Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Now No Trace Remains
by Niyazi Misri

English version by Jennifer Ferraro & Latif Bolat

I thought that in this whole world
      no beloved for me remained.

O Niyazi — what has happened to you?
      No trace of religion now remains.

— from Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey, Translated by Jennifer Ferraro / Translated by Latif Bolat

/ Image by Broken-Beloved /

I thought that in this whole world
      no beloved for me remained.

There is much that is beautiful and attractive in the world: people, possessions, experiences. But do we love them or only love how they bolster our own self-image? They evolve, change, come and go, and so do we. They may give us a glimpse of the Divine Beloved beneath the surface, but until we learn to really look, that beautiful glimpse is fleeting. And they don’t do a great job in the long run of sustaining our fragile egos. Natural evolution, ours and that of the world around us, can feel like a betrayal. When we cling to surfaces and our own needy egos, it can feel like we have been abandoned by the Beloved.

So long as we cling to the little self, everyone and everything else is separate and vaguely threatening. The ego asserts itself by continuously keeping itself in psychic opposition to everything it has defined as being outside itself. To the ego, everything is either a possession or an enemy.

The ego pretends it is the center of reality while separating itself from the holistic vision of reality. In doing so, the ego makes itself both the prisoner and the prison guard.

In that shattered vision of a reality of separated fragments, we become blind to the true nature of reality — and the beloved is not seen. Even those soul-healing glimpses are hard to come by, rarely acknowledged even when seen.

Then I left myself.
      Now no stranger in the world remains.

But when when we finally step outside the artificial boundaries of the little self, the mesmerizing but ever incomplete world of duality fades, to be replaced by the vision of beauty and unity, in which there is no other and everything reflects the Beloved.

Duality went, Unity came.
      I met with the Friend in private;

The multitude left, the One came.
      Only the One remains.

We finally see how we flow into each other, how we are interwoven into a single, unified fabric of Reality. No one and nothing is outside of ourselves. That is when we can truly proclaim with Niyazi Misri that “Now now stranger in the world remains.”

I used to see in every object a thorn
      but never a rose–

the universe became a rose garden.
      Not a single thorn remains.

The rose unfolds in a gentle circling that invites one to yield inward. The rose is a symbol of lovers and of union. The rose resonates strongly with the gently awakened heart.

The rose, with its wine-like scent and deep red color, is sometimes thought of as a more tangible embodiment of wine — the drink of communion.

Religion, piety, custom, reputation–
      these used to matter greatly to me.

I love this Sufi iconoclasm. When deep realization comes, mystics have the troubling tendency to drop the forms of their religion. When the Eternal is finally recognized as here, now, alive in every way and in every form, the prescribed and proscribed ways of holiness lose their meaning.

O Niyazi — what has happened to you?
      No trace of religion now remains.

This is not to say that one should immediately reject the recommended practices of one’s tradition. It is simply a reminder for us that the path, whichever one we follow, leads us to a Goal. Having reached the destination, the path has then served its purpose. At that point, clinging to the old practices is more about wanting to be seen by others to be devout. Is that important? If one’s role is to act as a beacon to draw others to a similar path, then perhaps it is. For other realized individuals, however, it might suggest a vanity that has been left behind. To the person of attainment, there are no “others” anyway, so who is the pious show for?

Of course, the louder one proclaims this truth, the more friends one loses among the keepers of the faith. Those troublesome mystics…

Recommended Books: Niyazi Misri

Quarreling with God: Mystic Rebel Poems of the Dervishes of Turkey

Continue Reading »

The house was quiet and the world was calm
by Wallace Stevens

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

— from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, by Wallace Stevens

/ Image by AwakeNight /

Can’t you just feel the calm spreading out into the summer night? So quiet you hear the crackling of stillness like a whisper in the skull.

I picture the poet in the 1950s, on a cool night after an overlong hot day, sitting in a wooden chair outside on his porch, a porchlight above his shoulder drawing moths, a book open in his lap, and all the night seems to be leaning in to read with him. He shifts his weight, the chair creaks, and all falls into silence again.

Calm, quiet, meaning, mind…

One can say the poet is enjoying a sweet, timeless moment reading a book. Or it could be that he has been overtaken by communion with heaven and earth. The book is just an excuse to be there.

This summer night, I hope you too have a sweet, timeless moment when the house is quiet and the world calm

Sending much love!

