When Richard and I last did a program together last summer, he made the comment, I believe I'm quoting you correctly, Richard, that Buddhism has been more concerned with what is rather than who is. And for Sufism, the who is absolutely central. And through a wonderful sense of synchronicity of language, the very word who is a central part of the Sufi practice. Because Sufism is mostly described as a path of love or a path of the heart.

[01:04]

And it is a path of relatedness or relationship. Inwardly, it is a relationship between the lover and the beloved. And that inner relationship is between the personality and the divine within. that relationship with the beloved can also appear outwardly, that it can be experienced in the relationship with another person, in the relationship with a facet of life, or in the relationship with nature, or the earth, the cosmos.

[02:09]

in Beziehung mit einer Facette des Lebens, in Beziehung mit dem Leben, mit der Natur, mit dem Kosmos. But it is a relationship of love. Es ist eine Beziehung der Liebe. And so therefore the beloved is very much a who. Deshalb ist der Geliebte sehr ein Er, ein Gegenüber. Because the who engenders connection, engenders relatedness and love. Now, central to Sufism is the heart. Both central in the sense of the heart is the way in Sufism. and the heart is also where one is centered in oneself the heart obviously because the heart is associated with the aspect of love and from the Sufi perspective the heart is uniquely human

[03:44]

And the heart is also the meeting place between the human and divine in us. So the living of one's life, the journey of one's path in Sufism is focused on the movement of that through the heart. And one could say the drama of the path or the seeking of the path is all about finding the beloved. But the great mystery is that the beloved is closer than one's own breath. And yet there is, through the process of life, the search for that which is in fact the very nearest to one. It is the very ground of one's being.

[04:57]

And where the path leads is perhaps beautifully expressed by the words of a Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi, When he said, become what you love. So the process is one in which one is drawn to the divine in what one loves. And in the journeying toward it, one is drawn nearer and nearer until one becomes what it is one loves.

[06:09]

So a deep part of the Sufi practice is to learn that one lives with another. To quote a particular kind of pure velayatism, that there is one inside of oneself who is more oneself than oneself. Now Carl Jung speaks about this aspect in a different language, but I think it has a relatedness. He speaks of the time in our journey where we discover that there is another who lives within inside of us, a much more significant, deeper other. And he refers to that other as the self.

[07:20]

The very choice of the word beloved for that other tells you something about the terrain of the Sufi path. And that the journey toward union with that inner beloved is a journey of transformation. Now, from the Sufi perspective, the most holy ground, shall we say, the most sacred ground there is upon this earth is in the heart of each human being.

[08:26]

And in our designing of mosques and temples and churches and various places of worship, From the Sufi perspective, what one sees is an externalization of the internal process of approaching the heart. And when we look at the different designs, whether they are churches, temples or cathedrals, they appear from the Sufi perspective as an externalization of this inner temple. So one could interpret a large part of Sufi practice as the practice of inner worship. In which the one who worships becomes that which he or she worships within the heart. And so, a little bit later, I'll lead a practice that has to do with that kind of articulation, how one approaches the inner divine.

[09:48]

But I'd like to start first of all with, I suppose it's... From my perspective, it's a kind of Sufi version of Zazen. And I've come to the conclusion that the Sufi way of doing it is through sighing. The other central word in addition to the who that one finds in Sufi practices is Allah. And part of the root word of Allah means to sigh toward.

[10:50]

So I would translate that as the sigh that moves one toward. And using Sufi language, toward the divine beloved or the divine within. Now why the sigh? Because as Richard beautifully mentioned this morning in the Buddhist tradition, there are certain gates. And the sigh in Sufism is a gate.

[12:00]

In fact, it's not just one gate, but it's many gates. You can move through the sigh into different regions of the heart. Because the sigh does two things very central to Sufism. It is the very practice of surrender. Of letting go. And also the sigh opens a deeper dimension of the heart. And The Sufis often take a poetic approach to their tradition.

[13:01]

And they describe the whole process of the creation as the sigh of divine compassion. So the sigh is used to describe the shall we say, the life itself, and it then is mirrored in us as a life practice. The Sufis speak of the languages of the heart, one of which is sighing. Another is tears. And another is laughter. And the tradition says that you can enter into or know the condition of a person's heart or being by the quality of their sighs

[14:04]

by their laughter and by their tears. Und eine andere Beschreibung ist die, dass wir die Qualität des Herzens eines Menschen erfassen können, indem wir sein Ausatmen, sein Lachen und sein Weinen kennenlernen. So I'd like to start with a very simple, but at least from my experience quite profound practice of sighing. Ich möchte also mit der einfachen Übung und doch sehr tiefgreifenden Übung des Ausatmens beginnen. So first we'll start with the verbal sigh. There's a way of sighing in which there is no sound. That's the inner sigh. So... You're allowed to laugh also, right? To cry. And that's the very purpose of the sigh is that it evokes the practice of what we would call the purification of the heart.

