A Teacher Looking For His Disciple – Thich Nhat Hanh

• 

I look at you with compassion
Although I know that this is not a true separation
(Because I am already in each cell of your body)
And that you may need once more to play the prodigal son.
That is why I promise I shall be there for you
Any time you are in danger.
Sometimes you have lain unconscious on the hot sands of frontier deserts.
I have manifested myself as a cloud to bring you cool shade.
Late at night the cloud became the dew
And the compassionate nectar falls drop by drop for you to drink.
Sometimes you sit in a deep abyss of darkness
Completely alienated from you true home.
I have manifested Myself as a long ladder and
Lightly thrown myself down
So that you can climb up to the area where there is light
To discover again the blue of the sky and the
Sounds of the brook and the birds.
Sometimes I recognised you in Birmingham,
In the Do Linh district or New England.
I have sometimes met you in Hang Chau, Xiamen, or Shanghai
I have sometimes found you in St. Petersburg or East Berlin.
Sometimes, though only five years old, I have
Seen you and recognized you.
Because of the seed of bodhchita, you carry in your tender heart.
Wherever I have seen you, I have always raised
My hand and made a signal to you,
Whether it be in the delta of the North, Saigon or the Thuan An Seaport.
Sometimes you were the golden full moon hanging
Over the summit of The Kim Son Mountain,
Or the little bird flying over the Dai Laoforest during a winter night.
Often I have seen you
But you have not seen me,
Though while walking in the evening mist your clothes have been soaked.
But finally you have always come home.
You have come home and sat at my feet on our ancient mountain
Listening to the birds calling and the monkeys
Screeching and the morning chanting echoing from the Buddha Hall.
You have come back to me determined not to be a vagabond any longer.
This morning the birds of the mountain joyfully welcome the bright sun.
Do you know, my child, that the white clouds
Are still floating in the vault of the sky?
Where are you now?
The ancient mountain is still there in this
Place of the present moment.
Although the white-crested wave still wants to
Go in the other direction,
Look again, you will see me in you and in every leaf and flower bud.
If you call my name, you will see me right away.
Where are you going?
The old frangipani tree offers its fragrant flowers this morning.
You and I have never really been apart. Spring has come.
The pines have put out new shining green needles
And on the edge of the forest, the wild Plum
Trees have burst into flower.

Source www.prajnaparamita.com via poetseers.or

The Answer

“We wrote a hundred letters, and you did not write an answer.

This, too, is a reply.”

Zauqi

(From: The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah)

• 

In memory of Syrian journalist Maya Naser, killed by a “rebel” sniper on 26 September 2012

On 8 July 2012 Maya Naser wrote:

To begin my article, I’d like to ask my readers to examine the following paragraph quoted from the National newspaper.

“CAIRO // An Egyptian university student was fatally stabbed as his girlfriend looked on after three suspected Islamic militants confronted the couple in a park and said they should not be together if they were not married, security officials said yesterday.”

Syria; the Cradle of Contradictions

In Syria we are the result of a Maroni marriage of a Mediterranean cultures, our society can be described as anything except being one color community, or even two… we have the Muslims of all cults and factions (Sunni with at least 4 factions, Shiia, Alawites with at least 3 factions, Ismaili, Murchidis, Druze…), Christians are no exception when it comes to Syria, (Maronites, Jacobins, Nestorians, Protestant. Catholics, Romans…)

In my country, you can’t kill two people for walking in the street under Sharia law, unless of course you divided the state into cantons and separated communities, the same as the west did in Lebanon; or displace all the Christians and other Muslim minorities into other states, similar to the Iraqi case.
In my country; most of us still enjoy dancing, singing, gatherings, and discussing life matters of all kinds without killing each other or expiation each other.

So far; all attempts to transform Syria to another Iraq, or Libya or even Saudi Arabia have failed, and no matter how much the west sends Al Qaeda fighter to my country, apparently we will continue enjoying our life and I will keep holding my girlfriend’s hands in the streets, I will not be anyone but this Syrian Man who shares his life with Syrians no matter what gender or religion they are.

A few days ago, my friend passed by me asking me to go to a charity party, I answered, “we are mourning our fellow Syrian lives every day, and you are asking me for a party?!!!”
She smiled at me saying, “We will not die sad, and we will not be imprisoned by terror, I am going and you will be my date whither you like it or not”.

Frankly; I admit I was honored to be invited for this ballet party for kids, I had the opportunity to watch the beauty of Syrian boys and girls dancing, singing and laughing, reminding me that I am the citizen of a 7000 year old state who will never accept Wahhabism, or K.K.K or any other radical name to control my life.
This small party was just another example of true Syrians, Syrians who want to escape the fundamental killings, and the sectarian cleansing.

The kids were not only rich; they were middle class from different religious backgrounds, all coming to a Catholic Church to perform for the public.

I don’t know what the kids where thinking, But I know they were not trying to dazzle the Syrian administration, or to express their support to this political party or that militia’s fighter.
The kids were dancing like flying angels, I don’t know or maybe don’t care that local or international media isn’t covering them, because they are too busy raging wars and killings.