Recommended Books: Wallace Stevens

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird	The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens US (1879 – 1955) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Wallace Stevens

Instructions for the Journey
by Pat Schneider

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.
It’s easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.

— from Olive Street Transfer, by Pat Schneider

/ Image by Alice Popkorn /

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.

We are alive, and because we are alive, we change. We imagine we know who we are, that we are a fixed, certain self. But the truth is that we are continuously emerging from the old self into a new, unknown self.

If we think we are a certain thing, a certain person and that we fully understand that person, then we are not truly seeing ourselves as we are. The only fixed self is the old self, the past self, the self we have already shed. If we think we are that old self, then we feel a sense of loss and bewilderment. We are always working against the flow of life to become who we were yesterday or ten years ago.

Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.

There is something messy and uncertain about who we actually are right now. The self we are does not fit easily into the simple ideas of who we should be. And our evolution continues in this very moment. We are still becoming.

But that is where the life is. That is where the potential is.

Let us be kind to ourselves and accept the changing, emerging self. Let us be at ease with our own internal movement. Even at our most still, there is a gentle flow.

The world, too, sheds its skin…

The more we seek a static understanding of the self or the world, the more we miss the magic unfolding before us:

It’s easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment.

The more we set aside our ideas and expectations and past histories, the more we can simply be, with a sense of openness and wonder, the more we truly encounter the living mystery we are already participants in.

Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter.

I rather like the pithy, down-to-earth final piece of advice:

And if all that fails,

wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.

I’ll let you in on a personal secret: I love to do dishes. That’s one of my household chores. I do dishes by hand several times a day. There is something satisfying about creating cleanliness and order from the mild mess of daily domestic activity. The mind shifts into a low gear as the hands begin to work their own pattern while water and soap suds run through the fingers. It is a gentle massage for the entire household. It is a meditation made tactile.

Just doing that with easy attention can bring us back to truths that we miss amidst our grand efforts.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Recommended Books: Pat Schneider

Another River: New and Selected Poems	Writing Alone and with Others	Olive Street Transfer	How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice	Wake Up Laughing: A Spiritual Autobiography
More Books >>

Pat Schneider US (Contemporary)

More poetry by Pat Schneider

It’s ready! I am so happy to announce the publication of the latest Poetry Chaikhana anthology:

This Dance of Bliss Ecstatic Poetry From Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology

This Dance of Bliss is a new collection poems by beloved classical sacred poets along with a few modern visionaries — accompanied by my own thoughts, meditations, personal stories, and commentary.

The new anthology will officially be available in late September through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as by request through your local independent bookstore.

But I wasn’t planning on making you wait that long.

For the Poetry Chaikhana community, I am offering a special pre-order deal on This Dance of Bliss. If your purchase a copy directly through the Poetry Chaikhana before September 1st–

• You will receive a discounted price of $12.95 (rather than the regular retail price of $16.95 USD)
• I will personally autograph your copy
• You will receive a special extra or two, like a Poetry Chaikhana bookmark
• Most importantly, you will be helping me greatly by making sure we cover initial publication expenses

This Dance of Bliss Ecstatic Poetry From Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology Edited with Commentary by Ivan M. Granger Pre-Order before Sept. 1 $12.95 $16.95 PURCHASE 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! Available soon through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and by request through your local bookseller

“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

To purchase a special pre-order copy of This Dance of Bliss click here or the ‘Purchase’ link above for payment through PayPal.

     If you prefer to pay by check or money order, you can mail it to:

     Poetry Chaikhana
     PO Box 2320
     Boulder, CO 80306

All pre-order copies will be shipped as soon as they are available, which will be at the beginning of September.

This Dance of Bliss Ecstatic Poetry From Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology

Here is a small sampling from This Dance of Bliss.

You can read more by clicking here: Read More:
Table of Contents + Introduction + Sample Poems

“Ivan M. Granger writes as though God is looking over his shoulder. He inspires appreciation of the literature of awakening as he inspires the reader’s own heart awakening. This anthology features poetic masterpieces from around the world, each one revealing the profound interconnectedness of all things. The comments accompanying each selection are direct and engaging, unfolding layers of meaning, further enhancing the themes of union, interconnection, and non-separation.”
     ~ JERRY KATZ, editor of One: Essential Writings on Nonduality

This Dance of Bliss Ecstatic Poetry From Around the World A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology

Consider purchasing a pre-order copy of This Dance of Bliss in support of the Poetry Chaikhana! And thank you to everyone for all of the encouragement and support along the way! Ivan

I know, I haven’t sent a poem out for the last couple of weeks. The reason is that I have been deep into the final edits on the printed proof of the new Poetry Chaikhana anthology.