[15:36]

Just as I would understand that Zazen evokes something of the process of emptiness. The sigh empties the heart out. And in this sense, emptiness is very central to Sufism. Now, I think there are certain advantages and disadvantages to having a God in one's religious orientation. And I realize that for some people the word God and the concept of God becomes quite problematic. And perhaps that's why the word beloved is, for many people in the Sufi tradition, is a more evoking word than God.

[16:47]

But what I'd like to just note is the importance of having something to surrender to. Perhaps it correlates in the Buddhist tradition into what one takes refuge in. Now, there seems to be... a number of different viewpoints about what the word Sufi comes from. And interestingly enough, one of the viewpoints is that the word Sufi comes from the word sofa. So after a rather powerful dream I had of falling into a sofa, nach einem ziemlich machtvollen Traum, den ich hatte, wo ich in ein Sofa hineinfiel, scheint es mir, dass es einen großen Wert hat, dieses Bild zu verwenden.

[18:18]

Wenn ihr euch also für einen Moment vorstellen könnt, dass Gott oder der Sufismus ein großes Sofa ist, It seems to me that one spiritual path on one hand is profoundly serious and on the other hand should be wonderfully playful. So each of us take a moment to kind of imagine what would be the perfect sofa for us. Now this time as you sigh, Imagine yourself sinking into the sofa.

[19:25]

And as you, you can sigh, as you sigh, the sofa holds, supports, accepts and embraces you. And it's fine to laugh. Maybe the sofa helps you to laugh. So you can even use the sigh to sink deeper and deeper into the sofa. Just ah.

[20:26]

Ah. And we will continue for a few moments with the practice. Because if one works with the sigh or the sinking into the sofa, you may discover that the heart has a lot to release that one is unaware of. So the sigh may purify the heart of the kind of fatigue of life. or the tension of responsibility, or sometimes the weightedness of our psychological being,

[21:51]

And as one works with the sigh, you'll discover that your voice changes. Now as we continue with the sigh, let the breath become deeper and finer. And what one can discover is that the sofa is simply a metaphor for the heart.

[23:49]

That the image helps us to surrender into the depth of our own heart. And the sigh becomes a means of purifying the heart, of emptying it out, opening it up so we can move deeper into the heart. Now for the moment, refine the sigh to a point where it has no sound, but an inner sound.

[24:49]

Hear the sigh inside rather than outside. And in the process let the breath become finer and deeper. So with each sigh or each breath, there's a moving deeper into the heart.

[26:02]

And as the sighs proceed, not only does one explore the depth of the heart, but in that depth one finds a great emptiness and openness. the deeper one's capacity to surrender, the more the heart opens and the more the depth of that emptiness comes forward.

[28:04]

And from the Sufi perspective, the deeper our ability, our willingness is to surrender, the deeper we enter into this emptiness and openness. There is a kind of paradox in the emptiness. That in the emptiness, in the depth of the heart, there is a fullness in the emptiness.

[29:16]

And that fullness is sometimes in Sufism referred to as the divine presence or the who, the beloved or the friend. So having introduced the practice, we'll have some period of silence now Just continue working with the breath, the inner sigh, and the sinking into the depth of the heart.

[30:28]

If you find yourself striving or trying too hard, use the sigh as a way of letting that aspect go. And if you'd like to sigh, you're welcome to sigh.

[33:05]

Notice the difference in the quality of the sighs within the room. Just relax. Sufism, in describing its practice and its path, consistently uses the language of love.

[34:10]

So one way that kind of practice is described is that the first part of it you sweep clean the chambers of your heart. And that's the process of purification, of emptying out the heart. And then when the heart is empty, Sufism uses the language, one awaits the guest. There's a certain paradox in it, because it depends upon who's view you look at it from.

[35:12]

Who the guest is. Because for the part of us that sweeps clean the chambers of our heart and waits, the guest is the Divine Beloved that enters into the heart. But from the other viewpoint of the practice, the house is the house of the Divine Beloved, so the Divine Beloved is already there. So we're actually the guest who's waiting. I thought what I would do, since a number of you may be new to Sufism, is to just share some definitions that I have found helpful.

[36:27]

I think I left the folder in the car. One definition speaks of the Sufi aspires to a passionate love of God. So the words passion are central in Sufism. The word passion and love. And God is not the old man with the white beard. But the experience of this divine presence, this divine beloved.

[37:51]

And the second part of this definition is that the other part is to stand in awe or wonder at the creation. And the reason why the words awe and wonder are used is because that's reflective of an open heart that's responsive. to the presence of the Divine Beloved in the moment, in what is here and what is now. Another definition of Sufism is the heart purified from the pollution of discord.

