Poetry Chaikhana Blog

The Vast Man
by Kahlil Gibran

But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me.
It was the boundless in you;
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing.
It is in the vast man that you are vast,
And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you.
For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere?
What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight?
Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.

— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

/ Image by Joshua Earle /

I know the poem emails have been irregular in recent months. My work as a computer programmer has been especially busy this year, and I am still figuring out how to balance that with my poetry work. So, since I missed the last few Fridays, I thought I’d send a rare Monday poem to you. And, as I was somewhat randomly going through my library, I was reminded of this treasure by the great Kahlil Gibran.

It is in the vast man that you are vast

I can write a long commentary, line by line, about how this lovely poem maps beautifully to the deep experiences of stillness and settling into the true Self. But I feel inclined to let the poem sing to us instead — quietly, yet the melody comes through.

This is the way, the stillness that leads us to the vast man — or woman — the vast self. This is the immense being we all are, all-encompassing, all-embracing, in which the little self is made whole and more than whole in the grand unity that is the web of which we are a part. Through this one we know ourselves as we come to know ourselves in others and in all that surrounds us and all that lives and breathes and aspires and grows.

Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you.
His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet	The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart	Broken Wings	Jesus the Son of Man	Kahlil Gibran: His Life & World
More Books >>

Kahlil Gibran Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline Christian Secular or Eclectic

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Be just selfish enough
to insist on what is
spiritually important to you.

I’m ceded–I’ve stopped being Theirs
by Emily Dickinson

I’m ceded–I’ve stopped being Theirs–
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading–too–

My second Rank–too small the first–
Crowned–Crowing–on my Father’s breast–
A half unconscious Queen–
But this time–Adequate–Erect,
With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose–just a Crown–

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

/ Image by live-showtime /

I believe this poem belongs among the great enlightenment poems. At the same time its words pointedly cut at religious convention.

Something has happened. Something that makes Emily Dickinson erupt from the opening lines, fiercely asserting that she is “ceded,” that she has “stopped being Theirs.” This is a proclamation of supreme yielding or dying to oneself that is also her escape into freedom.

She no longer has use for “The name They dropped upon my face” when she was baptized. That name is now something that she has set aside with other childish things. Not just set aside, it has fallen away. Her social identity, the person “They” call Emily has ceased to exist. She has discovered herself to be something larger, more essential, more true. She has exploded into an identity so immense and all-encompassing that it is the “supremest name” — the Ultimate, the Absolute. She has been “Called to my full,” a state of awareness in which “Existence’s whole Arc” is “filled up.”

But also notice the iconoclastic way she refers to baptism. The first baptism was a baptism given to her “without the choice” and imposes upon her a name that is “too small,” that must be grown out of and abandoned. She implies that that first baptism initiated her into the social world, not the spiritual one. That name that “They dropped upon my face” had trapped her, making her “Theirs,” somehow controlled and contained by societal conventions represented by the “country church.” She contrasts this with being “Crowned,” a second baptism, but one received inwardly, “consciously, of Grace.” She implies that this second baptism is the real anointing that gives true freedom, not the baptism she received as a child. For much of the Christian world that is a dangerous assertion even today, a century and a half later. Her words challenge fellow Christians to seek the inner anointing, of which the outer baptism is a reflection.

The last line particularly grabs my attention, “And I choose–just a Crown–” Rather than choosing (or rejecting) a new name or renewed social ego, she possesses the clarity and “Will” to choose instead to reside in the immensity of this “supremest name.” What else needs to be said?

Recommended Books: Emily Dickinson

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry
More Books >>

Emily Dickinson US (1830 – 1886) Timeline Secular or Eclectic Christian : Protestant

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Opening, seeing, and serving,
these are enough.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— from Open Secret: Versions of Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks / Translated by John Moyne

/ Image by https://unsplash.com/@lovestephaniegreene /

Each time I come across this short selection by Rumi I read it slightly differently. It’s one of those magical, enigmatic poems that suggests something new each time your own perspective and circumstance change.

