particular descriptive challenge in the representations of Kali. On the one hand, Kali is a Goddess, often paired with the God Shiva. A popular representation of the two is with Shiva lying prone on the ground, while Kali dances upon his breast, slaying demons. It can be a disturbing image to people not familiar with the iconography of Kali. But what is it saying, and how does it fit in with the philosophy of this gentle, greatly revered Hindu saint, Ramakrishna?

Hinduism often expresses the fundamental polarity of Male and Female in images of the divine couple, the God and Goddess paired together. Within this God-Goddess dichotomy, the masculine aspect of the Divine usually represents transcendent spirit, while the feminine expresses manifestation, power, and action. So prone Shiva represents the transcendent, which is inactive, but which holds the divine potential. Kali dances upon his breast, representing that potential coming into manifestation. Through Her sheer power, Kali destroys the demons that represent illusion and disharmony.

But, just as this God-Goddess pairing represents different facets of the Divine, any God or Goddess can simultaneously be understood to embody the whole of the Divine. In this way, Kali can both be an aspect and also the Absolute.

And this is what Ramakrishna is teasing us with here. Is Kali the consort of Shiva? Is She the feminine aspect of God, or God entire?

Is Mother a feminine being
or greater than Being itself?…

Is Mother simply a Goddess?
Does She need a male consort
to protect or complete Her?

Even within Hinduism and its rich, varied depictions of the Feminine aspect of the Divine, there is still a tendency to elevate the Male forms, such as Shiva. Ramakrishna seems to delight in overturning convention. To him, one must simply follow the Mother and, as She reveals more and more of Her nature — her manifestation, her play of illusions and revelations — our vision of Her expands to encompass the All. To Ramakrishna, the Goddess is Mother and Consort, but She is equally the Totality itself. He taunts us to untangle that conundrum through our own direct perception.

Whether we are talking about Kali or Saraswati or Cerridwen, Mother Mary or Shekinah, let us not forget to honor the feminine in the Divine — and in our world, and in ourselves.

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I should mention that there is some question about the attribution for this poem. I know that Ramakrishna often quoted Ramprasad, but the source I found this in seems to be attributing it directly to Ramakrishna, though the attribution is not specific. In the same book, the author mentions how Ramakrishna would often break into spontaneous song, making up lyrics as insight and inspiration flooded through him, but also sometimes interweaving famous lines from Ramprasad and others, as well. So the truth is, I don’t know for certain who the poet is. This poem could be by Ramprasad (though I haven’t come across another version of this attributed to Ramprasad), or it could include a few lines by Ramprasad, or it could be entirely original to Ramakrishna. I’d love to hear if you know any more about these verses.

Recommended Books: Ramakrishna

Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar	Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna	The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna	The Condensed Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
More Books >>

Ramakrishna India (1836 – 1886) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Shakta (Goddess-oriented)

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Looking for your own face
by Farid ud-Din Attar

English version by Coleman Barks

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you’ll be that.

— from The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks

/ Image by Noah Buscher /

I like this idea of searching for one’s own face — something so central to our identity but which we can never see directly.

You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

How then can we see our own face?

We seek its reflection constantly, everywhere. All the world becomes a mirror showing ourselves back to us.

But our vision is unclear, distorted, veiled…

So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.

The ego within us covers our self-perception with a thin film, so we think we are seeing ourselves, but we see only a vague shadow of our true nature behind the ego’s haze.

In some traditions, this is represented by the compulsion of the breath, its continuous inflow and outflow perpetually disrupting true, still perception. Some yogic and Sufi techniques seek to profoundly quiet the breath and the rhythms of the body so that the vision of Reality may come through undistorted:

It’s better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Most people try to shape the story they tell about themselves. Seekers try to shape themselves. But if we are wise, we shape neither story nor self; we lose ourselves, instead. We let the disrupting ego-self melt away in the fires of our fierce love for the Beloved.

What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you’ll be that.

In the search for our true face, a reflection will never satisfy. No journey. We won’t ever properly see our faces by looking outside of ourselves. To know our true face, we inhabit ourselves, instead.

Have a beautiful day — and always remain true to your heart’s instinct to open, even in tumultuous times.

Recommended Books: Farid ud-Din Attar

Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom	The Conferences of the Birds
More Books >>

Farid ud-Din Attar Iran/Persia (1120? – 1220?) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Monet Refuses the Operation
by Lisel Mueller

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

— from Second Language: Poems, by Lisel Mueller

/ Image by Nik Shuliahin /

A rare Sunday poem this week. Last week was especially full with work and dental appointments, so I didn’t get to the poem on Friday. I received several thoughtful emails following the previous week’s poem, and I didn’t get many responses out — but I read them all.

Here’s something to remind us of the hidden glory in aging. (A big thank you to Mirabai Starr and her email newsletter for remind me of this poem.)

Permission, I suppose, to be a little less focused and a little more present. I hope you feel the heavenly nearness in those haloed lamps!

Recommended Books: Lisel Mueller

Alive Together: New and Selected Poems	Second Language: Poems	The Need to Hold Still: Poems	Dependencies: Poems

Lisel Mueller US & Germany (1924 – ) Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Lisel Mueller

First dawn
by Ivan M. Granger

First dawn. Even the
birds in the tallest pines are
surprised by the sun.

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by Evgeni Dinev /

I have been enjoying the spring mornings here in Eugene, Oregon. Some mornings there is a light rain falling, the world is sleepy and self-enclosed, then on other days we get morning sunshine, everything glistens and awakens to a sense of celebration. Sometimes before we begin work, my wife and I will go to a local coffee shop. I’ll get a warm cup of tea. We read and chat, listening to the hum of the community, people talking in hushed tones, the life of our small city recognizing itself. Such moments are nourishing to the soul.

I am especially appreciative of all this because of a few milestones in my life. Last week I had my birthday. I turned 55. The number feels foreign to me. It’s as if time stopped when I was 35. I haven’t really aged. My hair has just gotten grayer. Can anyone else relate to that feeling?

The other milestone: I was just honored at my work for 30 years of employment. For someone who has moved around the country and, because of health issues, has not always been able to work full time hours in the week, I am amazed — and grateful — to have found early on an employer who has been stable and adaptable and accepting. Wherever I’ve lived and whatever my work rhythms, they were always there, so I never felt the need to move on.

The renewal of springtime and these experiences invite me to reflect back on the year and a half since my wife and I moved back to Eugene. We have had so many wonderful moments returning to our childhood hometown, but the year following our move was also quite challenging. At the beginning of last year my wife was hospitalized and kept in the ICU for several days following a severe asthma attack. As she recovered, we were able to get her on new medication, and the change has been profound. It was a year of difficult finances, requiring me to put as many hours as possible into my day job. At times I felt badly, as if I have been neglecting you, the Poetry Chaikhana community, as a result. I hope to be able to do more with the Poetry Chaikhana in the future.

We never really control the circumstances of our lives. We make plans, formulate expectations, and try to build the daily structures of our lives that will lead to those outcomes — but then life plays out as it will. That regular, steady, structural process has not been my strongest suit, though I have gotten better at it in those timeless twenty years from 35 to 55. Where I have found strength, however, is in the ability to ride the flow of life, even when the details have gotten messy.