The new book will be called This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World. Here’s an advanced glimpse at the cover:

I’m so pleased with how it is coming together. I hope you will be too. Like the previous Poetry Chaikhana anthology, This Dance of Bliss will feature historical sacred poets along with a few contemporary voices. Rumi, St. John of the Cross, Lalla, Goethe, Hildegard von Bingen, Dogen, Khayyam, and many other favorites. Each poem is accompanied by the same sort of short meditations, musings, and commentaries you know so well from these emails. I will share more of a sampling from the book soon.

Several of you have already asked about pre-ordering copies of the book and, yes, I will be making this new anthology available for pre-orders very soon. Pre-ordered copies will come with a discount and a few other extras. Stay tuned!

As I bring this new anthology to publication, I may not be able maintain my normal weekly pattern with these poem emails. I am also trying to keep my work hours up at my day job, which is not always an easy balance, so sometimes these poem emails have had to wait. But the new book is very nearly ready — and then we call all join in on this dance of bliss!

Holy Ground
by Ivan M. Granger

Let the vision
of the vastness
you are
leave you
in glorious
ruins.

            the wreck
            made this empty plain
            holy ground.

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

/ Image by Stuzal /

I thought I’d share one of my own poems with you today…

So often we imagine our spiritual journey to be one of construction. We want to build a great shining monument within ourselves. It comes as a terrible shock how much the real spiritual work is actually about tearing down our structures.

Watch a wild field at dawn. Sit among the uneven grasses and opening wildflowers. Look at that empty space all around you. It is empty, yes, empty of our own constructions. But it is filled with life. It is an inherently holy space.

The same is true of the quiet depths in the heart. No perfect construction of spirituality is needed. We need to reveal the holy life that is already the foundation of our being. With courage and supreme balance, stand back and do nothing. Staying poised, just look. Notice all those fine structures we’ve erected over a lifetime, proclaiming, “Here I am!” Look closely, look long enough, and we start to see fine cracks appear. When we don’t actively shore them up, the cracks quickly expand. And then, all of a sudden — RUMBLE — the whole facade collapses.

THAT is the moment we’re waiting for! That is when we discover the empty plain beneath our feet. And we are a part of that living space.

The saints and sages of the past, the great artists and visionaries too — we imagine the grandeur of spirit they attained. But the truth is that their greatness was attained in their own collapse, amidst the ruins… and the giddy open spaces they then discovered.

Recommended Books: Ivan M. Granger

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	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	Poems of Awakening: An International Anthology of Spiritual Poetry
More Books >>

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

Continue Reading »

Last week I received the printed proof copy of the new Poetry Chaikhana anthology, and I am now deep into reading it and making final edits to the text.

Here’s an advanced peek at the cover–

Who has not found the Heaven–below
by Emily Dickinson

Who has not found the Heaven–below–
Will fail it above–
For Angels rent the House next ours,
Wherever we remove–

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

/ Image by Alice Popkorn /

These four lines by that reclusive American mystic, Emily Dickinson, proclaim a deep truth:

Who has not found the Heaven–below–
Will fail it above–

This statement has been getting mystics into trouble with orthodox religious authorities in every century. It is the assertion that heaven is not found somewhere ‘out there’–not in the future, not after death, not in some celestial otherworld. Heaven is here, now. It is within us and surrounds us, always! And–the most dangerous part of this insight—if we don’t discover it here “below,” it won’t be found elsewhere “above.”

A statement like this shatters the religious waiting game, waiting for death, waiting for the Second Coming (or for the Maitreya Buddha, or for a better rebirth, or whatever…) If the presence of Christ / Buddha-mind / fana / liberation is not recognized right here where we are, the passive expectation of it coming upon us some other day, at some other place, is sure to “fail.”

Another way of saying this is that, as we discover the heaven below, we find ourselves already dwelling in the heaven above. But, on the other hand, if we continue to deny the heaven below, we’ll fail to discover the gateway to heaven above.