Every time we feel our lives or the world has become frightening, overwhelming, chaotic, it’s natural to want to reestablish control through thought, as if by getting just the right concepts and mental framing life will behave just as we think it should.

Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Or we can open. We can find a natural flow and discover the beauty that is right here regardless of the mess.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom
More Books >>

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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The world is pregnant with miracles.
All it takes is for us to approach with quiet and awe,
and the most mundane things open themselves
into infinities.

The Real Work
by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

— from Standing by Words: Essays, by Wendell Berry

/ Image by myINQI /

I know the Poetry Chaikhana emails haven’t been keeping to their regular weekly schedule recently. My computer work has been especially active in the last few months. And, of course, the chaos playing out on the world stage cries out for a healing presence. So the poetry comes when the day allows. But you, and the world of poetry, are very much in my mind each week regardless.

Now to the poem…

=

Oh, I just like this, don’t you? As I get older and encounter more of the world and more of myself, I grow increasingly wary of answers. It’s the questions that awaken the soul.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

Berry is reminding us that struggle and confusion — and wonder! — are signs that we are on a good path, that we are paying attention, that we are still seeking and discovering, that we are alive. The scariest people are those who’ve grown tired of questions and so brutalize the world with simple answers.

Okay, a poetic confession: This was not originally a poem in verse. I did a bit of research and found that this is actually an excerpt from one of Wendell Berry’s essays that someone later versified. It’s been circulating as a poem ever since. I guess you can’t trap a good poet in prose for long. My apologies to the poetry purists out there.

Now, let’s discover a new path through this magical, unknown day…

Recommended Books: Wendell Berry

The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982	Given: Poems	Selected Poems of Wendell Berry	A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997	The Mad Farmer Poems
More Books >>

Wendell Berry US (1934 – ) Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Wendell Berry

Take no one for granted.

Every single person
is a universe of being.

On the Pulse of Morning
by Maya Angelou

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

— from The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, by Maya Angelou

/ Image by particlem /

I have been away from the Poetry Chaikhana for a few weeks. As I was considering which poem to send out, I came across this one by Maya Angelou. Reading it this morning, I had that special experience of reading a poem I’ve ready many times before, but it was as if for the first time. I found myself thinking, What a stunning poem! Why hasn’t this been in my mind and heart all along? I think the poem was just waiting for me to catch up and be ready to receive it.

So here it is for you. Perhaps it has been waiting for you too…

Our history is in the earth, in rock and tree, our shared home. We stand upon our past. And that past speaks to us, calling us back to ourselves. History’s tears and terrors turn our hearts back to the peace that is every soul’s true nature. Seeing the past, acknowledging and accepting all of it, with head and heart engaged, that courageous act unblinds us. Only then are we freed to see distant horizons, and witness new dawns.

When you feel stuck, when the world feels stuck around you, take a moment to sit upon a rock, listen to a tree. They are yourself, and the selves of all who have gone before. They carry the collective wisdom of the eons.

A few of the lines that particularly stand out to me:

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness…

…And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

Sending love to you all!

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.

Recommended Books: Maya Angelou

The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou	Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women	And Still I Rise	A Brave and Startling Truth	The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou
More Books >>

Maya Angelou US (1928 – 2014) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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The agitations of the mind
are addictive.
Break that addiction
and see what the still mind sees.

Looking for Each Other
by Thich Nhat Hanh

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.
With my first breath, I heard your call,
and began to look for you, Blessed One.
I’ve walked so many perilous paths,
confronted so many dangers,
endured despair, fear, hopes, and memories.
I’ve trekked to the farthest regions, immense and wild,
sailed the vast oceans,
traversed the highest summits, lost among the clouds.
I’ve lain dead, utterly alone,
on the sands of ancient deserts.
I’ve held in my heart so many tears of stone.