I look outside the window. It’s a cloudy morning. The ground is still damp with last night’s rainfall. But the birds are cautiously emerging and sharing their song. We have the promise of a beautiful day. That’s when our work begins, amidst the requirements of life, to discover for ourselves the beauty waiting for us.

Recommended Books: Ivan M. Granger

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania
More Books >>

Ivan M. Granger US (1969 – ) Secular or Eclectic Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

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The Summary of Mahamudra
by Naropa

English version by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Erik Pema Kunsang

Homage to the state of great bliss!
Concerning what is called Mahamudra
All things are your own mind.
Seeing objects as external is a mistaken concept;
Like a dream, they are empty of concreteness.
This mind, as well, is a mere movement of attention
That has no self-nature, being merely a gust of wind.
Empty of identity, like space.
All things, like space, are equal.
When speaking of ‘Mahamudra’
It is not an entity that can be shown.
There the mind’s suchness
Is itself the state of Mahamudra.
It is neither something to be corrected nor transformed,
But when anyone sees and realizes its nature
All that appears and exists is Mahamudra,
The great all-encompassing Dharmakaya.
Naturally and without contriving, allowed simply to be,
This unimagined Dharmakaya,
Letting it be without seeking is the meditation training.
But to meditate while seeking is deluded mind.
Just as with space and a magical display,
While neither cultivating nor not cultivating
How can you be separate and not separate!
This is a yogi’s understanding.
All good deeds and harmful actions
Dissolve by simply knowing this nature.
The emotions are the great wisdom.
Like a jungle fire, they are the yogi’s helpers.
How can there be staying or going?
What meditation is there by fleeing to a hermitage?
Without understanding this, all possible means
Never bring more than temporary liberation.
When understanding this nature, what is there to bind you?
While being undistracted from its continuity,
There is neither a composed nor an uncomposed state
To be cultivated or corrected with a remedy.
It is not made out of anything
Experience self-liberated is dharmadhatu.
Thinking self-liberated is great wisdom,
Non-dual equality is dharmakaya.
Like the continuous flow of a great river,
Whatever you do is meaningful,
This is the eternal awakened state,
The great bliss, leaving no place for samasara.
All things are empty of their own identities.
This concept fixed on emptiness has dissolved in itself.
Free of concept, holding nothing in mind,
Is in itself the path of the Buddhas.
For the most fortunate ones,
I have made these concise words of heartfelt advice.
Through this, may every single sentient being
Be established in Mahamudra.

— from The Songs of Naropa: Commentaries on songs of Realization, Translated by Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche / Translated by Erik Pema Kunsang

/ Image by Best Picko /

Today is Good Friday leading into Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar. We are in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan for Muslims. In the Jewish calendar, Purim was just celebrated and Passover is coming up. For Hindus, colorful Holi was just celebrated. Let us take a moment during this time of the new life and new birth to remember the holiness and wholeness of the world we all share.

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If you have been reading the Poetry Chaikhana emails in recent years, then you know that my wife and I moved back to our childhood home of Eugene, Oregon a little over a year ago. Before that we lived for years in and around Boulder, Colorado.

My wife and I first moved to Boulder, Colorado in the early 1990s. We were young and felt like adventurous vagabonds, exploring the world by moving from place to place. Several things drew us to the area, including the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains, better work opportunities than in our home state of Oregon, as well as the spirituality, creativity and health-focus of the community.

One other thing drew us: Naropa University, a school in the area well known for its poetry and psychology programs, combined with classes on meditation and Eastern philosophies. Ironically, we never attended classes there, but we have friends who are graduates, and the school has helped to shape Boulder culture in beautiful ways.

Yet I don’t think I have ever featured a poem by the great Buddhist master Naropa, until today.

Concerning what is called Mahamudra

Mahamudra literally translates as “the Great Seal.” This term is rich in meaning, especially within Tibetan Buddhism. We might say that Mahamudra is the clear and enlightened recognition of all levels of reality.

We can think of it as a “seal” in that it has the stamp of confirmation. This is unfettered awareness of how reality really is.

Mahamudra is both the goal and it is also the practice or the pathway to reach that goal.

All things are your own mind.
Seeing objects as external is a mistaken concept

This is a difficult one for most of us reared within the Western mindset that has a primarily materialistic understanding of reality. Even if we hold to religious or spiritual ideals, that relationship to the world around us as a physical and sensory experience is often quite ingrained.

So what do we make of statements like “all things are your own mind”? How can external objects not be external?

We can read a lot of Eastern philosophy and begin to build a conceptual framework that allows a statement like that to seem less absurd, but at best it is a fragile idea that comes under heavy assault when we are confronted with life’s next intense, apparently external challenge. The conceptualizing mind can’t fully encompass this notion, no matter how subtle and refined we think it out.

The problem for the intellect is that, as our meditation deepens and the mind clears, this is precisely what we perceive. Everything we imagine to be outside of ourselves is actually within ourselves. And everything we think of as tangible, fixed, and “real,” is actually revealed to be merely a surface appearance that is part of a deeper, highly fluid reality.

Like a dream, they are empty of concreteness.

Naturally, we must explore what the mind is. We often imagine that we are the mind, that the mind is the self. Thinking that, we have little or no control over the mind. But the mind isn’t really a lasting “thing” in oneself or outside of oneself. What we think of as the mind only exists when the awareness is in motion.

This mind, as well, is a mere movement of attention
That has no self-nature, being merely a gust of wind.
Empty of identity, like space.

When we bring the awareness to deep stillness, we discover that the mind doesn’t exist at all. Awareness remains, but mind is nowhere to be found.

It is like the wind: The air is always there, but the wind only exists when the air is disturbed and in motion. Its true nature is wide open, reaching in all directions at once.

There the mind’s suchness
Is itself the state of Mahamudra.

In Buddhist writings, we often come across an odd term that is usually rendered as “suchness” or “thusness.” This is a translation of the word Tathata. Tathata is the way a thing truly is beyond the ability of names or concepts to define it. It is the true nature of reality.

Naropa is affirming that the mind’s true nature, that is, full and open awareness, is nothing less than the full embodiment of reality.

It is neither something to be corrected nor transformed,

So often in spiritual practice we try to bring the mind under control. We work so hard to keep the mind focused on “spiritual” things and away from distractions or fixations. And, yes, that can be important.

But Naropa is giving us a deeper teaching. The shifting surface focus we call mind is only problematic when we imagine that is all that mind is and all that we are. As we begin to recognize the full awareness, we see that its expanse already encompasses everything, needing nothing added or subtracted, while the phenomenon of “mind” is simply the shifting of currents that settles of its own accord when we let it.

But when anyone sees and realizes its nature
All that appears and exists is Mahamudra,

Another key Buddhist term is then mentioned: Dharmakaya–

The great all-encompassing Dharmakaya.
Naturally and without contriving, allowed simply to be,

Dharmakaya literally means “truth body.” It is one’s true spacious being underlying all appearance or phenomenal experience. It is the foundation ground of self and being experienced by awakened masters.

Naropa is showing how these important concepts are linked, that their elevated states actually flow into each other and reveal themselves to be the same.

