Keep Digging Your Well

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don't think about getting off from work. 

Water is there somewhere.

Submit to daily practice. 

Your loyalty to that

Is a ring at the door. 

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

Will eventually open a window

and look out to see who's there."

-Rumi

Monday Inspiration: Rumi

"Thirst drove me down to the water where I drank the moon’s reflection. To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness. We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust. We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless. You think the shadow is the substance."

(Rumi)

Split The Sack

Why does the soul not fly

when it hears the call?

Why does a fish, gasping on land,

but near the water,

not move back into the sea?

What keeps us from joining the dance

the dust particles do?

Look at their subtle motions

in sunlight.

We are out of our cages

with our wings spread,

yet we do not lift off.

We keep collecting rocks and broken bits

of pottery like children

pretending they are merchants.

We should split the sack

of this culture

and stick our heads out.

Look around.

Leave your childhood.

Reach your right hand up

and take this book from the air.

You do know right from left, don't you?

A voice speaks to your clarity.

Move into the moment of your death.

Consider what you truly want.

Now call out commands yourself.

You are the king. Phrase your question,

and expect the grace of an answer.

(Rumi)

Thank you, Anna! xo

Monday Inspiration: Silence

“This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say: “Be more silent.” Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.” 

(Rumi)

No Expectations

A spirit that lives in this world

and does not wear the shirt of love,

such an existence is a deep disgrace.

Be foolishly in love,

because love is all there is.

There is no way into presence

except through a love exchange.

If someone asks, But what is love?

answer, Dissolving the will.

True freedom comes to those

who have escaped the questions

of freewill and fate.

Love is an emperor.

The two worlds play across him. 

He barely notices their tumbling game.

Love and lover live in eternity.

Other desires are substitutes

for that way of being.

How long do you lay embracing a corpse?

Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.

Anything born in spring dies in the fall, 

but love is not seasonal.

With wine pressed from grapes,

expect a hangover.

But this love path has no expectations.

You are uneasy riding the body?

Dismount. Travel lighter.

Wings will be given.

Be clear like a mirror

reflecting nothing.

Be clean of pictures and the worry 

that comes with images.

Gaze into what is not ashamed

or afraid of any truth.

Contain all human faces in your own

without any judgment of them.

Be pure emptiness.

What is inside that? you ask.

Silence is all I can say.

Lovers have some secrets 

that they keep.

(Rumi)

** Thank you Anna for passing this one along. I greatly appreciate it. **

The Breeze

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.

From within, I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

(Rumi)

translated by Coleman Barks

What Hurts the Soul?

Mysore, India

We tremble, thinking we're about to dissolve

into nonexistence, but nonexistence 

fears even more that it might be given human form!

Loving God is the only pleasure. Other delights 

turn bitter. What hurts the soul?

To live without tasting the water of its own essence. 

People focus on death and this material earth.

They have doubts about soul water.

Those doubts can be reduced! Use night

to wake your clarity. Darkness and the living water

are lovers. Let them stay up together.

When merchants eat their meals

and sleep their dead sleep, 

we night-thieves go to work.

- Rumi  (Translated by Coleman Barks)

When We Pray Alone

We are brought thick desserts, and we rarely refuse them. We worship devoutly when we are with others. Hours we sit, though we get up quickly after a few minutes. When we pray alone. We hurry down the gullet of our wantings. 

But these qualities can change, as minerals in the ground rise inside trees and become a tree, as a plant faces an animal and enters the animal, so a human can put down the heavy body baggage ... 

and BE LIGHT!

(Rumi) 

WEEKend!

Taken in Mysore, India

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray."     

- Rumi

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Which has me thinking, I used to live for the weekend. Now, I see the importance of living what I love during the week-- finally after making changes to do what I enjoy. So much better than a race to the finish line, to then feel I can relax and enjoy. 

Discipline

Taken in Mysore, India

Let’s ask God to help us to self-control: for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace.The undisciplined person doesn’t wrong himself alone–but sets fire to the whole world.Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy…

- Rumi

Two words have popped into my awareness lately. Discipline and focus. When worked together in synergy, what an unbeatable combination. Miracles can happen. The practice has a way of refining this capacity. Through the rhythm of the sequence, Tristana, puts it all into perspective. Simplicity at it's best. Dristhe, Posture, Breath. 

Unchartered

Taken in Mysore, India 

You sit here for days saying,

This is strange business.
You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine.
You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace, so you won’t have to become coins.

So don’t be timid.
Load the ship and set out.
No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor.
Just don’t be one of those merchants who won’t risk the ocean!

Work in the invisible world at least as hard as you do in the visible.

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

This talk is like stamping new coins. They pile up, while the real work is being done outside by someone digging in the ground.