The deep blue sky,
the snow-capped mountains painted against the horizon,
and the shining red sun sing with joy.
You, Blessed One, are my first love.
The love that is always present, always pure, and freshly new.
And I shall never need a love that will be called “last.”
You are the source of well-being flowing through numberless troubled lives,
the water from your spiritual stream always pure, as it was in the beginning.
You are the source of peace,
solidity, and inner freedom.
You are the Buddha, the Tathagata.
With my one-pointed mind
I vow to nourish your solidity and freedom in myself
so I can offer solidity and freedom to countless others,
now and forever.

— from Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, by Thich Nhat Hanh

/ Image by Jan Canty /

It seems that the Trump and Netanyahu regimes have initiated war on the global stage. There are, of course, several reasons why such a move has come about, from elites making what they perceive as endgame moves for essential resources to national pride, with a large dose of profoundly misguided ideas about what their religion teaches them.

Since we regularly look at what healthy religion and spirituality is, I wanted to take a moment to explore with you that aspect of this worsening situation. I hope this discussion provides some helpful context for your own spiritual and religious understanding.

The figure of Trump himself seems to have no real ideology or belief system, but his administration has placed several people in positions of authority who hold imbalanced ideas of Christianity.

A bit of religious history for a moment… American evangelical Christianity in the 19th century was rigid by modern standards, but had genuine spiritual depths and a commitment to social justice. This is often surprising for people to hear today, but it’s true. In the 20th century, however, American evangelicalism became increasingly lost, clinging to racist ideas and fixed notions of gender roles while pushing back its historical compassion and engagement with the changes happening in society. Also, as the 20th century progressed, mainstream American politics of both parties essentially abandoned the poor and working classes, who largely belonged to evangelical churches, leaving them reasonably feeling betrayed while their suffering went unacknowledged.

That combination has been toxic, making evangelical groups vulnerable to takeover by some rather bizarre Christian cults, a process that really ramped up in the 1980’s. Many evangelical churches began to embrace fantastical ideas, like dispensationalism, which selectively reads sections of the Bible as a roadmap of events and actions (or “dispensations”) that must happen in order to bring about Armageddon, along with the Second Coming. It lays out an imagined map of what needs to be done to bring Jesus back to earth. Needless to say, it involves a huge war and a reshaping of the Middle East.

While dispensationalism has become less prominent in the last decade or so, its worldview still permeates the minds of a large portion (but not all!) of American evangelicals — many of whom now serve in government and the military. This is why we get unembarrassed statements from generals and key leaders about how these attacks will bring Jesus back.

So what do we do with all that?

First, we need to recognize that extremist, destructive religious belief does not just exist on “the other side.” It is very much present in the US, as well.

Next, it is important that open-hearted Christian groups do not cede the definition of Christianity over to those imbalanced, frankly cruel expressions of Christianity. Too often these days, people imagine that those extremist forms of Christianity are all that Christianity or any religion ever has been, and therefore reject all religion as obviously absurd and harmful. There has been a collective assumption that those new, cult-like forms of contemporary American fundamentalist Christianity is what Christianity always has been — and it’s just not so. It’s worth rediscovering the depths and beauty that have been a part of many of these churches in the past and finding ways to bring that memory back into society.

And then we can reconnect with the gentle, elevating wisdom of true spiritual leaders, such as the wonderful Thich Nhat Hanh.

I have been looking for you, World Honored One,
since I was a little child.

Mostly– mostly, we need to discover the wellspring of profound compassion at the core of our own being and allow it to naturally flow out into the world.

Looking into the mirror of the moon, suddenly
I saw myself,
and I saw you smiling, Blessed One.
How strange!

That will work its own quiet healing in ways that other activity can only aspire to.

The moon of freedom has returned to me,
everything I thought I had lost.
From that moment on,
and in each moment that followed,
I saw that nothing had gone.

