{"id":2721,"date":"2016-10-18T00:31:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T05:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2016-10-18T00:31:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T05:31:35","slug":"rumi-and-hakuin-water-and-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/2016\/10\/18\/rumi-and-hakuin-water-and-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumi and Hakuin: Water and Ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Hakuin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All beings by nature are Buddha,
\nAs ice by nature is water.
\nApart from water there is no ice;
\nApart from beings, no Buddha.
\nHow sad that people ignore the near
\nAnd search for truth afar:
\nLike someone in the midst of water
\nCrying out in thirst,
\nLike a child of a wealthy home
\nWandering among the poor.
\nLost on dark paths of ignorance,
\nWe wander through the Six Worlds,
\nFrom dark path to dark path–
\nWhen shall we be freed from birth and death?
\nOh, the zazen of the Mahayana!
\nTo this the highest praise!
\nDevotion, repentance, training,
\nThe many paramitas–
\nAll have their source in zazen.
\nThose who try zazen even once
\nWipe away beginning-less crimes.
\nWhere are all the dark paths then?
\nThe Pure Land itself is near.
\nThose who hear this truth even once
\nAnd listen with a grateful heart,
\nTreasuring it, revering it,
\nGain blessings without end.
\nMuch more, those who turn about
\nAnd bear witness to self-nature,
\nSelf-nature that is no-nature,
\nGo far beyond mere doctrine.
\nHere effect and cause are the same,
\nThe Way is neither two nor three.
\nWith form that is no-form,
\nGoing and coming, we are never astray,
\nWith thought that is no-thought,
\nSinging and dancing are the voice of the Law.
\nBoundless and free is the sky of Sam\u00e1dhi!
\nBright the full moon of wisdom!
\nTruly, is anything missing now?
\nNirvana is right here, before our eyes,
\nThis very place is the Lotus Land,
\nThis very body, the Buddha.<\/p>\n

-Zen Master Hakuin<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rumi<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
\nIs someone here? I ask.
\nThe moon. The full moon is inside your house.<\/em><\/p>\n

My friends and I go running out into the street.
\nI\u2019m in here<\/em>, comes a voice from the house, but we aren\u2019t listening.
\nWe\u2019re looking up at the sky.
\nMy pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
\nRingdoves scatter with small cries,\u00a0Where, Where.<\/em>
\nIt\u2019s midnight<\/span><\/span>. The whole neighbourhood is up and out
\nin the street thinking,\u00a0The cat burglar has come back.<\/em>
\nThe actual thief is there too, saying out loud,
\nYes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd<\/em>.
\nNo one pays attention.<\/p>\n

Lo, I am with you always<\/em>\u00a0means when you look for God,
\nGod is in the look of your eyes,
\nin the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
\nor things that have happened to you
\nThere\u2019s no need to go outside.<\/p>\n

Be melting snow.
\nWash yourself of yourself.<\/p>\n

A white flower grows in quietness.
\nLet your tongue become that flower.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
If you want to learn theory,
\ntalk with theoreticians. That way is oral.
\nWhen you learn a craft, practice it.
\nThat learning comes through the hands.
\nIf you want dervishhood, spiritual poverty
\nand emptiness, you must be friends with a teacher.
\nTalking about it, reading books,
\nand doing practices\u00a0don\u2019t help.
\nSoul receives from soul that knowing.
\nThe mystery of absence
\nmay be living in your pilgrim heart,
\nand yet the knowing of it may not yet be yours.
\nWait for the illuminated openness,
\nas though your chest were filling with light,
\nas when God said, Did we not expand you?<\/em>
\nDon\u2019t look for it outside yourself.
\nYou are the source of milk. Don\u2019t milk others!
\nThere is a fountain inside you.
\nDon\u2019t walk around with an empty bucket.
\nYou have a channel into the ocean,
\nyet you ask for water from a little pool.
\nBeg for the love expansion.
\nMeditate only\u00a0on That.
\nThe Qur\u2019an says,\u00a0And He is with you<\/em>.
\nThere is a basket of fresh bread on your head,
\nyet you go door to door asking for crusts.
\nKnock on the inner door, no other.
\nSloshing knee-deep in fresh river-water,
\nyet you keep asking for other people\u2019s water-bags.
\nWater is everywhere around you, but you see
\nonly barriers that keep you from water.
\nThe horse is beneath the rider\u2019s thighs,
\nand still you ask, \u201cWhere\u2019s my horse?\u201d
\nUnder you!\u00a0Can\u2019t you see?
\n\u201cYes I can see, but whoever saw such a horse?\u201d
\nMad with thirst, you can\u2019t drink from the stream
\nrunning close by your face.
\nYou are like a pearl\u00a0on the deep bottom
\nwondering inside the shell,
\nWhere\u2019s the ocean?
\nThose mental questionings\u00a0form the barrier.
\nStay bewildered inside God,\u00a0and only that.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Mathnaw\u012b Book V 1063-1084<\/em><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