Dickinson says, “For Angels rent the House next ours, / Wherever we remove–“ No matter where we go, the Divine Presence is right there with us. We just have to knock on the neighboring reality and introduce ourselves…

Recommended Books: Emily Dickinson

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words
More Books >>

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

Continue Reading »

Naked in the Bee-House
by Hakim Sanai

English version by Coleman Barks

Being humble is right for you now.
Don’t thrash around showing your strength.

The prince here is strong and just.
Stand wondering in his presence.
There is nothing but That.

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

/ Image by natureguy /

The cruelties of the world can make us feel like we are naked in the bee-house, entirely vulnerable, (Ooh. That image can make a person twitch with unease.) We’re not necessarily just talking about cruelties and frightening experiences, either. All experiences, even the pleasurable and satisfying, those too can overwhelm us. Trying to match human force against the endless variety of experience and sensory input is like standing naked in a bee house while boasting of our strength.

It doesn’t matter how strong or capable we imagine ourselves to be. Even Bruce Lee can’t fend off a swarm of bees if they are angered. The only appropriate response is humility and awareness.

There are so many delightful lines and images in this poem, but I thought I’d focus on a short section that is not the most transfixing on a poetic level, but one that I keep returning to…

If you can take care of things, do so!
But when you’re living at home with God,
you neither sew the world together
with desires nor tear it apart
with disappointments.

That first statement — “If you can take care of things, do so!” — immediately negates the temptation to interpret the poet’s words as a justification for passivity. We are given bodies for one purpose: to interact in a world of action. We are not disconnected spectators. As body dwellers, we are inherently beings of action, and being interconnected we act with each other and for each other.

But the intensity of action and the world perceived by the senses can confuse us, leading us to imagine that reality is somehow held together by our actions and injured by our failures. This belief leads to inflation of ego in success, and a crippling psychic burden when success evades us.

And then we get caught in the cycle of taking only actions we think will succeed and avoiding all others. Our actions grow smaller, safer, more predictable. We all feel this gravitational pressure to some extent.

But– when we remember that we are first and foremost beings with vast interior spaces, beings of awareness and intention, we break that ever tightening cycle. We step free from the idea of a mechanical world of action and reaction, action graded with a pass or fail. Instead, we understand action as a form of ritual. We begin to see action as enaction. Action flows outward from those great interior halls of the heart. Action becomes expression.

Yes, we still strive to take effective action, we measure the results and improve future actions, but we are not enthralled by those results. We take action simply because it is our nature to act. And we act because the awakening heart prompts us to act. The results are left to that greater Reality. Freed from “results” and “success,” we can then act in ways that are right for the simple reason that it is right.

Right action heals in ways that even “success” cannot match.

In Hinduism, this might be called Karma Yoga. I prefer not to call it anything. It is simply the nature of being in the world.

Have a beautiful day, inside and out.

Recommended Books: Hakim Sanai

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom	Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi
More Books >>

Hakim Sanai Afghanistan (1044? – 1150?) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

Continue Reading »

You Reading This, Be Ready
by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

— from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems, by William Stafford

/ Image by Sloan Poe /

Starting here,,,

William Stafford starts his poem with this phrase and then repeats it prominently throughout. This is a poem about being present. It is a poem about noticing where we are within the present moment — and about noticing what shares the space of now with us.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

Let’s take a moment to stop being lost in our thoughts and our plans for the day and just notice where we are, right now. As the mind settles, the senses become our allies. They start to wake up and notice the quiet beauty and little mysteries right next to us.

Everything awaits the gift of awareness. Every phenomenon, no matter how small, is a miracle just waiting for us to notice it, so that it can lead us back to right here.

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

This is how we can stop using the senses as one more distraction but as a gentle way to bring our awareness back to center.

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?

Isn’t that a wonderful line? More important than anything we may do or think, it is our “breathing respect” that we bring with us into the present moment that is our true gift to the world. That sense of breathing, being present as we notice the world, means we are actually here, ourselves. This is showing proper respect to the world. Breath is communion. Breath is a living connection with the world. Breath brings us back to center in the heart within the living moment.

Breath and attention, these say, here I am. If we aren’t breathing fully, and if we aren’t paying attention, they we are saying that we’d rather be somewhere else. We have severed our connection. That is not showing proper respect.

Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

We think we are waiting for that perfect thought that somehow gives us permission to be present. We already have that permission. And thoughts don’t work that way. We just notice. We settle into ourselves. We breathe. And we become present.

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —

This is important advice, whether talking about meditation and prayer or simply the artist’s reverie– what we notice, starting here in the present moment, that feeling of life and peace and magic, we don’t want to leave it behind. It should not be relegated to our moments of sitting still. We can learn to carry it with us as we shift into other activities and different phases of the day.

No strict dividing line between the bliss of the moment and the movement of the wider day. As we become more attuned to our meditation, we invite the meditation into our work, our social interactions, and the changing rhythms of the evening. It is all meditation. When we find the present moment in the day, it is not lost in the night.

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Being awake and fully ourselves right now, that is what we all want. Beneath our other drives that is what we truly seek. And it is always available to us. So why do we exile ourselves from being alive in this moment? All we have to do is turn around and start here.

Be ready.

Recommended Books: William Stafford

The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems	My Name is William Tell	Dancing with Joy: 99 Poems	Even in Quiet Places	Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford
More Books >>

William Stafford US (1914 – 1993) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by William Stafford

Love After Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

— from Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, by Kim Rosen

/ Image by vanillapearl /

I feel like a latecomer to Derek Walcott’s poetry. I first discovered his writing just a few years ago. In fact, this was the first poem of his that I read. I found it in Saved by a Poem (a book I highly recommend — a profound exploration of the many ways poetry can be a healing and transformative presence in our lives).

There is always more wonderful poetry to discover and explore but, once found, I never want to rush through it, so I eagerly take slow steps…

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving

This is a magical moment, when we finally encounter ourselves… when we actually see through to something essential, when we see through to something that is what we really are.

Most of the time I think we carry a reflexive fear of that meeting, so we tense up and expend a great deal of effort to avoid it. But Derek Walcott rightly says it is a moment of elation, one that inspires a deep smile and a profound sense of homecoming.

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Is there more to say? Perhaps also a reminder to celebrate the journey that has brought us here…

Sit. Feast on your life.

Recommended Books: Derek Walcott

Sea Grapes	The Poetry of Derek Wolcott 1948 – 2013	Omeros	White Egrets: Poems	Collected Poems 1948 – 1984
More Books >>

Derek Walcott St. Lucia & UK (1930 – ) Christian

More poetry by Derek Walcott

I often get asked what a “chaikhana” is. The short answer is that it is a tea house. (Chai = tea). The inevitable second question is, why a “poetry chaikhana”? What does poetry, especially sacred poetry, have to do with tea? The act of sipping tea naturally has a contemplative quality to it, but there’s a deeper reason why I chose the name Poetry Chaikhana all those years ago. It was inspired by a Sufi story–

/ Photo by Doubtful-Della /

The Story of Tea

– Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani (1098 – 1131)

Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years by Idries Shah

In this way, I hope the poems and thoughts I share through the Poetry Chaikhana bring a hint of that celestial drink to your lips. These are poems not to be praised for mere artistry, not to be worshipped from afar, not to be exclusively studied or analyzed. These are poems to be tasted. They are meant to be imbibed until we feel warmth in the belly and sweetness in the heart.

‘He who tastes, knows. He who tastes not, knows not… Close the shop of argument and mystery. Open the teahouse of experience.’

Have a beautiful day! I think I’m going to go to the local teahouse and order a tall glass of tea!

The Depths
by Denise Levertov

When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
is revealed. The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black fir trees are flakes
of white ash in the world’s hearth.

After mist has wrapped us again
in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.

— from The Jacob’s Ladder, by Denise Levertov

/ Image by Arathrim /

A reminder of light and the depths of the great ocean of life…

=

Like many of you, I have been preoccupied by the recent news of the forcible separation of children from their families in the US. I have felt for a long time that US policies toward immigration, legal and illegal, are racist and brutal. That has been true under both Democratic and Republican administrations. But it has taken an unconscionably cruel turn with the Trump administration’s forcible separation of children from their families, with no provision to reunite these traumatized families.

This is no less than institutionalized child abuse on a massive scale. The way we treat children and the vulnerable is a fundamental measure of our collective social morality. If you are a US citizen like me, that is a crime done in our name. And, if we are silent, it is done with our tacit approval.

