this love is beyond

flow like water

 

Those

who do not feel this

love pulling them like a river,

those who do not drink dawn like a cup

of springwater or take in sunset

like supper, those who do not

want to change, let

them sleep.

 

This love

is beyond the study

of theology, that old trickery

and hypocrisy. If you want

to improve your mind

that way, sleep

on.

 

I have

given up on my brain.

I have torn the cloth to shreds

and thrown it away. If you are not

completely naked, wrap your

beautiful robe of words

around you, and

sleep.

 

Jalal al-Din Rumi

the essential rumi

 

washing dirt in mud

diamonds

 

By even speaking a phrase to you,

I have already doused you with dirty water.

It would be even worse for me to put a twinkle in my eye

and raise my eyebrow to you, or rap on the meditation seat

or hold up a whisk, or demand, “What is this?”

As for shouting and hitting, it’s obvious

that this is just a pile of bones

on level ground.

 

There are also the type

who don’t know good from bad and

ask questions about Buddha and Dharma and Zen

and the Tao. They ask to be helped, they beg to be received,

they seek knowledge and sayings and theories relating to

the Buddhist teaching and to transcending the world

and to accommodating the world. This is washing

dirt in mud and washing mud in dirt —

when will they ever manage

to clear it away?

 

Forget the words and 

embody the meaning.

 

Yuanwu

zen letters