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“Rumi” Meets The Lama
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Well, a long, long time ago, I climbed the Himalayas and complained to the Dali Lama up there in Tibet that life was hell. He said “Get lost! Go make a heaven of hell and then me tell. The door is never shut on the prison cell, so, why would you ever stay inside?”

Well, I will return there, someday, some year, saying “Hello Dali, I bring you some tales of heaven on earth—of my friend, in whose fragrance I am now drenched, one who could even tell Life how to live.”

Well, do wonders never cease—our New Hamburg Cafe, my “office”, has closed, but, its Garden of Peace and Serenity, surrounded on three sides by 30-foot rocks, the “Himalayas”, is still open, and, anyway, it’s time to move my “office” outdoors, not that I would ever do any W-O-R-K there, for that is a four-letter word to a retired person.

The Cafe was an American-Korean restaurant recently, run by Sin-Ha and Su-Nee, but, before that, it was run by (and is still owned by) the Buddhists, mostly by the Buddha Girls from the monastery on Shafe Road, home to one of only two Lamas in the entire United States, and the only Lama on the east coast.

The Cafe was called “Himalayas on the Hudson” and the Lama often came to eat there, with his entourage of higher-ups and bodyguards. Because I was there often, as well, I got to know the Lama, his bodyguards soon retreating, and I taught him how to do high fives and low fives and such and so we we began to talk about the connectedness that underlies all things, the reaching of which state through the removal of all thoughts during meditation is the very heart of Buddhism.

In addition, I always gave him the weather for the rest of the day and for the next day, always saying that it would become sunny if it was raining, and that it would be still sunny if it was already sunny. And if it was really raining forever, we both knew that it was sunny on the inside.

I remember, thinking upon first meeting him that “here he is”, the great one, and so I have a chance to ask a deep question of him without having to go over to Tibet or India and climb up a mountain, so, I pointed to an article in the newspaper that said “We may never know who won the Presidential election, Bush or Gore” and I asked him for his wisdom on the matter. Well, he thought for only a second or two and said “Who cares!”, and such it sunk into me later that this was a great wisdom, indeed.

The Cafe workers, the Buddha girls, didn’t wear the flowing gold and reddish robes that the visiting Buddhists wore, but wore regular clothes and had long hair, and many of the hectic type customers, unknowing of this, wondered at the peace and joy that the workers radiated like some sort of serenity field, and I suppose these workers were chosen for their outgoingness as well.

I talked with them about string theory, the theory that the differing vibrations of really small strings gives rise to all of the elementary particles and forces, and, so, we related this to all that is absolute and fundamental beneath this projection of reality in which we live out our life-dream.

Buddhism is not a religion, but a way of life, and they can still have friends, outside jobs, sex, and whatfor, although some of them spend a lot of time on the inner world which, like meditation, can only be described as “not what you think”.

So, miracles of miracles, today, after saying good-bye to the Koreans at the Cafe and taking home 50 eggs and many bags of chocolate chip cookies, I went back to the Cafe garden to sit under an umbrella table in the rain, and there was the old Lama himself, just sitting there alone, having just shown the building to someone who might lease it.

I hadn’t seen him in 6 months, for he had been off to other continents. He gave me a medium high five and I told him that the sun would be out tomorrow, and that it was always sunny on the inside. Then I told the Lama about the one who had recently sprung into another level of being, literally by “dying into life” and saying to him: She blossoms, so colorfully, like a spring flower, because the energy was in the bulb all along, deep within her, life’s music wanting to sing through her, and, so, now it has begun.

He nodded for me to continue.

There, on some remoter shore of human soul
To which I helped restore life and spirit,
I learned that love was the only flame that lit
This life—for she had taught me how to give it.

What once I was has dimmed, physically,
But, I am a star, still bright in the night,
Though, when the sun rises, I disappear into her.
For no one looks for the stars when the sun is out.

No, I did not just disappear—I am just completely soaked in her qualities.

Now I drink from her spring of eternal youth.

Do I feel some memory of elsewhere?
Do I dare to look toward the setting sun?
No, I’ll pretend that it’s coming up.
It shines through me, illuminating me.

I am reenergized.
I am glowing bright.
I am becoming a supernova.

There is a longing,
Between Body and Soul,
That reassures us
When we go with the flow,
And tugs at us when we don’t. . .

That is the mind within the mind.

I drink the very wine that moves me.
I freely let life’s spirit play through me.
I live its rhythm and music.

Life, though anguishing sometimes,
Must be lived fully,
For that is all we have.

The world crashes, out there,
But the flowers grow, in here.
For I am the garden.

(And the Lama said to me):
“Rumi lives.”

“Yes”, I answered, “Rumi lives again in the heart of his friend. I just read a book on him and so I am quoting him.”

“He never left—it is him, and you, too.”

“His spirit wanders ‘long the Milky Way,
With an houri, life’s moments drank away
In some sweet wood far from the noise of day—
Where with her he yet lives, sings, laughs, and plays.”

“What do we seek?”

“We long for the source—the human soul turns inward to find its way home.”

“Why do we wander around in the middle of the night?”

“Well, if I knew the answer to that, I would have been home hours ago.”

“Where would that be?”

“I don’t know. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.”

“How do we see this “home”?”

“Close both eyes, to see with the other eye.”

“How do we hear of it?”

“Listen—the blossoms drop their blessings all around.”

“What quenches our thirst?”

“Break the wineglass, and fall toward the glassblower’s breath.”

“Why?”

“We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours it.”

“Where is the Light?”

“There is a light seed grain inside you. You fill it with yourself, or it dies.”

“Where do we go, do we climb mountains—the Himalayas?”

“A mountain is but a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness.”

“And what of her, your beloved?”

“There is a window open between us, mixing the night airs of our beings.”

“How’s that?”

“Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I meet her there.”

“And then do we see the light of day?”

“This day that I seek is outside of living and dying.”

“Do we not tire, always walking and looking?”

“At first, I did, yes, but then came a moment of feeling the wings I’d grown, lifting.

“We fly?”

“The rhythm lifts me—the living music plays through me.”
“From. . .?”

“It was fully fashioned even before it came into being, like an idea.”

“What do we feast on?”

“I am tasting the taste of eternity this minute.”

“Are we not afraid.”

“I have long since wet my robe in the shallow water. Now, I dive deeper, under, and naked under, and deeper under the surf. The drop becomes the Ocean.”


(Some months passed, and, later, upon return, after a long time, and seeing the Lama once again.)

“Where have you been?” asked the Lama of me.

“Well, everywhere, and nowhere. I did not cease from exploration, and after all my exploring I have returned to the place that I started from, but now I know the place for the first time.”