"Only Breath
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being."
Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, (tr. Coleman Barks), p. 32
OK, so I mentioned the Sufis yesterday, so naturally I was drawn to writing one or two (or more) posts on them. In one of Nasr's books he opines that he's not a big fan of the Barks's Rumi translation because in the push to make them more accessible he fears that the more profound aspects are lost or at least cheapened (the Barks translations are incredibly popular). Nasr may be being a tad grumpy, but I think he makes a great point. An odd comparison could be made to the Arthur Waley's translation, entitled Monkey, of Wu Ch'eng-En's classic Journey to the West. Waley both introduced the work to a broader audience in the West, but also cut out most of the poetry and a lot of more profound ruminations on Buddhism: the result is an eminently enjoyable work, but also one that lacks the spiritual power of the original; essentially it becomes a collection of stories of Monkey fighting monsters and the deeper Buddhist quest for enlightenment is diluted. Having said all that, I still have a soft spot to the Barks translation of Rumi because it was my introduction to the works of the Sufi master. This particular poem hints at the more romantic love I discussed yesterday, but also gets at the more transcendent nature of faith. As is hinted at in the Quran, there are many paths to God.
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being."
Rumi, in The Essential Rumi, (tr. Coleman Barks), p. 32
OK, so I mentioned the Sufis yesterday, so naturally I was drawn to writing one or two (or more) posts on them. In one of Nasr's books he opines that he's not a big fan of the Barks's Rumi translation because in the push to make them more accessible he fears that the more profound aspects are lost or at least cheapened (the Barks translations are incredibly popular). Nasr may be being a tad grumpy, but I think he makes a great point. An odd comparison could be made to the Arthur Waley's translation, entitled Monkey, of Wu Ch'eng-En's classic Journey to the West. Waley both introduced the work to a broader audience in the West, but also cut out most of the poetry and a lot of more profound ruminations on Buddhism: the result is an eminently enjoyable work, but also one that lacks the spiritual power of the original; essentially it becomes a collection of stories of Monkey fighting monsters and the deeper Buddhist quest for enlightenment is diluted. Having said all that, I still have a soft spot to the Barks translation of Rumi because it was my introduction to the works of the Sufi master. This particular poem hints at the more romantic love I discussed yesterday, but also gets at the more transcendent nature of faith. As is hinted at in the Quran, there are many paths to God.
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