- Rūmī

There is One Thing

Taken in Mysore, India

THERE IS ONE THING

There is one thing in this world which you must never forget to do.
If you forget everything else and not this, there is nothing to worry
about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you
will have done nothing in your life.

It is as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you
perform a hundred other services, but no the one he sent you to do.
So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That
work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t
do it, it’s as though a knife of the finest tempering were nailed into a
wall to hang things on. For a penny an iron nail could be bought to
serve for that.

Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord.
Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your
moments. If you don’t, you will be like the one who takes a precious
dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his
dipper gourd. You will be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly
ignoring your dignity and your purpose.

- Rumi

Gamble Everything for Love

Taken in Mysore, India

Gamble everything for love,
if you’re a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn’t reach
into majesty. You set out
to find God, but then you keep
stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited roadhouses.

The sun is Love. The Lover,
a speck circling the sun.
A Spring wind moves to dance
any branch that isn’t dead.

Something opens our wings. Something
makes boredom and hurt disappear.
Someone fills the cup in front of us.
We taste only sacredness.

I have lived on the lip
of insanity, wanting to know the reasons,
knocking on a door. It opens.
I’ve been knocking from the inside!

Dance, when you are broken open.
Dance, when you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you’re perfectly free.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy
Absentminded. Someone sober
Will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

You that came to birth and bring the mysteries,
your voice-thunder makes us very happy.
Roar, lion of the heart,
and tear me open.

Out beyond ideas of right doing and wrong doing, there is a field. 
I'll meet you there.


- Rumi 

The Guest House

Skogofoss - Iceland

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Rumi 

photo via 

Rumi

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in the aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

(Rumi)

In Silence

A guide has entered this life in silence.
His message is only heard in silence.
Take a sip of his precious wine and lose yourself.
Don't insult the greatness of his Love,
for he helps those who suffer, in silence.
Polish the mirror between the breaths.
Go with him, beyond words.
He knows your every deed.
He is the one who moves the wheel of heaven, in silence.
Every thought is buried in your heart;
He will reveal them one by one, in silence.
Turn each of your thoughts into a bird
And let them fly to the other world.
One is an owl, one is a falcon, one is a crow.
Each one is different from the others
But they are all the same in silence.
To see the Moon that cannot be seen
Turn your eyes inward and look at yourself
IN SILENCE ...

(Rumi)

Behold Yourself

Let go of your worries

and be completely clear-hearted,

like the face of a mirror

that contains no images.

If you want a clear mirror,

behold yourself

and see the shameless truth,

which the mirror reflects.

If metal can be polished

to a mirror-like finish,

what polishing might the mirror

of the heart require?

Between the mirror and the heart

is this single difference:

the heart conceals secrets,

while the mirror does not.


- Rumi, The Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XIII

The Still Point of Ecstacy

The Still Point of Ecstasy

On the Night of Creation I was awake.
Busy at work while everyone slept.
I was there to see the first wink
and hear the first tale told.
I was the first one caught
in the hair of the Great Imposter.

Whirling around the still-point of ecstasy
I spun like the wheel of heaven.

How can I describe this to you?--
you were born later.

I was a companion of the Ancient Lover;
Like a bowl with a broken rim
I endured his tyranny.
Why shouldn't I be as lustrous as the King's cup?--
I have lived in the room of treasures.
Why shouldn't this bubble become the sea?--
I am the secret that lies at the bottom...

Sh...No more words--
Hear only the voice within.
Remember, the first thing He said was:
We are beyond words.

~ Rumi

The Intellectual

The Intellectual

The intellectual is always showing off;
the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning;
the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;
overs are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone, even surrounded with people;
like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble of giving advice to a lover gets nothing.
He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk.
It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

~ Rumi

Priviliged Lovers

The Privileged Lovers

The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,
This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.
They are chosen ones
Who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.
They have left behind the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion.

~ Rumi

This could very well be my favorite Rumi poem. So hard to choose. No need to choose. They are all so special. They all carry resonance...sparking something inside that is impossible to explain.

Yesterday I finished a four part workshop series in Chaiyi, consisting of Ashtanga Yoga Principles and Practice, Bandhas and Awakening the Core, Jumping back/Jumping through, and Backbending.

Most in the group were from the farther southern reaches of Taiwan, and they brought up the topic of me going down by Tainon and Kaoshsiung to teach for several months next year. So, we'll see what happens on that front.

However, at the present, I'm in Taichung doing my best to spur on the practice of Ashtanga Yoga in a fast paced city. Ashtanga Yoga is still young here. Besides Taipei, it's unknown to many. Which makes the process fun. It's Mr. Wang's vision to spread the word of Mysore style practice to as many people as he can. He has such passion for it. Let's just say he has more passion for it in his pinky finger than I have in my whole body...haha...and, anyone who knows me, and knows me well...knows I have a strong passion for it as well.

With that being said...I'm gonna go practice.