You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I’ve been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
that now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart–
oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God — spend them however you want.

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Original Language German, English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

I’m conscious as I write that there are times in our lives where we can engage easily with positive ideas such as those often expressed in this blog, and there are times when this feels so very far away from where we are. At those times it can feel like the rest of the world are on another planet that is worlds away. It’s a very lonely place to be. Perhaps this poem is for those who feel this loneliness and devastation. It’s a gift from Rilke for anyone living one of those times now, from a man who knows that place.

The poem is incredibly creative and vivid in how it describes the feeling of this. A heartbreaking description of despair and the journey of compassion. The scattered pieces remind me of the story of the Tibetan Buddhist deity of compassion Chenrezig (Avolakiteshvara) and his moment of shattering into a thousand pieces at the foot of the mythical Mount Meru. After witnessing the suffering of countless multitudes of beings for eons, so it is said, Chenrezig was devastated and his body literally shattered. In the poem the brokenness, the scattering, the toxic, gutted and torn self is conveyed as the starting point, a ground zero – and also the ground of the prayer. In the story of Chenrezig he shapeshifts. His thousand shattered pieces become 1000 arms with an eye in the palm of each of his hands making him a supercharged force for compassion in the world.

On a more personal level Rilke is suggesting that, rather than clinging to a sense of self that is broken, perhaps we can surrender, placing the fragments of our broken self in the great hands of the Awesome One (or whatever name you choose).

For me it is the last few lines that pierce my heart. A feeling I know as compassion floods in. Deeply painful yet utterly and exquisitely human, a humble unbearably tender love that looks raw reality in the eye. I know how important it is to let myself feel this.

Questions are openings, beginnings and possibilities. Here are some questions that you may like to sit with:

Could you imagine placing the fragments of your life in the great hands of a Universal Heart?

Could you find yourself again, amongst the pieces of your shame?

Could you imagine letting go so deeply, that you allow the truth of your lack of control over yourself and your life to be as it is?

And from here, might a different kind of possibility for choice and action then come into view?

Ps. If you feel drawn towards compassion practice and have a previous training in mindfulness you may like to join our next Level 2 Responding with Compassion course.

If you’d like to connect with poetry in a mindful way there are two upcoming opportunities available. Mindfulness Meets Mystical Poetry 6 week course and Mystical Poetry for Slow Time retreat day.

The image is a detail from here.

Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

by Matsuo Bashō, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

What a simple set of words by the 17th-century Japanese haiku master Bashō, and yet what a world they open into! A world of effortlessness, of non-doing, maybe even of no doer. Which seems very appealing in the face of busyness and the sense of things being hard work at times. But obviously, striving for effortlessness will only get me further away from it. What does seem to help, is occasionally dropping the question in: could I do less? or: can I use less effort? Can I trust the grass growing by itself, a little bit more? This may not exactly be transcending the ‘doer and deed’ as described in Buddhist teachings, but it can make a surprising difference.

Shall we sit for a while, quietly, doing nothing – and see what happens?

PS if you’d like to sit together quietly, doing approximately nothing, there’s a new level 1 mindfulness course starting soon… because although it’s simple, it’s not always easy, and it helps to do it together!

Photo by Валерия on Unsplash

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

by Thomas Merton

There’s something about this poem, by American Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968), that helps me to feel a sense of stillness and silence that is fathoms deep. There is groundedness (the stones seem to take me there) and there is also mystery (the stones speaking, the Unknown). But then, all of a sudden, in the last stanza, there is a raging fire. What a contrast! I’d like to attempt to reveal to you, and to myself in the writing, what this means to me.

To begin with, I’m fascinated by the phrases in brackets, which seem to be speaking with another voice, maybe from within the poet. Is it the cynical, unbelieving, reticent part of him? Or maybe he’s taking account of the reticent response that could come from the reader. One of my responses to the poem was indeed something like: “Stones speaking? World on fire? I don’t get it. This is all too ‘poetic’ for me! Stones don’t speak!”

Merton’s answer to someone in this position is an encouragement to trust yourself to be able to leave the literal meaning of the words behind and to listen beyond the words – in short to be mindful. To ‘let the words become transparent to the depths that lie beyond’, as priest Simon Small beautifully puts it when speaking about the art of contemplation. When I listen to the poem like this, this is what happens: I’m taken into silence and stillness with a solid, ancient feel. But there’s a voice that keeps questioning. Then I’m on the edge of the unknown and need to release the voice and dare ‘to be my own silence’. I do so, and a sense of the wild wonder of existence roars in and is within and all around me. I give myself to the feel of this awesomeness.

For a long time, I’ve not really understood the last stanza and have even missed it out when sharing the poem because I was attached to the stillness and didn’t want the fire! But I think I’m getting there with it now after pondering, observing my response to it and allowing the words to become transparent to the depths beyond. Perhaps when you’re still enough, you can, on occasion, feel the incredibly intense wonder of existence as if it were like a fire – the creative and destructive force of life. This reminds me of T.S. Elliot’s famous lines ‘And so the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing’.

This poem is a journey. As many poems are. This is where it took me. I wonder where it might take you?

Ps. If you feel attracted towards receiving the wisdom of the world’s poets both ancient and contemporary and you’d like to experiment with how mindfulness can enable a deeper experience of it, come along to the next Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry 6 week course starting in late May, or to a day long retreat in July (both online). Both are open to all.

Photo by David Bayliss on Unsplash