Those beautiful angels were dancing on a theater which belongs to the Catholic Patriarchate “Olive Church” in Damascus.

The church lies in the folds of the oldest inhabited city in the history of mankind.

You walk into the Church main gate, a big yard with beautiful view ahead of you; a smiley man is waiting, directing you to go the theater location.
Wide stairs, lead you to the second floor, too many people are going upstairs, a man with his wife laughing about their little kid’s nervousness, and how they tried to calm her down.
A veiled lady tells her friend how hard her daughter worked on the dress, a dress with a Syrian flag on it, she described the little girl’s passion for the colors of the Syrian flag.
While my friend and I were going upstairs, step by step, enjoying those small talks and smiles, every time we hear a father or a mother speaking about their child.

A few seconds passed, we are at the second floor, the theater was crowded, kids were training on the great Tchaikovsky music the “Swan lake”
The theater was living action, you wouldn’t be able to stop smiling, stop sensing the beauty of each corner, stop watching kids making mistake after mistake but they wouldn’t give up, they’d rise again and try again and again until they got it right.

For a moment I thought, this is how we all should be, perhaps I should bring the fighting parties here, and maybe, just maybe they can learn what it means to be a real human.
Two Hours passed by, the party was over; but that sense of beauty would never be over, nobody on earth can take from those kids their happiness.
The Saudis can keep sending their radical killers here, the west can keep threatening Syrians with sanctions but no one will ever be able to touch those kids’ spirit.

And as for me, those kids have taught me the meaning of being Syrian, the meaning of being human and the meaning of being God’s Children, believers name them the way you want my dear reader, that will not change the fact.

Posted 8th July 2012 by Maya Naser
via http://syriapolitics.blogspot.com/2012/07/syria-cradle-of-contradictions.html

Here, I am alone with you – Rabia al-Basri

“O my Lord, the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his beloved.
Here, I am alone with You.”
.
.

Sheikh al-Akbar Ibn al-Arabi – “Beware of confining yourself to a particular conception and denying all else”

.

“Beware of confining yourself to a particular conception and denying all else for much good would elude you. Indeed the knowledge of reality would elude you. Be in yourself a substance for all forms, for God is too vast and tremendous to be restricted to one form of belief rather than another.”

.

(as quoted by Pir Zia Inayat Khan Sufi Conference 2005

via https://goldensufi.org/audioarchives.html#sc )

Wendell Berry – “My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain”

.
Water
.
I was born in a drouth year. That summer

my mother waited in the house, enclosed

in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,

for the men to come back in the evenings,

bringing water from a distant spring.

Veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.

And all my life I have dreaded the return

of that year, sure that it still is

somewhere, like a dead enemy’s soul.

Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me,

and I am the faithful husband of the rain,

I love the water of wells and springs

and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.

I am a dry man whose thirst is praise

of clouds, and whose mind is something of a cup.

My sweetness is to wake in the night

after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.
.
.
(from “Farming: A Handbook” by Wendell Berry)
.

Lao Tsu – “Without going outside, you may know the whole world”

.

Chapter Forty-seven

Without going outside, you may know the whole world.

Without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven.

The farther you go, the less you know.

.

Thus the sage knows without traveling;

He sees without looking;

He works without doing.

.

(from Lao Tsu’s – “Tao Te Ching”, translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)

Lao Tsu – “Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?”

Chapter Fifteen
.
The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.

The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.

Because it is unfathomable,

All we can do is describe their appearance.

Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.

Alert, like men aware of danger.

Courteous, like visiting guests.

Yielding, like ice about to melt.

Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood.

Hollow, like caves.

Opaque, like muddy pools.

.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?

Who can remain still until the moment of action?

Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.

Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.

.

(Lao Tsu – Tao Te Ching – Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)
.

Bayazid Bastami – “And He had sought me before I sought Him”

In the beginning I was mistaken in four respects.
I concerned myself to remember God, to know Him,
to love Him, and to seek Him.
When I had come to the end I saw that He had remembered me
before I remembered Him.
That His knowledge of me, had preceded my knowledge of Him.
That His love towards me had existed before my love to Him,
and He had sought me before I sought Him
.
.

.
(as quoted by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, 2006 Sufi Conference, Opening Talk Part A
https://goldensufi.org/audioarchives.html#sc
.

Pir Zia Inayat Khan on how the angels join us in prayer

.
It is very necessary to build into one’s routine times for prayer, contemplation and meditation. Each time you go back to that same place to perform your prayer, your prayer is deeper. You are building up a magnetism every time you perform that prayer in the same place, at the same time. The Sufis explain this by saying that when a person is praying while an angel is passing by, flying overhead and they notice a person in an act of prayer, they take note of it and will come back the next day, at the same time. And if you are there they’ll take a note of that and be sure to come back each day, at that time. Of course if you’re not there at that time they’ll lose interest. In this way one after another, unseen beings become attracted and soon you find yourself praying, not alone, but in the company of beings of light. What seemed at first an isolated, private prayer has become a congregational prayer.
.
Sufi Conference 2005, Pir Zia Inayat Khan: The Inner Dimensions of Prayer, Part A
https://goldensufi.org/audioarchives.html#sc
.

.