There has been a partial sigh of relief that the outcry prompted an apparent reversal of the child separation policies. But while the news stories may begin to shift to other topics, be cautious in assuming that this latest offense is resolved.

My understanding is that forced family separations may still occur, just with a bureaucratic delay added. Also this latest change in government policy has a Trojan horse hidden within it: Many people don’t realize this, but crossing the border without legal documentation has at worst been classified as a misdemeanor offense in the US. This policy change now makes undocumented border crossing a felony. In other words, families desperately seeking asylum must first deal with the criminal justice system, because they have had to commit a major “crime” simply to seek safety.

Others have said it before me, but if we as a nation are concerned with immigration, than we should change our military and economic policies to not create immigrant crises. When an immigrant arrives, especially without formal documentation, it is always out of desperation. That always, always deserves a compassionate response. If that creates problems in other ways, then we accept those problems and deal with them in responsible, practical ways, as any decent society should.

With the current patterns of politics, economics, and climate change, immigrant issues and refugee crises are likely to remain major concerns in the world. If you are looking for more ways you can help, here are a few organizations doing courageous work in the world worth connecting to and contributing to.

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
supportkind.org

Women’s Refugee Commission
https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org

Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP)
https://asylumadvocacy.org

=

may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.

Recommended Books: Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov: Selected Poems	Poems of Denise Levertov: 1960-1967	Breathing the Water	The Great Unknowing: Last Poems	Candles in Babylon
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Denise Levertov US (1923 – 1997) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Beat Jewish

More poetry by Denise Levertov

Boundaries
by Lynn Ungar

The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

— from Bread and Other Miracles, by Lynn Ungar

/ Image by Matt Brown /

You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

We want to cement ourselves and our place within the wider reality. We want to grasp, hold, own, and so stop change and uncertainty. But reality slips through our fingers. Everything is fluid, as are we ourselves.

You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless nor ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.

This is such a startling image. A koi or a minnow suggests a serene, easily forgotten metaphor, but a shark makes a point! Part of why a shark is so ferocious is because it is ferociously at one with its environment. They say that sharks never stop swimming, but sharks are not restless. They do not struggle and exhaust themselves amidst the ocean currents. They cruise with a quiet fearlessness through their realm.

It is a form of communion they express, “absorbed in and absorbing / the native element.” The shark is in the water and the water is in the shark. They are one.

Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again.

It raises the question, what is a boundary? When we move through the environment at the same time that the environment moves through us, where is the border line between ourselves and everything else?

Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?

We tend to talk about unity and interconnectedness on spiritual levels, but we forget that it is just as true in the physical realm, and in every level in between. Everything we identify with, our emotions, thoughts, health, our very breath, are not possessions that exist in a private isolation. Everything is an interaction with the environment. Everything is part of the cycle of inflow and outflow.

This raises an unsettling question: How then do we protect ourselves from the disharmonies and toxicity of the world around us? There are a few ways to answer this, but I am going to give a harsh answer this time: How do we protect ourselves? We don’t. We are in the world and the world is in us. What happens in the world happens in us. The world is us and we are the world.

Whether we are talking about nature or human emotions, disharmony and toxicity is never just “out there” to be stopped at the border of the skin or one’s private thoughts and feelings. We don’t avoid, we can’t. We participate. We hurt with our fellow beings as much as we delight with them.

They. Us. Where is the boundary, really? We participate in a shared experience of being.

But– and this is important, it is not just about the outside coming in. There is also the outbreath. What is inside also flows outward into the world. This is where the power of the individual truly expresses itself. We may take in hurt, pain, poison, but we can, if we choose, pour out love, healing, joy. And that too becomes part of the natural environment in which we all swim with our porous boundaries.

I don’t want to suggest that I believe that boundaries are not real or necessary. They are. But boundaries are more like membranes than walls. Whether we are speaking about the physical body in the natural environment, the psychological self within society, or even national borders, no boundary is lasting or impermeable. Nor should it be.

The more we identify with our boundaries, the more harshly we try to enforce them as absolute and unchanging, which is inherently doomed to failure. But the more we identify with the heart, with our core, the less important those boundaries seem, and we allow them to function as living membranes of exchange, while we are free to navigate the world without fear.

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

It is not about separation of self from other. Ultimately, such a separation is impossible. There is no real separation.

We vibrate, we hum. We are caught up in a grand universal symphony. We tune each other and are harmonized by the whole.