We must do that while recognizing that suffering in the world is unavoidably increasing. The task is not to prevent all pain and evil in the world. We want to minimize it when we can, while understanding that the suffering is still going to happen. The real healing for suffering is not to end the suffering, but to connect with the lonely soul going through the suffering. That’s the real pain beneath the pain. Work to heal that and you heal the world.

Every flower, every stone, and every leaf recognize me.
Wherever I turn, I see you smiling
the smile of no-birth and no-death.

We are on this journey together. We enter, we engage in the drama for a number of years, and we exit again. The only net gain is spiritual gain. So we may as well be kind and helpful where we can. as we return to that radiant core at the center of who we are.

At last I have found you, Blessed One,
and I have found myself.
There I sit.

Recommended Books: Thich Nhat Hanh

Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh	The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy & Liberation

Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnam/France/US (1926 – 2022) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

More poetry by Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s not about success.
It’s about character
and presence.

With Us
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Nevit Ergin with Camille Helminski

Even if you’re not a seeker,
still, follow us, keep searching with us.
Even if you don’t know how
to play and sing,
you’ll become like us;
with us you’ll start singing and dancing.

God’s Shams of Tabriz says
to the heart’s bud,
“If your eyes are opened,
you’ll see the things worth seeing.”

— from The Rumi Collection (Shambhala Library), by Kabir Helminski / Nevit Ergin

/ Image by Fahaz Ahanin /

It has been too long since we last enjoyed a poem by Rumi together. To call his material “poems” sometimes sounds overly formal to my ears. Rumi didn’t sit at a table with a pen and inkpot composing poetry. According to tradition, he would walk round and round a column or tent pole — and the words just poured out of him. These are utterances, revelations, The words of Rumi should sing in the heart and speak directly to the soul.

Even if you’re not a seeker,
still, follow us, keep searching with us.

What I like about this opening phrase is how it immediately short circuits spiritual inertia, not by exhorting us to renewed effort, but simply by participation — and by ignoring our self labels. We don’t have to be a “seeker,” we just have to seek.

The seeking itself is really a celebration:

Even if you don’t know how
to play and sing,
you’ll become like us;
with us you’ll start singing and dancing.

It’s a popup rave, and you only know it exists once you show up and start dancing!

when you fall in love,
you’ll become a beggar.

We spend so much of our lives in pretense, in constructing a presentation of who we are that we show to the world. But when we encounter real love, all of that falls away, and we gladly follow love’s caravan, living happily on whatever gets tossed our way.

You’ll come back to life with us.

New life is found this way. An amazing thing! We thought we were alive, but were not. When that false self “dies,” that’s when we truly understand what life is.

Unbind your feet.

Rumi tells us twice to unbind our feet. Why do we want to unbind our feet? What is important about going barefoot? The feet can be awkward, embarassing, vulnerable, to some even shameful. To unbind them is to reveal them, to be naked, to be honest — and to be present on the living earth.

Show the rose garden —
start laughing with your whole body,
like a rose, like us.

The rose is an important symbol that keeps coming up in Sufi poetry. I think of it as representing the awakened heart, the way it buds and blossoms circling in toward an infinitely layered center, offering its wine-like perfume to the world. So when we laugh with our whole body “like a rose” we experience the full-bodied, full-reality delight that is only possible through the awakened heart. All of the imperfections, all of the terrors of the world, and all of the beauties and simple joys too are all somehow reconciled in the heart, the rose. That’s when we start laughing with our whole body.

“If your eyes are opened,
you’ll see the things worth seeing.”

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom
More Books >>

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Freedom is not escape,
but deep presence.

My heart wears all forms
by Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

English version by Ivan M. Granger

My heart wears all forms:

Whichever path Love’s caravan takes,
      that is my road and my religion.