No-Mind -> Full Awareness -> Inherent Being -> Truth Body

Letting it be without seeking is the meditation training

This, I think, is Naropa’s core statement for the seeker: Don’t seek. Instead, recognize the true nature of things already present. Don’t look to the horizon. Wherever we are, just stop and see. That’s the tricky part. Before we can see, we must first stop. We don’t need to dominate the mind and force it to stop, but we do need to stop being carried away by every little thing caught in the shifting movements of the mind. That’s when the vision clears and we see all around for the first time.

While neither cultivating nor not cultivating
How can you be separate and not separate!

We don’t actually need to change anything about ourselves. Rather, we need to settle into ourselves. We need to be as we are. When we do that, then our outer selves naturally become an expression of the true being we actually are — no effort required to coax or curtail our actions and energies.

Like the continuous flow of a great river,
Whatever you do is meaningful,

Rather than an endless effort of trying to catch and correct every thought and emotion (and the actions that proceed from them), Naropa’s teachings allow us to recognize our destination in this very moment, discovering our true nature in our very selves right now.

Through this, may every single sentient being
Be established in Mahamudra.

Recommended Books: Naropa

The Songs of Naropa: Commentaries on songs of Realization	Illusion’s Game: The Life and Teachings of Naropa

Naropa India (1016 – 1100) Timeline Buddhist : Tibetan

More poetry by Naropa

Millennium Blessing
by Stephen Levine

There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

And that is what we sing about.

— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by DCist /

That opening statement is so true—

There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding that inner opening. It is that quiet itch at the back of the awareness that makes us squirm and turn away. And when it really presses on us, it can arouse terror, as if we were facing down death.

That’s the thing: That oh-so-sweet moment of awakening is only sweet on the other side of the threshold. But to approach it is to face death. It is the death of our old worldview, the death of patterned awareness, the death of our limited notion of who we are. All we thought ourselves to be stops—and so it is a sort of death. To feel that grace approaching, to welcome it, requires a wild sort of courage.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us to surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

It requires courage and, yes, surrender. We have this idea that spiritual opening is a terrible effort. No. That unfolding wants to occur within us. The only effort is to let go of our endless strategies to halt the process. We all feel it, a gentle prodding to let the heart open, to know ourselves truly, to be present and radiate ourselves into the world.

That opening is insistent, trying to happen within us. Call it grace, if you like. The question is before us: Do we courageously accept the invitation to grace?

It does not come in time,
      but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

For those of us who live in modern urban society, think how hard it is to stop the ticking of the clock. From an early age we internalize the sense of time and progress and deadlines. Yet, in doing so, we forget that these are all just concepts, just one way to understand the unfolding of being and experience. That sense of time is a powerful tool for doing and accomplishment, but it isn’t inherently real. It doesn’t have much to do with who or what we are. There is a flow of days and months, but they are the surface current of a much deeper timelessness.

I remember as a young man trying to figure out what timelessness was. I sought to live in remote places. I got rid of the television (to which, as a child raised on 70s sitcoms, I had a serious addiction). I spent a lot of time in nature. I slowly learned to let go of the endless buzzing of thoughts. This might sound like a brutal endurance sport, but that wasn’t how I experienced it. I wanted to feel what life was without the filters of the 20th century mindset and 20th century time. I wanted to know who I was in the space of timelessness.

It is fascinating how we use the hyperactivity of thought to define the world, to frame our perception of the world, and in some ways to limit our notion of the world. The other thing about thought: It creates time. When thought settles down, we discover timelessness. And as the poet said, the mind comes to rest, not in the head, but in the heart.

Having come to rest, we remember. It is not through intellection but through stillness that we remember. Remember. Re-member. To remember is to finally see how the apparent separation of reality actually fits together in a single wholeness. Discursive thought can only ever examine pieces of the whole. To re-member is to have the full vision of Wholeness, as things actually are. But this vision is found in timelessness and stillness, through the quiet mind unfiltered.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.

Recommended Books: Stephen Levine

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Breaking the Drought: Visions of Grace	A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last	Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying	Healing into Life and Death
More Books >>

Stephen Levine US (1937 – 2016) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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It was like a stream
by Akka Mahadevi

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

It was like a stream
      running into the dry bed
      of a lake,
                  like rain
      pouring on plants
      parched to sticks.

Seeing the feet of the master
O lord white as jasmine,
      I was made
      worthwhile.

— from Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present: Volume 1, Edited by Susie Tharu / Edited by K. Lalita

/ Image by Omar Ob /

It is Mahashivaratri, a celebration in honor of the Hindu god Shiva, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to feature a poem by the great Shiva mystic, Mahadevi.

You know, there is always a question people are hesitant to ask, or just don’t think to ask… So let’s ask it now:

What in the world are these poets and mystics really talking about? Is there anything real behind all of these esoteric poems and sacred scriptures?

Once we step away from heavily laden words like God or heaven or enlightenment, we have to ask if these are just lovely word games and endless philosophical speculation.

I guess all of that is a roundabout way of asking the blunt question, What is the real point to a lifetime of spiritual striving?

Here’s a little secret not often mentioned in church or mosque or synagogue: In deepest communion, when the mind is still and the heart open, we are flooded by such an immense, ecstatic joy that nothing else can compare to it.

Let me say that again, because it is not some pretty philosophical notion. It is real, and directly perceived: When the mind is still and the heart open, we are flooded with an immense, ecstatic joy beyond describing.

That flood brings with it a profound sense of life. It is a sense of being alive that is utterly new, unknown until that moment. It is as if we experience what it means to be alive for the first time. Christians speak of this as the rebirth. Eastern traditions speak of it as awakening. That flood — it feels like a rushing stream — finally slakes a deep thirst we didn’t know we had.

It was like a stream
      running into the dry bed
      of a lake,
                  like rain
      pouring on plants
      parched to sticks.

In other words, yes, these poets are actually describing something real. It is something felt and tangible. The spiritual journey is not about withering discipline or theological correctness, clinging to a dusty ideal unto the grave. It is about life! And a very real deep, mysterious delight!

The theologian reformulates other people’s descriptions of sugar, and tells himself he is content. But the mystic is only satisfied with tasting it.

The spiritual journey is about discovering the very real sweetness that you are.

O lord white as jasmine,
      I was made
      worthwhile.

=

And to all of my beloved Muslim friends, Ramadan Mubarak. Have a blessed Ramadan this coming week, bringing a renewed sense of self, healing, and hopeful new possibilities into the world.

Recommended Books: Akka Mahadevi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Speaking of Siva	The Shambhala Anthology of Women’s Spiritual Poetry	Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the Present: Volume 1	Sacred Voices: Essential Women’s Voices Through the Ages

Akka Mahadevi India (12th Century) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Shaivite (Shiva)

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You who want
by Hadewijch

English version by Jane Hirshfield

You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within

There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting

— from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield

/ Image by Lea Chvrl /

“You who want
knowledge…”

I suppose that is all of us. We all want knowledge.

Society tells us that “knowledge is power,” but we don’t really have a clear sense of what knowledge is. In the modern era, we tend to think of knowledge as information, data. We think of knowledge as the feeding and exercise of the intellect. All of that is certainly important, but real knowledge is something else.

We can’t think our way into heaven.