1940 This arrogance is a product of the skin; hence power and riches are friends to that pride. What is this arrogance?<\/p>\n

being oblivious to the essential principle and frozen (insensible)\u2014 like the oblivion of ice to the sun.<\/p>\n

When it (the ice) becomes conscious of the sun, the ice does not endure: it becomes soft and warm and moves on rapidly.<\/p>\n

From seeing the kernel \u00a0the whole body becomes desire: it becomes miserable and passionately in love, for \u201cWretched is he who desires.\u201d When it does not see the kernel, it is content with the skin: \u00a0the bondage of \u201cGlorious is he who is content\u201d is its prison.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
1945. Here glory is infidelity, and wretchedness is (true) religion: until the stone became naughted, when did it become the gem set in a ring? (To remain) in the state of stoniness and then (to say) \u201cI\u201d (is absurd): \u2019tis time for thee to become lowly and naughted.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
3430. If the ear had heard, how should the ear have remained (in action) or how should it have apprehended words any more?<\/div>\n
If the snow and ice were to behold the sun, they would despair of (retaining their) iciness; They would become water (formless and) devoid of roots and knobs:<\/div>\n
the air, David-like, would make of the water a mail-coat (of ripples),<\/div>\n
And then it (the water) would become a life-giving medicine for every tree: every tree (would be made) fortunate by its advent.<\/div>\n
(But) the frozen ice that remains (locked) within itself cries to the trees, Touch me not!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Mathnawi Book V<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

1110. In this sweet ocean our forms are moving fast, like cups on the surface of water: Until they become full, (they float) like bowls on the top of the sea,<\/p>\n

(but) when the bowl is filled it sinks therein. Reason is hidden, and (only) a world (of phenomena) is visible: our forms are the waves or a spray of it (of that hidden ocean).<\/p>\n

Whatsoever (thing) the form makes (uses as) a means of approach to It (to Reason), by that (same) means the ocean (of Reason) casts it (the form) far away.<\/p>\n

So long as the heart does not see the Giver of (its) conscience, so long as the arrow does not see the far-shooting Archer,<\/p>\n

1115. He (who is thus blind) thinks his horse is lost, though (all the while) he is obstinately speeding his horse on the road.<\/p>\n

That fine fellow thinks his horse is lost, while his horse is sweeping him onward like the wind. In lamentation and inquiry that scatterbrain (runs) from door to door in every direction, asking and searching:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere and who is he that stole my horse?\u201d What is this (animal) under thy thigh, O master? \u201cYes, this is the horse, but where is the horse?\u201d<\/p>\n

O dexterous rider in search of thy horse, come to thyself!<\/p>\n

1120. The Spirit is lost (to view) because of its being so manifest and near:<\/p>\n

how, having thy belly full of water, art thou drylipped like a jar?<\/p>\n

How wilt thou see red and green and russet, unless before (seeing) these three (colours) thou see the light?<\/p>\n

But since thy mind was lost (absorbed) in (perception of) the colour, those colours became to thee a veil for the light.<\/p>\n

Inasmuch as at night those colours were hidden, thou sawest that thy vision of the colour was (derived) from the light.<\/p>\n

There is no vision of colour without the external light: even so it is with the colour of inward phantasy.<\/p>\n

Mathnaw\u012b Book I\u00a01110-1125<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lovers share a sacred decree:
\nto seek God, the Beloved.
\nThey roll head over heels,
\nrushing toward the Beautiful One
\nlike a torrent of water.
\nIn truth, everyone is a shadow of God –
\nOur seeking is His seeking,
\nOur words are His words.
\nAt times we flow toward God
\nlike a dancing stream.
\nAt times we are still water\u00a0held in His pitcher.
\nAt times we boil in a pot\u00a0turning to vapor –
\nthat is the job of the Beloved.<\/p>\n

