I Have Such a Teacher
Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of Poverty:
Having nothing and wanting nothing.
I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,
clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,
billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.
A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.
Then the wind and thunder and rain on the way.
I have such a teacher.
-- Jalaluddin Rumi (Coleman Barks transl.)
Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of Poverty:
Having nothing and wanting nothing.
I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies,
clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,
billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.
A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.
Then the wind and thunder and rain on the way.
I have such a teacher.
-- Jalaluddin Rumi (Coleman Barks transl.)
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I love to imagine the sound of the ocean. One of my fantasies is to live in tower on a rocky island in the middle of the vast ocean listening all day to waves breaking upon the rocks (obviously a rather impractical fantasy but it makes for pleasant daydreams).
If I have difficulty sleeping, one of my methods of dealing with it is to start up a meditative breathing pattern (e.g. breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 2, breathe out for 4, hold for 2 etc) and then once the pattern has begun to flow naturally, I imagine myself seated upon a rock on sea coast such as Devon. I feel the roughness and solidity of the rock (I have always loved rocks, the way they feel, the texture, to feel the weight of a lump of weathered stone in my hand, to look at it closely and see the tiny grains or crystals of which it is composed). I feel the sea breeze and smell the salt air. As I watch the waves rolling it begins to rain (I love the rain and I especially love the sight of rain falling upon the sea and the hypnotic sound of the waves endlessly advancing and retreating upon the shore gradually takes me down into the land of winkin', blinkin' and nod.