When mystics speak of “knowledge” they speak of gnosis. This is not information, but a profound Knowing. The knowledge we are talking about has more to do with full awareness. It is as if one floats in the vast ocean of knowingness itself. This “knowledge” is an all-encompassing recognition of meaning and interrelationship. It is direct and permeates one’s whole being. It is the full bodied perception that living meaning somehow flows through all of existence, unifying everything within a living self-awareness.

Information is observational, external, and always limited. This is not to say that gnostic knowledge has nothing to do with informational knowledge, however. In spiritually open states, one’s intuition may be refined and heightened. Clear insight about a certain person or situation may just pop into your mind as a fully formed understanding, as if you suddenly see the whole pattern without having to work so hard to connect all of the individual bits of information. But this is more of a byproduct, an ornamentation on the face of knowledge, not the knowledge itself.

Real knowing, gnosis, is alive, all-permeating, all-unifying. It reconnects us within the living whole… and leads us into ecstasy.

…seek the Oneness
within

This is why real knowing is about seeking oneness, turning within, learning to see ourselves honestly, truly, clearly.

Surprisingly, none of this knowledge is ever acquired. It isn’t a new possession or experience or even a new thought. It is already here, at rest in the center of things. When it is found, it is as familiar as our bones. It is our very nature. It is already waiting.

There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Hadewijch

Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Shambhala Anthology of Women’s Spiritual Poetry	Hadewijch: The Complete Works (Classics of Western Spirituality)	Christian Mystics: Their Lives and Legacies throughout the Ages	Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete
More Books >>

Hadewijch Belgium (13th Century) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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The Making of Sand
by Ayaz

Empty pages
Flap in the wind
In the sovereign silence
There is no history
There is only the cracking
And polishing of stones
by the sun
You see the making of sand
Is a long business
Shaped and re shaped
By surrender

— from The Holy Algorithm, by Ayaz Angus Landman

/ Image by Kunj Parekh /

I should feature the poetry of Ayaz Landman more often. I should just read his poetry more often — note to self. Every time I read his poetry I am surprised anew by how his words ring in the still moments of the day.

This poem, for example, it feels to me like a meditative journey…

Empty pages
Flap in the wind

We start with an image of a book open, its pages empty and flapping in the wind. A bare sketch, dreamlike. Where are the words that should fill the pages? Why would a book’s pages be empty? Perhaps the book is a blank canvas, a space for creativity, a place of possibilities.

Where is the writer? Or the reader? Why is the book out in the wind?

An empty book, an empty space, but with movement, life.

In the sovereign silence
There is no history

These are the words that first grab my attention. That phrase, “the sovereign silence…” That is one to sit with and savor.

Within that silence there is no history. No past. No inner dialog. No self-story. There is just presence.

The empty pages of the book, that must be us. We have become wordless, a part of the silence.

There is only the cracking
And polishing of stones
by the sun

This section is almost alchemical. There is no one there, no history, a place beyond time, but there is a refining process happening. Stones are being polished, refined, by the light of the sun.

What an interesting, almost startling detail in, that sound of cracking in the midst of the silence. A bit of projection on my part, perhaps, but that line suggests to me the inner sound heard in silent meditation and prayer. It can be a soft sound, like the hum of bees or a distant waterfall… or sand carried by the wind, or it can be clear and crisp, like a bell or flute… or perhaps the cracking sound of stones.

The inner sound is the sound of the self’s refinement. And that process is patient work.

You see the making of sand
Is a long business

It is not even that we are doing it. The action is done by the wind, the sun, by the subtle, eternal forces that act upon all things.

Our job is simply to let that process happen…

Shaped and re shaped
By surrender

…to allow ourselves to be remade by our own surrender.

Recommended Books: Ayaz

For You: A Collection of Prayer Poems	The Holy Algorithm	For You Too

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A single word can brighten the face
by Yunus Emre

English version by Kabir Helminski & Refik Algan

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words —
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.

— from The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre, Translated by Kabir Helminski / Translated by Refik Algan

/ Image by Ahmad Bader /

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.

This is one of my favorite poems by Yunus Emre, but I have never really written up a good commentary to accompany it. Perhaps it is because it is a poem about words, the singular power of words, or the power of a singular word — and I don’t want my meditative ramblings to take away from the poem itself. It says it all so beautifully.

Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

I love that line. I have been busy with my day job of late, and I haven’t been resting in deep meditation as much as I would like. The outer world has required a lot of energy from me lately. Yet I have still managed to catch moments of silence gently flowing beneath the activity. That’s where the ripening happens.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there’s a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

I think this verse is the heart of the poem for me. I read it over and over again.

In my Hawaii days, at the same time I was doing all that fasting and meditating in a cave, I was also running an email chain called the Peace Pages. No website, just by word of mouth, but it grew quickly to a significant circulation in the couple of years that it existed. It usually consisted of summaries of overlooked international news stories, often with a few comments for context, as a more holistic counterbalance to the fixed perspectives we were receiving in US news reports at the time. A major focus of the Peace Pages was the terrible situation in Israel/Palestine and my instinct that the suffering of the Palestinian people could become a flashpoint for a widening conflict on the world stage. This was about 25 years ago.

In the morning I would awaken, often lightheaded from fasting the day before, then go for a walk barefoot into the nearby forest where I had found a small cave. I would sit in meditation in the cave for several hours. When I returned, I might eat something light – at that time I was eating mainly island fruit and sprouted foods – then I would turn on my computer, scour the early Internet for news stories, and put together the Peace Pages email to send out.

In some ways, that work was an early template for what would become the Poetry Chaikhana.

Those emails helped me to gain a clearer, more expanded perspective on what was really happening in the world as I began to formulate my own response as a person aspiring to genuine compassion. It always meant empathy with those who are struggling and suffering, never seeing anyone as less than human or a less valuable human than myself. It also, challengingly, meant I had to recognize the suffering of even those who impose suffering on others. The black-and-white world of newsprint became, instead, a complex tapestry of shades and tones.

It also taught me that every conflict comes down to a breakdown in communication. Slow, simmering suffering, accented by explosive, often cruel action, is always about thwarted communication. Groups of people refusing to listen to the needs and concerns of other groups of people.

We tell ourselves that war and fighting are either about control of limited resources or sometimes we just want to say that the other side is “crazy” or, at least, unreasonable. But, when we really look, the clash usually has to do with the stories we tell and how we have tried to fix those stories in concrete. Conflict is often the result of having an overly rigid story about who we are and what our future should be, while trying to eliminate with a vengeance anyone with a different story.

The word that heals, the word that stops war is lost amidst our shouts of accusation.

We can never let allegiance to our personal or national stories be greater than our commitment to compassion and humanity. Let history become messy. Let our stories adapt and evolve to make room for other stories. We don’t need the triumphant fulfillment of our personal stories, what we need, and secretly crave, is the fulfillment of our humanity… even when our stories become something new and our future becomes unknown.

When we drop the terrible purpose of our stories and restore our hearts, that is when we recall the word that heals.

I think will say no more today, and let Yunus have the final word–

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words —
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.