God breathes into my ear
\nuntil my soul takes on His fragrance.
\nGod is the Soul of my soul –
\nHow can I escape?
\nBut why would any soul in this world
\nwant to escape from the Beloved?<\/p>\n

God will melt your pride
\nmaking you thin as a strand of hair,
\nYet do not trade, even for both worlds,
\nOne strand of His hair.<\/p>\n

We search for God here and there
\nwhile looking right at Him.
\nSitting by His side we ask,
\n“O Beloved, where is the Beloved?”<\/p>\n

Enough with such questions! –
\nLet silence take you to the core of life.
\nAll your talk is worthless
\nWhen compared to one whisper
\nof the Beloved.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are my soul, my universe:
\nwhat do I have to do with
\nFor me you are ever-flowing treasure:
\nthe soul and the universe?
\nOne minute, I am the friend of the wine,
\nwhat do I have to do with profit and loss?
\nI have come to this age of ruins,
\nanother the friend of him who burns me.
\nso what do I have to do
\nI am sprung free of the whole world,
\nwith time’s melodrama?
\nI am terrified by the whole world,
\nI am drunk on union with you,
\nI am neither “hidden” no “apparent.”
\nWhat do I have to do with existence or space?
\nwhat do I care about fate’s bow and its arrows?
\nI need and want and care about no one else.
\nSince I am your prey,
\nI live at the bottom of the stream,
\nwhy go on staggering under
\nwhy would I go looking for water?
\nWhat could or would I say about this stream
\nthat flows and flows?
\nI have given up existence,
\nwhy put up with the pretensions of the shepherd?
\nThe burden of this mountain?
\nSince the wolf is my shepherd,
\nWhat abandon! What drunkenness!
\nYou hold the cup in you hand
\nand glorious to the eye of the heart.<\/p>\n

Blessed is the place you are,
\nEach atom, by your grace,
\nNo one who has ever had a sign from you
\nis a universe, each drop of water a soul.
\nneed worry again about “name” or “sign.”
\nYou have to dive, dive head first:<\/p>\n

To find the place of splendor,
\nat the bottom of the Sea of truths
\nwhat do I have to do with feet that scurry?
\nWhat will I give to the toll-man?
\nWith the sword of the One God
\nyou have hacked a Path for us:
\nYou have stolen all my clothes:
\nFrom your beauty ablaze like the sun,
\ncontemplate love, contemplate friendship:
\nfrom the curls of your hair,
\nMy heart has become ecstatic:
\nO my soul, hand me this brimming cup,
\nDo not weigh pain and misery,
\nAnd ask from joy all happiness, all security, all peace.<\/p>\n

Do not mull over tyranny and neglect:
\nthink of all those who have their eyes fixed on you.
\nSurname all grief ‘grace’:
\ntransmute pain and anguish into joy
\nlisten, and don’t say a word.<\/p>\n

Demand that security, that peace, demand them,
\nChoose the company of those withdrawn in love
\nListen to those who open a path to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Keep walking,
\nthough there’s no place to get to.
\nDon’t try to see through the distances.
\nThat’s not for human beings.
\nMove within,
\nBut don’t move the way fear makes you move.
\nWe are the mirror as well as the face of it.
\nWe are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
\nWe are pain and what cures pain, both.
\nWe are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
\nI want to hold you close like a lute,
\nso that we can cry out with loving.
\nWould you rather throw stones at a mirror?
\nI am your mirror and here are the stones.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the waters of purity, I melted like salt
\nNeither blasphemy, nor faith, nor conviction, nor\u00a0doubt remained.
\nIn the center of my heart a star has appeared
\nAnd all the seven heavens have become lost in it.<\/p>\n

\"goldwawflowers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Book of Sufi is not black ink and words,<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n
It is none other than a pure heart white like snow.<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n

Mathnawi 2:160<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hakuin All beings by nature are Buddha, As ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; Apart from beings, no Buddha. How sad that people ignore the near And search for truth afar: Like someone in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4522,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[65685],"tags":[139163,65702,65695,65691,65694,139177],"class_list":["post-2721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-persian","tag-japanese","tag-japanese-poetry","tag-persian-sufi-poetry","tag-related-poems","tag-rumi","tag-zen-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7NI4C-HT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2726,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/sulaymanibnqiddees\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}