We sing, whether we realize it or not. Which song are we singing?

Recommended Books: Lynn Ungar

Bread and Other Miracles	Blessing the Bread: Meditations

Lynn Ungar US (Contemporary) Christian Secular or Eclectic

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A Song on the View of Voidness
by Karma Trinley

English version by Thupten Jinpa & Jas Elsner

Homage to the Adamantine Mind!

This song on the view of voidness
expounding the nature of the being of all,
spoken in words inspired by conviction,
was sung in a voice echoing itself,
unobstructed, in between meditation sessions.

— from Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner

/ Image by ahermin /

Like many of the great poems emerging out of the Tibetan traditions, this poem combines ah ecstatic visionary element with a discourse on the nature of reality.

This is like mystic’s graduation thesis, a declaration of realization:

I have realized the nature of ever-presence.

He enumerates for us a list of secrets that, when understood, reveal the true nature of reality.

I will drop in a few of my comments on some of these, but I invite you to spend some time with each statement yourself and see what insights you gain…

When the secret of appearance is revealed,
everything arises in a tone of voidness,
undefined by the marks of identity.
Like a sky that is nothing but an image.

The language of the last line of this verse is a bit confusing, but I think what he is saying is that reality is like the wide open and empty nature of the sky. We may see images form in the clouds that float through the sky, but they are temporary and intangible. Things take form and appear to be real, but when we gain a wider perspective, the only lasting reality is that open space of blue, the canvas on which images appear and fade again.

When the secret of thoughts is revealed,
though active, they are but mind’s sport,
naked reflections of transcendent mind
unsullied by deliberation and correction.

The poetry of this verse stands out to me. We become so entranced by the content and movement of our own thoughts, but they are ultimately revealed to be “the mind’s sport.” Thoughts dance and dazzle, but they are like the glimmering light upon the surface of the transcendent mind, which remains pure and unaffected by that surface movement and all our attempts to control it.

When the secret of abiding is revealed,
you are in the state of self-cognition,
however long you remain, free of elaboration,
the expanse unstained by laxity and torpor.

This is an interesting one. The “secret of abiding” reveals itself as “self-cognition.” In other words, we come to rest, we discover stability and stillness, when we truly know ourselves. Words don’t express this truth easily. These ideas may seem to be disconnected, but there is an intimate connection we discover. The only place of rest is the true Self. It is only when we know the self that we can settle and abide.

Followed by a statement of movement…

When the secret of mobility is revealed,
however much you move, you remain
within clear light, unstained by distraction,
excitement, and so on, a true self-recognizer.

When we are a “true self-recognizer,” even in movement there is a clarity and inner stillness. We normally accompany action with psychic agitation. This is because we typically identify with the body and surface mind so, when there is movement, there is also disturbance. But identifying with the deep Self, movement is just the outer expression of that still spaciousness.

When the secret of samsara is revealed,
however often one may circle, the cycles
are illusion unaffected by joy and pain.
This is the realization of Buddha’s four bodies.

Samsara is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth as understood within Buddhism. When the poet states that seeing through the secret of samsara, the cycles are revealed as illusion not affected by joy and pain, we can read that as a rather flat and disengaged insight, but that is not what is meant. He is not saying that there is no joy or pain or that life and death are meaningless; rather, the appearance of life and death along with the fluctuations of joy and pain are not truly part of the fundamental nature of being. Like the clouds forming and fading against the sky, those are all passing phenomena that have their own beauty and meaning, but the blissful expanse is the only lasting reality.

The mention of the Buddha’s “four bodies” is a reference to the four bodies (or kayas) a buddha recognizes upon enlightenment: the truth body, the form body, the enjoyment body, and the emanation body. Our true body or nature is of these eternal forms, and the rest is the dance of appearance.

When the secret of bliss is revealed,
its intensity cannot be bettered;
this is the state of spontaneous bliss,
free of all traces of contamination.

Sometimes we imagine the spiritual path to be one of self-denial and worldly disdain. We conjure up grim visions of enlightenment, and either embrace that or run from it. But the real experiences of mystics and visionaries and saints, as they constantly tell us, is one of bubbling delight and peace. When one’s nature is revealed, we dwell in bliss. No surface pleasure or joy can compare. “It’s intensity cannot be bettered.”