Recommended Books: Yunus Emre

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre	Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey
More Books >>

Yunus Emre Turkey (1238 – 1320) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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In Love
by Sa’di

English version by Mahmood Jamal

In Love there are no days or nights,
For lovers it is all the same.
The musicians have gone, yet the Sufis listen;
In Love there is a beginning but no end.
Each has a name for his Beloved,
But for me my Beloved is nameless.
Sa’di, if you destroy an idol,
Then destroy the idol of the self.

— from Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi, Translated by Mahmood Jamal

/ Image by Greg Rakozy /

The Poetry Chaikhana is back. So too am I, mostly. The winter holidays have been celebrated and survived. The world continues to shift about and demand our hearts.

Each has a name for his Beloved,
But for me my Beloved is nameless.

Here I stand beneath the full moon, quiet, not entirely sure who it is awash in that light.

Sa’di, if you destroy an idol,
Then destroy the idol of the self.

Sending love!

Recommended Books: Sa’di

Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom	The Gulistan of Sadi: The Rose Garden	The Mystics of Islam	Winds of Grace: Poetry, Stories and Teachings of Sufi Mystics and Saints

Sa’di Iran/Persia (1207? – 1291) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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You are Christ’s Hands
by Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
      no hands but yours,
      no feet but yours,
Yours are the eyes through which to look out
      Christ’s compassion to the world
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about
      doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by Jackson David /

It is the Solstice and Christmas is just a few days away. It will be a modest one for myself and my wife this year, but one with a lot of gratitude. We recently moved, still within our hometown of Eugene, Oregon. Because previously we had been renting a furnished place and our new home is not pre-furnished, we had to scramble to buy the basics so we weren’t living in an empty house. Also, amidst the grief over the loss of our beloved family dog of many years, Apollo, we adopted a new dog, Bowie, through a local rescue organization. So, rather than exchange a lot of gifts this year, my wife and I decided to make a list of all the gifts we have received or given to ourselves and our household over the past couple of months — everything from dishes and silverware to a bed. Even without wrapped packages, it feels like an abundant Christmas.

As some of you may recall, soon after we moved back to Eugene a little over a year ago, I was taken aback by the homeless population here. Frankly, homelessness had not seemed like such a prominent issue where we previously lived in Colorado. But not only here in Eugene, we are discovering that America’s homeless population is rapidly growing in many cities.

My wife and I have been trying to find ways to help or, at a minimum, not turn our hearts away. Of course we offer a few dollars during street encounters, when we have the cash, and when the situation feels safe. And we contribute to some local groups that work with the homeless and the hungry in the area. I know I can do more, though remaining in balance, both with health and other life commitments, is always a challenge.

I feel a tug-of-war that plays out in me. There is the Aries part of my personality that is a natural activist, that part of me that wants to go out and fix things, that wants to make the world a better place, to help the world recognize what a beautiful place it can be and should be. It’s that part of me that wants to do (and sometimes wants to force). And then there is an inner part of me that whispers, “Don’t do. Flow. In that way the small actions born naturally from your heart, actions that hardly feel like actions, will resonate in the world.”

Is there such a thing as being an actionless activist?

I am still figuring that one out.

=

While this poem is popularly attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, it is not among her officially recognized works. Scholars tell us that it was probably actually written in the late 19th century by Guy Pearse, a Methodist minister, and Sarah Eliza Rowntree, an English Quaker.

Regardless of the actual composer, this is one of my favorite prayer-poems. It is a prayer of supreme spiritual maturity. It is not someone imploring Christ to come and fix everything in the external way imagined by so many fundamentalist sects; rather, it recognizes the presence of the Divine within each of us and our sacred responsibility to embody that compassion and service within the world. Each one of us is the vehicle through which Christ (or Ishwara or the Buddha) enacts blessings in the world. Our job is to let that sacred current flow through us unhindered.

Yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now…

May we each find ways to uncoil ourselves and allow the divine flow of compassion to run unhindered through our hearts and our hands.

Recommended Books: Teresa of Avila

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time
More Books >>

Teresa of Avila Spain (1515 – 1582) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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The Heat of Midnight Tears
by Mirabai

English version by Robert Bly

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

— from The Winged Energy of Delight, Translated by Robert Bly

/ Image by Megyarsh /

Mirabai says that if we could reach God through bathing in sacred waters, fish would be the holiest creatures; if by subsisting only on nuts and berries, then monkeys would be better than saints. In other words, God is not limited to one thing or one place or one form of worship. God is not outside ourselves to be found elsewhere. And simple, mindless fixation on something we define as holy will not make us holy.

But what really caught my attention is how similar these lines are to the Gnostic Christian teachings in the Gospel of Thomas, which was only rediscovered in the early 1900s:

If those who lead you say, “Look, the kingdom is in the heavens,” then the birds of heaven will get there before you. If they say, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will be there first. Rather, the kingdom is within you and all around you. When you know yourself, you will be known, and you will know you are children of the living father…

– Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas

Now, reread Mirabai’s words. Pretty striking similarity, isn’t it? It’s so nearly identical that one suspects the Gospel of Thomas was circulating through India in Mirabai’s time.

Both the Gospel of Thomas and Mirabai’s song are telling us that the Eternal One is not found some-where, nor in one specific form of worship. No place or object or action embodies God to the exclusion of others. That Presence is, in truth, everywhere, but is always discovered within.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

Midnight is the time of lovers and longing.

The ego acts as the prim nurse standing guard to make certain the secret tryst cannot occur. But lovers always find a way. The magnetic power of intense longing cannot be denied. Such midnight tears finally shame even the ego (“resistance broken”), who disappears into the shadows that the Beloved may emerge.

The pathway is open, and that pathway is the heart.

This is what Mirabai is telling us: God is already there, waiting, hidden, but we must clear the pathway of the heart. Only then can we finally recognize the smiling features of the Beloved that have always been there.

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening…

=

I have been dealing with chronic fatigue issues for the first time in quite a while. Maintaining work hours has been challenging. I haven’t been keeping up with all of my Poetry Chaikhana correspondence — apologies if you have been waiting on a response from me. Even when I may seem unreachable, you are all still very much in my heart.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Mirabai

Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	To Touch the Sky: Poems of Mystical, Spiritual & Metaphysical Light	The Winged Energy of Delight	Songs of the Saints of India
More Books >>

Mirabai India (1498 – 1565?) Timeline Yoga / Hindu : Vaishnava (Krishna/Rama)

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What is the grass?
by Walt Whitman

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roof of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by NJ /

A comment on the Poetry Chaikhana blog from a couple days ago reminded me of this poem and commentary in The Longing in Between. I thought I’d share it with everyone.

=

Why does Whitman give us this prolonged meditation on grass? After all, it is just, well, grass. It is the same green plant surrounding every suburban home, and growing tall in every field and hillside all over the world. We tread on it every day. We know what grass is: it’s forgettable.

Not so, says Whitman. We think we know what grass is and remain ignorant. It is easy through familiarity to become blind. We see a lawn, mentally label it as “grass,” and never really look or bother to know this plant with which we share so much of the world.

This is what is so startling and refreshing about Whitman’s opening line–

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he

I love his utterly honest response. Most people presume they know exactly what grass is and can therefore dismiss it from their awareness. But the poet properly sees in the child’s fistful of grass a living mystery to be considered.

With Whitman we ask, what is grass really?