/ Image by bachmont /

These lines from The Interpreter of Desires are probably Ibn ‘Arabi’s most famous. The entire work is a multi-layered love poem that, like The Song of Solomon in the Bible, can be read as an exploration of the soul’s yearning for God. Ibn ‘Arabi’s poem tells of a pilgrimage to Mecca in which he meets a beautiful young woman named Nizham (Harmony). The ardor awakened by this encounter inspires a quest for the eternal harmony she embodies. Her earthly beauty and grace awakens a yearning for the true Beloved, for God.

My heart wears all forms.

The heart, in this sense, is not just how we feel love, it is the center of our awareness. It is the mirror that reflects whatever we focus on. In other words, the heart, the core of awareness, doesn’t just feel, it takes on the form of what we love. This is why we ultimately become what we love or fixate on, for good and for bad.

When we fall silent, perhaps stunned into silence through a radical encounter with beauty and harmony, we find everything reflected within the heart. Every person. Every creature. Every object. Every thought. We find all of existence reflected within the heart.

And each reflection is recognized as an expression of the Beloved. While we ourselves become formless.

For gazelles it is an open field,
for monks a cloister.

It is the Torah’s tablets
and the pages of the Quran.

Can such an awakened heart then reject any school of awakening?

Love is the faith I follow.

Whichever path Love’s caravan takes,
that is my road and my religion.

But, of course, one must understand what real religion is. It is not stone walls or steeples. It is not crosses or crescents. It is neither creeds nor rituals nor books. Though any one of these, properly approached, can open the door.

Like all true masters, Ibn ‘Arabi reminds us that the true religion is nothing less than Divine Love.

This is an all-embracing vision of reality in which the heart has grown wide enough to recognize everyone and everything at rest within itself. An overwhelming, blissful experience of wholeness, interconnectedness, and joy. Words fail, but that pulse of the universal life does not.

That is what religion is. That is the road.

Recommended Books: Muhyiddin ibn Arabi

Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Quran, Miraj, Poetic and Theological Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)	The Mystics of Islam	Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn ‘Arabi and New Poems	Perfect Harmony: (Calligrapher’s Notebooks)
More Books >>

Muhyiddin ibn Arabi Spain (1165 – 1240) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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There’s that silent Self within,
a stranger to us,
seated in wordless immensity.

The Garden
by Hafiz

English version by Rober Bly

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today,
Toward me, a friend with a sweet nature, and this wine.

When Hafez’s coffin comes by, it’ll be all right to follow behind.
Although he is a captive of sin, he is on his way to the Garden.

— from The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, Edited by Robert Bly

/ Image by Kylo /

How about something with a breath of spring today?

I know it’s easy to get swept up in the world’s dramas and suffering. And we should play a role in establishing a new sense of sanity and compassion. Most of us have a role on the world stage and we want that role to be that of healer, perhaps hero. But it is also important to remember that that role is what we do, not who we are. And we must remind ourselves that we take right action because it is right, not because it will necessarily win the day. So we do what we are called to do, we play our role, but the world goes its own way. Our well-being cannot be based on the world always showing us a smiling face.

Does that sound bleak? That depends on what we imagine the world to be. Most of us think the world is all there is, that it is reality itself. Not so. When we speak of the world, we are talking about the shared mental landscape in society — the human consensus reality. It is not what is actually real, just what most people silently agree to as the boundaries of possibility. Even when the world feels dark or thin on hope, what is actually real is vast, filled with life and possibility and… dare I say it? — Joy.

It is important for all of us, particularly at this time, to regularly step away from the world into the wider garden. We must breathe its air and replenish ourselves. We remind ourselves of what is really real and what is really possible beyond the false boundaries most people accept.

The world is a shared fantasy, not always a pleasant one. But the garden is alive and all around us, always whispering to us even when we dream.

The garden is breathing out the air of Paradise today…

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Hafiz

The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master	Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Hebrew Poems	Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi	Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition	The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan
More Books >>

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