When the secret of emptiness is revealed,
though empty, it is the unsurpassed,
devoid of every contingent stain,
and free from every deception.

This was something that tripped me up for a long time. The constant refrain in Buddhism about emptiness, nirvana, the void can sound bleak. As a younger seeker I had a love-hate relationship with the teachings of Buddhism. There was clearly something uplifting, insightful, and compassionate there, an expression of profound truth. But it could also sound rather depressing.

It took my own sense of opening to finally see beyond my own mental block and recognize that that “emptiness” is actually filled with life and delight amidst vast spaciousness. It is not empty as in a suffocating vacuum, but rather it is free from the idea of separate and distinct things and beings. Within this blissful nondual space of being, there is only a living wholeness and, therefore, nothing (no objectified thing) exist there. It is empty, yet it is the unsurpassed.

naked nonduality dawns within;
the secret of samsara and nirvana is revealed!

I like that signature verse at the end. It brings us back to earth. Signed this day between meditation sessions, yours truly…

This song on the view of voidness
expounding the nature of the being of all,
spoken in words inspired by conviction,
was sung in a voice echoing itself,
unobstructed, in between meditation sessions.

Recommended Books: Karma Trinley

Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening

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This moment
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

This moment
This LOVE
comes to rest in me,
many beings in one being
In one wheat-grain
a thousand sheaf stacks.

Inside the needle’s eye
a turning night of stars.
This moment —
This LOVE.

— from The Illuminated Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks / Michael Green

/ Image by Ha-Wee /

Leave it to a poet like Rumi to give us a phrase like–

Inside the needle’s eye
a turning night of stars.
This moment —
This LOVE.

The beauty of the image and words is so transporting that we can miss the profound esoteric truth being revealed here:

The human spirit, in its constant quest and hunger, looks for ever larger, greater experiences that expand our reach until we can encompass and hold everything. Even in the spiritual journey we want to be so big we don’t have to deal with the mundane moment. And this is the hardest part — letting go of that impulse.

You see, here’s the secret Rumi whispers to us in these lines… Don’t get bigger; get smaller. Become so small that you can finally rest in the tiniest of spaces — “this moment.” Do that, come to rest here, right here, fully, and this moment, which you feared would be so small you’d suffocate (“inside the needle’s eye”), surprises you by becoming a window to the Infinite (“a turning night of stars”).

Do that, and your heart unfolds in ways you hadn’t known possible, flooding you with an all-encompassing awareness of bliss and love.

It is not a journey of years, it is a journey of one moment–

This moment —
This LOVE.

Recommended Books: Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

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	Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom	Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
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Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 – 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Bol – Speak
by Faiz Ahmad Faiz

English version by Ivan M. Granger

Speak! Your words are free.
Speak! Your tongue is still your own.

Your body is yours, strong and straight.

Speak! Your life is still your own.

Speak! The time left to you is enough.
Before body and tongue give out.
Speak! For truth still survives
Speak! Say what is in your heart!

/ Image by melaniumom /

It is worth taking some time to really pay attention to the news and some of the troubling events taking place right now. But it takes a deeper reading than we get in most US news sources to have a sense of what is really happening. The killing of the Palestinian protesters in Gaza in the wake of the US embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The decision by the US to unilaterally break the Iran nuclear agreement, which was the only real reason the Iranian government had to cooperate. The US government tightening its alliances with the extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Israel, who seem to want to foment a war with Iran.

Events can unfold in several different directions, some terrible to contemplate.

In such moments, the temptation is to turn away, to shut the heart down, to focus exclusively on our own lives, our own families and circle of friends. I would suggest that we can handle more than we think we can. The heart, to be whole, must break a thousand times and be ready to break again. An empathic heart is what keeps us alive and on the spiritual path. A feeling heart reaches out to embrace even those outside our circles of familiarity, expanding our own sense of who we are.

And we have bodies, vehicles of action in the world. They are meant to express that awakened heart. They are meant to help, to soothe, to show kindness, to stop harm, for that is what the heart wishes.

And we can speak. For speaking is an act of the living, an affirmation of one’s humanity. Speaking is about connection, sharing one’s state of mind that we may meet one another in the currents of truth.

Speak! For truth still survives
Speak! Say what is in your heart!

Though speech we touch each other, heart to heart.

Speak.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz Pakistan (1911 – 1984) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

More poetry by Faiz Ahmad Faiz