It is green hope. It is a handkerchief flirtatiously dropped by God to draw our thoughts to the lovely Face. It is the “babe of vegetation,” the embodiment of new life and new growth in the plant world.

What is grass? It is a hieroglyphic, a message layered with hidden meaning. It is a universal teaching encoded in life itself: Like the world’s green grasses, we must give generously of ourselves, equally to high and low, without regard to race or nation. Like the grass, it is our nature to grow and to be present, to share our life in every land and landscape.

Then Whitman enters an extended meditation on how grass connects life and death–

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves…
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men…

Why this gloomy turn? He doesn’t just imagine the graves of the elderly who had lived the full measure of their lives, but he sees too the graves of young men and even infants “taken soon out of their mothers’ laps.” It is important to remember that Whitman is writing in the aftermath of the American Civil War. In fact, during the war, he worked in the New York hospitals. He well knew the bloody reality of young men sacrificed in war.

But here, and elsewhere in his poetry, Whitman makes room even for suffering and violence and death in his philosophy. While he clearly has a compassionate heart, he does not simply label some experiences as unjust, which then must be heroically opposed. Instead, it is as if he watches it all — the beauty and the suffering, everything — unfolding… within himself. It is all him. It is all in the scope of his being. Doing this, he accomplishes a truly courageous feat: integration.

Through that integration, we gain a new vision. We see not life with its end in death, but a living, organic flow of life becoming life becoming life: a perpetual vision of self-renewal. And the grass is the embodiment of this process.

While the dead lie beneath the ground, this green life grows from their now quiet bodies, nourished by their hopes. From the dead comes such pure, delicate new life.

Though there is much to be mourned in Whitman’s catalog of the dead, I find the totality of his vision to be reassuring. The grass, the growth of new life, draws even the most premature and unjust deaths into a realm of wholeness and continuity. This vision, which has made room for death, yet is understood as part of a greater unfolding of life, welcomes us back into the family of life.

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death

Don’t you love that line? And–

All goes onward and outward — nothing collapses;
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

That last line, every time I read it I am brought to a halt, ready to laugh out loud. What is he saying? “To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.”

This whole poem has been his observation on how life renews itself, even through death. But here Whitman seems to be implying something more personal and open-ended, as if his meditation has led him to the notion that death is a sort of initiation into a new and unexpected participation in existence. He has left us with a teasing, Zen-like riddle that offers few answers, yet opens up a pathway of vibrant questions…

=

PS – If you missed it from earlier this week, check out my Holiday Book Recommendations for 2023. Some wonderful collections to spend some long quiet moments with.

Recommended Books: Walt Whitman

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse	Song of Myself	Leaves of Grass	Dead Poets Society (DVD)

Walt Whitman US (1819 – 1892) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Transcendentalist

Walt Whitman grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island. He trained as a printer starting at the age of twelve. He learned to love the written word and read all he could. In his late teens he became a teacher, then turned to journalism in his 20s, eventually moving to New Orleans as editor of a local newspaper. Having witnessed the cruelties of slavery in the South, he returned to Brooklyn as a confirmed abolitionist. Whitman self-published the first edition of what would come to be seen as his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, in 1855, revising it several times in subsequent years. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman worked as a reporter and aided the wounded in local hospitals. Whitman struggled financially for many years, but with the successful publication of the 1882 edition of Leaves of Grass he finally began to earn enough money to purchase a house and live comfortably through his final years.

More poetry by Walt Whitman

I know it is a challenging time in the world. Things might feel off kilter. But this is also a special time of the year. It is a holy time, a time to recall what is sacred. It is a time to reconnect with what illuminates our minds and awakens our hearts. We enter the cave of interior awareness during this darkest period of the winter and rediscover the light within ourselves, renewing ourselves for the new year. I thought this might be a good time share this meditation on the relationship between poetry and spirituality from the Introduction in my book The Longing in Between. Mystics write poetry, universally. Saints and sages, shamans and seers, wise women and medicine men — they sing songs, they riddle, they rhyme. Numinous experiences are not easily communicated through words. The sacred can be witnessed and participated in, but not conveyed through limited concepts. Any attempt to communicate what is perceived in states of encompassing unity and mental quiet is necessarily an act of translation. Prose is a poor medium for the task. Its descriptive language works best with known definitions and accepted meaning. Prose is a language of boundaries. Yet the most profound experiences refuse to be contained. Poetry, on the other hand, does not define; it suggests. Where prose describes, poetry allows meaning to gather. It is this elastic nature that makes poetry well suited to the sacred, enabling language to relay truth without circumscribing it. Sacred experience is beyond word and form, yet the limited mind, in trying to understand what it has witnessed, reflexively interprets its experience in terms of the world known to the senses. What emerges is a primal language of metaphor, a rich and spontaneous pidgin that develops between the limited mind and the unlimited awareness. Bliss, perceived through the senses as sweetness upon the palate, evokes the taste of honey. The mystic’s trembling ecstasy, accompanied by the sense of imbibing an ethereal drink, leads to language of wine and drunkenness. Profound stillness and the perception of an all-pervading light paints before the mind’s eye scenes of the full moon glowing quietly above the resting landscape at midnight. The fiery rising of the Kundalini paired with the loss of ego inspires verses on the moth’s ecstatic annihilation in fire. Regardless of culture and religious tradition, mystics everywhere fill their songs with these same metaphors. In mundane perception, when everyone and everything is seen as separate and isolated, at most one can speak in simile, recognizing that one thing is like another. In that mind-set, metaphor is merely artistic pretense. But to the seer, enraptured by the holistic vision of reality as a fluid interconnectedness, one thing truly is another. Metaphor ceases to be a literary device or a dramatic mode of expression; it is observed reality. It is from this visionary metaphor that sacred poetry is born.

It has been a two or three years since I last sent out a list of poetry books as suggestions for holiday gifts. I thought I should revive that annual tradition!

Poetry Chaikhana Publications

Of course, first we have to list Poetry Chaikhana’s publications! The Poetry Chaikhana has published several collections of poetry.

• Some are anthologies accompanied by my commentary, like The Longing in Between and This Dance of Bliss. (I am stunned that, years after its initial publication, The Longing in Between continues to appear in the top 100 of Amazon’s best selling poetry anthologies, alongside many classics and popular new collections.)
• Honestly, I think Gabriel Rosenstock has given us a masterpiece of crazy wisdom and creative insight with Haiku Enlightenment. This book should be read in college classrooms, shared through haiku associations, and contemplated in Zen meditation groups everywhere.
• A couple of years ago the Poetry Chaikhana published The Awakened One, a fascinating dialog of sorts between classical Japanese haiku masters and contemporary haikuists from cultures and countries all over the world. The perfect taste of haiku ancient and modern.
• Marrow of Flame is a pure delight! An enlightening collection of poetry born of personal awakening by Dorothy Walters. She was a friend and mentor who passed away in her 90s last year. Her poetry continues to find ways to speak to the awakening heart.
• I still find sweet surprises in the pages of Real Thirst, poems I had forgotten, turns of phrase that startle, though, supposedly, I was their author. A good sampler of my own early poetry and translations.
• Probably the most overlooked Poetry Chaikhana publication, but perhaps the one that I return to most often personally, is Gathering Silence, which brings together many of my meditative sayings, ‘thoughts for the day’ and snippets of poetry to form a single voice of insight that is not always my own. Vibrant collage-like artwork of Rashani Réa throughout makes it a pleasure to gaze at any page.

