ShantiMayi - Poems of Realization

Poems of Realization

POEMS BY SHANTIMAYI

When wind blows slants of rain
down on the dark deserted street,
everything feels so
inward and intimate.
Under the street light it rains
the hardest, or so it seems
When I look out through the
window, it looks like tears flowing
down along the glass
I have had that feeling
in my heart sometimes.
The rain cleans the town
and the tears clean my heart
That's a kind of oneness isn't it?

I
I am I
I

SM

What good am I
if I have no heart to offer?
Like a colorless flower
without fragrance
Or thunder that can not rumble
A bird without wings

What good is it if I can not see
you
truly and underneath?

My eyes would be deceiving
me
wouldn't they ?
What a terrible fate

If I can only give
to you
Only once
Then, my entire life
turns to gold.
I just offer you my gold,
My life, oh beloved One

Here let me lay it at your feet

What good am I
without you?

You who
are every single
One

SM

Three Winds Peak

towers high above our garden

He is a mountain meditating

sage

serene, wise and stable

Standing in the fields

I watch him and

he is watching me

Growing old wearing down

a pebble at a time

A path winds to the summit disappearing out of sight

where mists gather,

clouds rain

like tears fall

streaming down, merging with sea

There

where

all drops are one

The old sage is the mountain spirit

lingering in silence, pointing to the moon

he's a lotus made of earth, peacefully enduring

whatever comes his way

Keeping secrets revealing truths

protecting all

without concern

sm

Oh

the moon's

a sliver,

yesterday's gone.

Before.

I‘ve laid

in the field

at night

reading

sutras by the light

of a full, full moon.

After.

Morning comes,

dew's clinging.

Then.

Noon comes,

dew's gone.

Cup's half

empty

and cup's

half

full.

Oh

secret

of

Shunyata

.

SM

A-BIT-ABOUT:

Maha-great, Prajanaparamita-transcendent wisdom, hridaya/heart, sutra/tread or assemblense or connecting.

The Heart Sutra is the concise, precise teaching of Shunyata, an emptiness that is never other than emptiness and is as well, all that seems to be. Yet again and again, it never deviates a hairs width from the true shunyata.

Shunyata means emptiness that is absolutely empty and yet lacks nothing. Shunyata truly can only be understood from shunyata.

It is too easy to step on a snake
but impossible to lift a hand to the dragon.
The elephant walk is clear
and no small thing dare step under her foot.
The elephant and dragon are of one monastery.
The snake and mouse are of another.
Guess
who
wins?

SM

light rings in all things

nothing is without it

oh blood of buddha shine in me

clear empty space with a pulse

until all is still

and in the dot of the eye

the dragon is set free

carrion crow

by Soma

Alone I sit in Emptiness
And all the world comes to me
Nothing Missing
I am Home.
Awake! Oh Heart
One, two, three and more
Are mine and yours
Like Beggars we, and Rich as Kings
We sit together alone
As Clouds roll by, as Clouds roll by
And tears transform to loving you,
I place the bowl at your feet.

"No Way"
There is no way.
Five milliion lotus petals raining down
Where is the lotus flower?

"Mother"

Standing by, Watching silently,
Drinking in the cool night air.
Stillness, and no more there is.
Watching Silently
Breathing,
Standing,
Sitting.
"Gratitude"

Breath standing out, around you
Fire breathing in.
Grey silhouettes of early morning,
Your smile cracks clear through.
God’s greatest convergence of
past, present and future
tying into one, simple knot.
And all is still.
I am here with you.

As for me, I will grow old
loving your smile,
these shades of grey,
keeping my feet warm at night,
and saying thank you.

Listen to the Breeze
The caress on my face
The song in the distant future
Reaching all the way up
ALL the way still, then out
I find my way home

POEMS FROM RUMI

Beloved Guru,

Though the body leaves

The heart remains

And though we may be

A world apart

I am forever, at your feet

In my heart

Beloved Guru,

Wishing to give something in return

But what can be given to God?

What can the disciple give to the Master

That has any true value?

From the heart this answer comes

To strive (as you strive) with all my being.

(Though it may take until the end of time)

To give to you the totality of my greatness.

For nothing less will do.

So as I kneel before you now

I do hereby take these vows

I shall surpass you.

I shall see more clearly

I shall plumb to greater depths

I shall soar to greater heights

And I shall burn more brightly

I also swear

That I shall never rest until all beings

Come to know the glory of You.

