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.








The Guest House

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.




Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.






Two Friends

A certain person came to the Friend's door
and knocked.
"Who's there?"
"It's me."
The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place
for raw meat at this table."

The individual went wandering for a year.
Nothing but the fire of separation
can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned
completely cooked,
walked up and down in front of the Friend's house,
gently knocked.
"Who is it?"
"You."
"Please come in, my self,
there's no place in this house for two.
The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through
the eye of the needle.
It's a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end,
not a big ego-beast with baggage."






Love is reckless; not reason.

Reason seeks a profit.

Love comes on strong,

consuming herself, unabashed.



Yet, in the midst of suffering,

Love proceeds like a millstone,

hard surfaced and straightforward.



Having died of self-interest,

she risks everything and asks for nothing.

Love gambles away every gift God bestows.



Without cause God gave us Being;

without cause, give it back again.








Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.






A Smile and A Gentleness

There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not

to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.





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.



I have phrases and whole pages memorized,
but nothing can be told of love.
You must wait until you and I
are living together.
In the conversation we'll have
then...be patient...then.





When your chest is free of your limiting ego,
Then you will see the ageless Beloved.
You can not see yourself without a mirror;
Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.





The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.






When you find yourself with the Beloved, embracing for
one breath,
In that moment you will find your true destiny.
Alas, don't spoil this precious moment
Moments like this are very, very rare.





Two Kinds of Intelligence

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.





Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky
And you lift me up out of the two worlds.
I want your sun to reach my raindrops,
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.







I am a sculptor, a molder of form.

In every moment I shape an idol.

But then, in front of you, I melt them down

I can rouse a hundred forms

and fill them with spirit,

but when I look into your face,

I want to throw them in the fire.