To satisfy that longing (or awaken it)… The Longing in Between Sacred Poetry from Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology Edited with Commentary by Ivan M. Granger In many ways this is my most personal publication, combining favorite soul-inspiring poems from the world’s great religious and spiritual traditions, accompanied by the thoughts, meditations, commentary, and occasional tangents that have been central to the Poetry Chaikhana poem emails for years. Selections from Rumi, Whitman, Kabir, Machado, Issa, Teresa of Avila, Dickinson, Blake, Yunus Emre, John of the Cross, Lalla, and many others. These are poems of seeking and awakening… and the longing in between. “The Longing in Between is a work of sheer beauty. Ivan M. Granger has done a great service, not only by bringing [these poems] to public attention, but by opening their deeper meaning with his own rare poetic and mystic sensibility.” ROGER HOUSDEN author of the best-selling Ten Poems to Change Your Life series READ MORE – PURCHASE

This Dance of Bliss Ecstatic Poetry From Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology Edited with Commentary by Ivan M. Granger This Dance of Bliss is an inspiring collection of poems and wisdom stories from the world’s great sacred traditions. Rumi, St. John of the Cross, Lalla, Goethe, Hildegard von Bingen, Dogen, Khayyam, and many others gather together within these pages to sing their ecstatic songs. Ivan M. Granger accompanies each poem with his own reflections and meditative commentaries, inviting us to explore the insights and private raptures of these mystics, seers, and saints-until we too are swept up in this dance of bliss! “This book is a treasure, a feast, an oasis. Ivan M. Granger’s profound gift for selecting the kind of poetry that lights up the cave of the heart and melts the boundaries between the soul and the Divine is fully met by his lucid reflections on the soul-transfiguring power of each piece in this magnificent collection.” MIRABAI STARR author of God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity & Islam READ MORE – PURCHASE

Haiku Enlightenment New Expanded Edition by Gabriel Rosenstock PURCHASE     or ask at your local independent book store Haiku Enlightenment is a delightful, often playful look at haiku as both a poetic craft and a pathway of awakening – for poets, seekers and creative rebels. Gabriel Rosenstock has given us a rich collection of insights, distilled from a lifetime dedicated to the art and practice of poetry, on stepping into inspired moments. Using a generous selection of contemporary and classical haiku, he explores ideas of creativity and perception, encouraging us to calm the restless mind, notice what is overlooked, explore the world around us, and fully encounter each glowing moment. From such moments, haiku – and enlightenment – emerge. Haiku happens in this world of daily miracles and is a perfect prism through which Nature herself enlightens us. – Gabriel Rosenstock, from Haiku Enlightenment READ MORE

the moon     has found it for me     a mountain path         Michael McClintock    with every gust the butterfly finds a new home on the willow Basho     the body of the Buddha     accepts it–     winter rain          Issa

heavenly mystery . . . autumn leaves descend on a stone buddha     Imaizumi Sogetsu-ni sudden wind the garden buddha’s head crowned with cherry blossoms Olivier Schopfer (Switzerland)

The Awakened One Buddha-Themed Haiku from Around the World Edited by Adjei Agyei-Baah and Gabriel Rosenstock PURCHASE     or ask at your local independent book store This is one to sit with on a chilly winter morning, reading one haiku at a time. Pairing contemporary haiku by poets from around the world with classical Japanese haiku, The Awakened One offers us a poetic dialog on the nature of awareness across culture and time. Modern haikuists from the UK, the US, Croatia, India, Nigeria and a dozen other countries converse via haiku with Japanese masters, like Basho, Issa and Buson, sharing moments of insight expressed in poetry of a single breath. READ MORE

Gathering Silence Sayings by Ivan M. Granger Collages by Rashani Réa All of mysticism comes down to this: to recognize what is already and always here. Gathering Silence is a collection of meditative sayings and bits of poetry, accompanied throughout by stunning full-color artwork by internationally-known collage artist, Rashani Réa. This is a beautiful book, filled with color, creative thoughts, and meditative moments. Perfect for an altar or meditation space, by your bed or on a coffee table. A wonderful gift for family, friends, and fellow seekers! READ MORE – PURCHASE

Marrow of the Flame Poems of the Spiritual Journey by Dorothy Walters Introduction by Andrew Harvey Dorothy Walters explores the spiritual journey through its ecstasies, struggles, and vistas. Each step is observed with the keen insight and clear voice of a modern woman who is both a skilled poet and genuine mystic. READ MORE – PURCHASE

A Sampling of Sufi Wisdom…

Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom By Andrew Harvey and Eryk Hanut Something about Andrew Harvey’s selections and translations always strike a pure note. This book is a delightful collection of poetry and Sufi wisdom stories. Rumi, Kabir, al-Hallaj, Shabistari, Ansari… This is one I return to again and again.

Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir Renditions by Vraje Abramian I read this book early in my exploration of Sufi poetry — and I was hooked! Abu Said Abil-Kheir’s poetry ranges from the ecstatic and celestial, to struggles with abandonment. His poetry has an immediacy and even a sort of devoutly wry petulance. This book remains a personal favorite of mine.

For the wise woman…

Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women Edited by Jane Hirshfield This is the first anthology I got years ago that made me say, Wow! Includes Sappho, Rabia, Yeshe Tsogyel, Hildegard von Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Lalla, Mirabai, Bibi Hayati, Marina Tsvetaeva. The best collection I’ve found of women’s voices in sacred poetry.

Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar by Elizabeth U. Harding Not really a poetry collection, but this was the book that first introduced me to the fierce and passionate poetry of the great Kali devotees, like Ramprasad and Kalamakanta. Elisabeth Harding has done a beautiful job of gathering together Kali lore and presenting it to a primarily Western audience, while remaining reverent toward Kali and traditions of Kali worship. She discusses the traditional symbolism of Kali and the shocking, violent images associated with Her. Kali emerges in the reader’s mind as the loving destroyer of illusion, ecstatic slayer of demonic qualities.

For illumination…

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry Edited by Stephen Mitchell This is a compact anthology, but a wonderful collection that includes Li Po, Wu-Men, Rumi, Kabir, Mirabai, Rilke… And the added bonus of Stephen Mitchell’s way with words. One of my personal favorites.

The Illuminated Rumi Translations by Coleman Barks Art by Michael Green I keep recommending this year after year. It is a beautiful gift book with excerpts of Rumi’s poetry accompanied by amazing digital collage artwork that draws you deeply into each page. This book entrances on several levels. An excellent gift book.

For the Christian contemplative…

The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Early Christian Contemplatives Translated and Introduced by John Anthony McGuckin This is the book that, years ago, introduced me to the stunning poetry of Symeon the New Theologian, igniting my passion for his visionary poetry of light and transformation. You’ll also find poems and poetic renditions of writings from many other saints and mystics of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Still a favorite of mine.