All in devotion to You.

This I swear shall come to pass

And this shall be my gift to You.

Love,

(our) Rumi

Beloved Guru,

Now that our hearts beat as one
The darkness of despair
The ache of longing and
The unspeakable pain of separation
Are the sweetest nectar
For they are the very soil in which
This most delicate bud
Has taken root and grows
In the sure and certain knowing
(Showered in your Grace,
Fertilized with your Love,
Basking in your Light)
The Flowering will come!
Now that our hearts beat as one
May the flowers in your garden
Be as numerous as the stars

(Our) Rumi

'Sweeter Than Honey'

Where is all that grace I saw in Your Face last night, all night long?

And that sweet story I heard from You last night, all night long?

My heart was burning like a moth in the flame of Your candle,

Still, I whirled around the Glow of Your Face, all night long,

Night was falling, throwing a veil over the Moon of Your Face,

I was like the moon, tearing the veil of night, all night long,

Like a cat, my soul was licking its lips from Your Bliss, And I was chewing my fingernails like a child, all night long,

Like a hive of bees my heart was busy with Your Love, From You, 'The Source of Honey', I drew nectar, all night long,

Net of night fell and trapped every soul, Like the heart of a dove, I trembled in that trap all night long,

The One in whose net all souls fall like doves, In that net, I longed for Him all night long.'

-Rumi

Translation by Farideh

When you have exhausted every possible way
And there is no where to go

Then there is revealed

Beyond the realms of not knowing and wisdom

A new boundless heaven

All that is familiar has been swept away

You fall and there is nothing to hold onto

You are falling into a bottomless abyss

Trusting

While embracing the universe within you

Alighting onto a dew covered meadow

Where the stone images

Of the Bodhisattvas smile

Birds of every hue take flight

Soaring into the open sky

By Tonya

ShantiMayi presents this page from ‘Zen Letters'

which is a wonderful book that seems to be out of print.

She says this page is

"My sentiments exactly"

Real Teaching and Real Learning

Since high antiquity, the source vehicle has been transcendence and direct realization, with teachers and apprentices joined in understanding, with nothing haphazard about it.

This is why the man who was to become the Second Zen Patriarch stood in the snow and cut off his arm to prove his sincerity to Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch. This is why the Sixth Patriarch worked pounding rice in the Fifth's Patriarch community at Huangmei. This is why other Zen adepts worked diligently for twenty or thirty years. How could the seal of approval be given lightly?

In general, genuine Zen teachers set forth their teachings only after observing the learners' situation and potential. Real teachers smelt and refine their students hundreds and thousands of times. Whenever the learner has any biased attachments or feelings of doubt, the teacher resolves them and breaks through them and causes the learner to penetrate through to the depths and let go of everything , so that the learner can realize equanimity and peace while in action. Real teachers transform learners so that they reach the stage where one cannot be broken, like a leather bag that can withstand any impact.

Only after this does the Zen teacher let the transformed student go forth to deal with people and help them. This is no small matter. If the student is incomplete in any respect, then the model is not right, and the unripe student comes out all uneven and full of excesses and deficiencies, and appears ridiculous to real adepts.

Therefore, in order to teach the Dharma, the ancient worthies worked for completeness and correctness, and clarity in all facets. This means inwardly having one's own practice as pure as ice and jade, and outwardly having a complete and well-rounded mastery of techniques, a perspicacious view of all conscious beings, and skill in interchange.

When such adepts met with potential learners, they examined each and every point in terms of the Fundamental. When the learners finally did understand, then the teachers employed techniques to polish and refine them. It was like transferring the water from one vessel into another vessel, with the utmost care not to spill a drop.

Among the methods the adepts employed, we see driving off the plowman's ox or taking away the hungry man's food. Unfathomable to spirits or ghosts, the genuine Zen adepts relied solely on the one great liberation. They didn't reveal the typical deformities of pretenders to enlightenment and "grow the horns characteristic of other species." At ease, without striving at contrived activity, they were true saints of discipline and virtue who had left behind the dusts of sensory attachments.

There is a saying by Bodhidharma: "Those whose actions and understanding were in accord we call spiritual ancestors."

A Great Adept looks at a Great Adept matter.

Zen Letters (Teachings of Yuanwu) is worth purchasing if you can find it.

Published by Shambhala Press. Translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary.

(May be available for purchase thru Amazon- Click Here)

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