Getting Buddha On The Dance Floor
All beauty is a bridge to God.
I bet Carl Jung could have made a good psychological argument to support that— those seven words in italic above. Moreover, really, the impetus of all we do is to get Buddha on the dance floor in some way; aka: have whatever moments of peace, fun, or love we can muster— pickpocket from the Sky or Existence. “The dance floor,” being our heart, being our ken.
And that is a wonderful word—ken. It’s primary definition is: the range of perception, understanding, or knowledge.
And as Hafiz says about the lovely:
The eye is so wise it keeps turning,
turning needing to touch beauty.
My last three blogs I would consider serious, as I wanted to address the current ongoing events that make me weep at times, as I am sure they have millions. And I feel I have addressed the world's horrific current events directly, but maybe in too sophisticated-theological-philosophical ways at times.
The word philosophy is a combination of two Greek words: philo (love), and sophia (wisdom). So philosophy can mean: the love of wisdom. Or the love of understanding. And understanding to my mind always leads to love, and freedom. But how might even Socrates be so saddened and feel so caged…by so much suffering from guns and bombs, and political and religious insanities.
Just in the last hour I was brought to tears, when I read a report of a person of faith, a woman patient in a hospital in Gaza—who had to have an amputation with no anesthesia, and she started screaming out: Why God! Why my dear God?
What a classroom we have all entered, those who read the news and who care, and who might consider themselves a person of faith or spiritual experience. I hope something in my last three blogs might be of some help, if only for a minute. I hope I have several blogs here that might help a bit in different ways.
But this blog I wanted to swing toward the other pole. For there is really so much beauty in this world: within our perceptions. Look how more vast is the sky than the earth; and we are really golden birds— and our spirit-wings meant to caress (and be caressed) by the wonders in the firmament— and be caressed and empowered by the wonders in our ideas of God.
All the above the Hafiz quote here, I sent the other day to an international spiritual web-chat-site I usually offer things to, like the above; and that "Buddha on the dance floor line" was new to me, it just popped in; and thus inspired the title to this blog I now want to expand upon.
I have written maybe some 7,000 or more free style haiku. And I would guess a couple hundred of those now begin with the same first words, being:
the moon asked about
her luminosity said ...
Then I have found I can fill in-out the rest of the haiku with a great range of thoughts and images, and maybe even some interesting insights at times. Especially with the word moon being synonymous with words like: Jesus, Buddha, Rama, the Cosmic Cowgirl, etc., as I would make clear in any book publication.
The Cosmic Cowgirl to the Rescue
I hope someone does a bestseller called that. You can have that title. My agent manages this website; all mail to “permissions” goes to her. Her name is Melissa. But if you use that title, you got to toss in a Danny Hafiz or Rumi poem. Or at least one of my haiku.
This blog title is partly incognito as it were. That is, it could be more spelled out, translated (to some circles) as:
Getting Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Baba*, A Golden Mountain,
A Fat Sweet Cat, Or Drunk Angel—On The Dance Floor!
(Or of course—The Cosmic Cowgirl)
Which could surely seem a worthy pursuit, with lots of possible perks and lasting benefits. And as mentioned above— in some ways we are always trying to do.
And that *Baba up there is Meher Baba whom I featured in one of my blogs here. In that blog, I share a very important and personal statement-experience of Hafiz, and more about my own living teacher, Eruch, who I feel has been, and still is vital to all I write.
I have been living in Taos, New Mexico, USA for the last ten years. Mirabai Starr, a well-known writer who also lives here, and I, put together an album (along with some friends) we then offered to the Lama Foundation as a life-time gift, so that all proceeds go directly to them. I like the title to that album a lot: The Mountains Hint At Our Beauty; and true they do!
On the album, (which can be downloaded for only $7) is a cut, a now famous Hafiz poem titled: “Perfect Equanimity,” in which I do a rare public reading. And I think via Bandcamp, where this album is primarily sold, you can get a free listen to that cut if wanted.
This is really a wonderful album, and I am proud to say…I am probably the worst reader on it, but thought I should pipe in a bit, and do on maybe 3 or 4 cuts. Also, on this link you can learn more about the Lama Foundation; it is where Baba Ram Dass in part wrote that famous book: Be Here Now. And he was one of the founder's of Lama; and they published his book first, and did a lot of the art work as well.
And this poem: “Perfect Equanimity” is really very significant; it really says so much. So much so, I think it could be Buddha or Jesus talking to us after hours in bar— and waxing like a beautiful full moon telling all the munchkins some great theological-philosophical truths. The poem to me is symbolic of a truly enlightened person's view of all that happens. And thus, I guess, surely ties in now with my last three blogs.
I guess for me, there is just no getting away from the current events of late. I need all the help I can get from Hafiz & Rumi.
That poem: “Perfect Equanimity” also appears in my Penguin anthology, Love Poems from God, on page 166 & 167. And here is the link to that book, which is now rather a classic in the spiritual literary landscape around the world. And in my last blog, I go into some of the history— genesis— of that book, which is dear to me.
There is a chapter in this anthology that includes Kabir (c.1440-1518). He was another great mystic poet, and to me, reached the marvelous heights of knowledge that Rumi & Hafiz did. And I just opened that book to find something to close this with, and in one of Kabir's poems he says:
I felt in need of a great pilgrimage,
so I sat still for three days and the
Sun came to orbit me, and has not
ceased.
—Kabir
And here is some verse from my rather vast unpublished work— renderings of Hafiz, which includes some 4,000 poems. I love the gentle, but still very sophisticated, nondualism aspect-advocate in these lines; or at least they can appear that way to me:
A bird and I are sitting on a throne,
a branch. With all the power of any
king, even in heaven.
We could change anything, we could
do miracles. But what is more of a
miracle then what ... is? Is! Is! May
appear?
—Hafiz
Wanting “change?” Could that be wanting to graffiti a Rembrandt? Might be best to get hooked up with a real Zen master, and be in a golf cart with him…heading down the 18th fairway on the moon after a great shot, to seriously wade into theology, nondualism, at that level.
Think we best just concentrate for now on: Getting Buddha onto the dance floor…and into our hearts, eyes, and ken. His tail is really sticking out from everywhere, and he wants us to grab hold of him— as do the earth the sun. Or is that— the sun, the earth, to give it life? They are great lovers, as we need to be with everything! Especially to each other!