Selected Poems of Thomas Merton by Thomas Merton I can’t recommend this collection highly enough. Merton, in addition to being a deep mystic, was a truly excellent contemporary poet. His poems feel entirely modern, yet touch on the eternal. While drawing on Catholic imagery, one can hear whispers of Eastern philosophy and insight in his words. Poems to reread and meditate deeply upon.

Hadewijch: The Complete Works Translations by Mother Columba Hart I was introduced to the divine love poetry of the Flemish mystic Hadewijch in the excellent anthology Women in Praise of the Sacred, edited by Jane Hirshfield. I knew I had encountered a something amazing, but the sampling in that book was frustratingly small. I finally found this book with the complete works of this mysterious Beguine spiritual figure — visions, letters, and a beautiful collection of sacred poetry. The love mysticism of her poetry rightly draws comparisons to the rich traditions of Sufi and Bhakti poetry.

For the Jewish mystic…

The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse Edited and Translated by T. Carmi The most complete collection I’ve found of sacred Hebrew poetry, including Judah ha Levi, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Samuel Hanagid, the early Hekhalot Hymns, and many more. My only complaint: the translations in this encyclopedic collection are not versified, even though the Hebrew originals were. I still love it simply because it pointed me in a dozen enlightening different directions.

The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition Translated and Edited by Peter Cole Finally we have a truly excellent collection of sacred Jewish poetry. While T. Carmi’s Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse is more comprehensive, Cole’s The Poetry of Kabbalah has more of a poet’s sense of language and even catches of few sparks from the mystic’s fire. This is poetry that startles and transports. The Poetry of Kabbalah has become my favorite source for Jewish mystical poetry in English. While T. Carmi’s Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse is more comprehensive, Cole has more of a poet’s sense of language. Very highly recommended.

A moment of Zen…

The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace Translations by Steven Heine Although best known for his Zen discourses and his role establishing Zen practice in Japan, Dogen was an exceptional poet too. Quiet moments of insight expressed in a bare minimum of lines. One of my favorites.

Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter Edited by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto A good collection without being overwhelming. I especially like it’s selection of Japanese haiku: Basho, Buson, Issa, Masahide…

Sun at Midnight: Muso Soseki – Poems and Sermons Translations by W. S. Merwin and Soiku Shigematsu A friend introduced me to this collection, and I was entranced. Muso Soseki is known today for establishing rock gardening as meditative Zen practice, but his poetry — wonderful! And with translations by WS Merwin, you can’t ask for more!

Artist, Therapist, Shaman…

Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making By John Fox

Not a book of poetry, but a book that belongs on every poetry lover’s bookshelf. This is a book about the transformational nature of poetry – reading it, speaking it, writing it. Poetry as therapy. Poetry as a pathway to self-exploration. Poetry to rediscover your true voice. I was surprised how much I liked this book.

Transcendent Hindu verses…

Speaking of Siva Translated by A. K. Ramanujan This book became an immediate favorite of mine ever since I picked up a copy of it a few years ago. Stunning poems from the Shiva bhakti tradition of India. Basava, Devara Dasimayya, Akka Mahadevi, Allama Prabhu. The commentary in the book, though a little academic, is genuinely insightful. Enthusiastically recommended!

For Love of the Dark One: Songs of Mirabai Translations by Andrew Schelling Andrew Schelling’s translations embody that tension between heartbreak and ecstasy that runs through all of Mirabai’s poetry. These poems can be read as love poems or as spiritual poems — but, of course, they are both. A lovely collection.

And for blessings… To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donohue I keep being told by people how much they love this book of poetic blessings from the Irish philosopher, poet, and mystic, John O’Donohue. These poetically crafted blessings and meditations on the passages of life manage to elevate the spirit, warm the heart, and, on occasion, bring a tear to the eye.

For even more book recommendations, click here.

(Every year my list gets longer. Even so, I had to leave off so many amazing books.)

Let’s remember that, in the midst of winter’s dark, this is the time to renew the light — within ourselves and our world. Regardless of religion, may we recognize our shared brotherhood and sisterhood within the human family, all within the lap of the generous green earth that is our home.

I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful holiday season — and that the new year offers you new life and new inspiration!

Ivan

The Buddha’s Last Instruction
by Mary Oliver

“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal — a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire —
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

— from House of Light, by Mary Oliver

/ Image by Tyler Nix /

Like all of you I have been profoundly upset by the war on Gaza. What can one do but feel anguish when witnessing so much death and destruction and displacement? We can turn away, of course. Or we can numb ourselves with rationalizations. Or we can shrug our shoulders and declare it to be tragic for those people over there.

Seeing an entire population as a problem is an invitation for disaster. Nations inevitably try to contain or eliminate such “problems.” But those policies are doomed to fail. Trauma leads to rage, rage leads to more violence, more violence leads to new trauma. And so the terrible circle expands. Sometimes slowly, sometimes with horrifying rapidity.

What can we as individuals do? There are always actions we can take, appropriate to our own lives, whether that is pressuring our politicians, engaging in conversation and respectful debate, protesting… I try to regularly ask myself what is it I feel called to do?

While action and asserting oneself is important, there is something more fundamental. We need to be inwardly connected, centered, aware. Action and stillness both naturally proceed from that center point. When we are at rest within the awakened heart, we naturally radiate out into the world. Our actions take on a flow and strength and clarity. All the while stillness remains with us.

As Mary Oliver’s Buddha says, let us make of ourselves a light. Then we naturally shine. Effortlessly, we touch the world around us, warming it, bringing healing and comfort and illumination.

Speaking up is important. But being a bright presence in the world is everything.

=

This is as much a story as a poem, a retelling of the final moment of the Buddha’s life.

“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.

Mm. This simple affirmation of illumination at the moment of death continues to resonate… through the lines of this poem, and through the centuries.

Mary Oliver immediately recognizes this as a statement, not of death, but of renewal and the continuation of life.

I think of this every morning…

We are brought, by Mary Oliver’s line, immediately to the dawn. Not the last dimming of light, but the beginning of the new day.

Knowing it is his last moment, with a life of great striving and penetrating insight behind him, “he might have said anything.” Of all the possible philosophical summations and encapsulations, he chooses instead the radiant wisdom embodied by the sun, which lights and warms the whole world.

The poet seems stunned by such a clear, unencumbered statement with the Buddha’s final breath. Stunned, we stumble into deeper awareness.

clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.

I love these lines. Contemplating the passage through death while affirming the fulness of light and life, somehow we, along with the poet, no longer stand at the center of the world’s narrative.

When we really pay attention to the story being told all around us, a story that’s been unfolding for ages, the attention shifts away from that perpetual certainty that it is all about “me.” But rather than feeling empty or betrayed, we find ourselves alive and aware and filled with a bubbling glee. We find ourselves made of a gossamer-thin tissue of light.

Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

These closing lines are so striking. We’ve had an entire scene laid out for us, villagers gathering to be present at the death of this great teacher. The weak and dying Buddha raises his head and looks into the faces of the crowd… and they are frightened. Now, why is that?

I imagine it is because of what they see in the Buddha’s eyes: the great mystery, naked and unguarded in that last loving glance.

Recommended Books: Mary Oliver

New and Selected Poems	Why I Wake Early	Dream Work	House of Light	Thirst: Poems
More Books >>

Mary Oliver US (1935 – 2019) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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