[39:04]

So from that perspective, Sufism is a practice. It is the practice of purifying the heart. And Jalal ad-Din Rumi defines Sufism as the capacity to find joy in the heart when grief enters. My own interpretation of that is the capacity to, within the heart, find the ability to hold wholeness. Meine eigene Interpretation liegt darin, dass wir die Fähigkeit haben, im Herzen Ganzheit zu halten. Das Herz ist der Ort, wo Gegensätze gleichzeitig existieren können, koexistieren können.

[40:09]

So in a lot of Sufi poetry or music you will hear this amazing aspect of the heart where there is this co-mingling of a kind of, I guess one could say, pain and ecstasy. you can hear the opposites inside of each other, maybe is the best way I can say it. And then Hazudinat Khan defines the work of... the Sufi practitioner, quite simply, which he speaks of, the work is to find wisdom in each moment, in each step of life. Hasrat Inayat Khan describes the work of the Sufi seeker in a very simple way.

[41:23]

He says, the task is to find wisdom in every step. Leider habe ich die Zitate jetzt nicht da, aber sie machen für mich sehr deutlich, was die eigentliche Übung des Sufismus ist. Die erste Zeile davon lautet Du hast die dunklen Kammern meines Denkens erhellt. And so one hears immediately there is a thou, there is a relationship. And that thou acts upon one in a transforming way. And the rest of the poem is a process by which one discovers, for example, thy power is behind my every action.

[42:34]

Und im Rest des Gedichtes entdeckt man zum Beispiel, dass deine Macht hinter meinen Handlungen steht. Thy voice is audible in the words I speak. Deine Stimme ist hörbar in den Worten, die ich spreche. my very body is a cover over thy soul, beloved. And it ends with the kind of culmination of the process, or the poem is the discovery that thou art my very being. So that's something of the process of the terrain and it's love that sustains that transformational process. And from the Sufi perspective, the love is directed both ways.

[43:38]

The personality longs for a sense of union with that inner beloved. And the inner beloved is always drawing one to discover. And this line is very central in Sufism. And in fact one could say much of Sufism is built upon this simple line. I am a hidden treasure longing to be found. That there is a divine within us and the heart is the treasure chest.

[44:42]

And the whole journey of the life from the Sufi spiritual perspective is the seeking or the longing of that treasure to be found. So Sufism offers a kind of interesting perspective of the divine, which I'll amplify later on, but that the divine has a longing. And that longing is to be found, it's to be lived out. to be actualized or given expression to which is from the Sufi viewpoint the purpose of human life.

[45:59]

So I have a friend here who sings Sufi poetry and music and I think you'll hear in her singing much of what I've mentioned about the path of the heart and the Eine Freundin hier singt Sufi Gedichte und wir glauben, dass ihr daraus etwas von dem hören werdet, was ich beschrieben habe. I hate using mics but

[47:03]

Ah Nidabiru Yursu Uyan Mazmusu Ah Nidabiru Yursu Uyanmas musum We were strong caravans, we stayed on top of the mountains Oh Allah, Allah We were strong caravans, we stayed on top of the mountains

[48:27]

Delavlar çağrışır İnanmaz mısın Delavlar çağrışır İnanmaz mısın Güçtü kervan kaplık dağlar Başımda Allah Allah Güçtü kervan kaldık dağlar Başımda Bilbil olup dost bağımda öte gör Bilbil olup dost bağımda öte gör

[49:54]

Allah, Allah. Effendi min kervanuna yetega Effendi min kervanuna yetega Güçlü kervan kaldık dağlar başında Güçlü kervan kaldık dağlar başında

[51:12]

Yunus, why have you come to this world? Yunus, why have you come to this world? Allah, Allah. Evliyaya uramas isayolu Evliyaya uramas isayolu

[52:32]

Güçlü kervan kaldık dağlar başımda Güçlü kervan kaldık dağlar başımda So I would just like to close with some words of Jalaluddin Rumi.

[54:14]

It uses Sufi imagery, but I think the wisdom of the saying applies to any path. Come, come, whoever you are. Ours is not a caravan of despair. No matter if you've broken your vow a thousand times. Come. Come. looking at us in this tent with the top on it the way it is and hearing the rain come down for the second day in a row so we're all inside this tent reminds me of a line from the poet Jalaluddin Rumi

[55:34]

And he says put the lid on the pot turn the fire up and let yourself cook in the spiritual fire. And somehow at the moment This tent looks like the pot. And the rain is the fire that keeps getting turned up and up and up. It's the last session of the day. I realize that some of you are probably cold and stiff. Mir ist klar, dass manche unter euch vielleicht frieren und ihr etwas steif seid.

[56:46]

So, I'd like to combine some storytelling and some inner action among us, some inner meeting among us. Ich möchte eine Geschichte erzählen und das verbinden mit innerer Bewegung. And first I'd like to say that Richard and I have worked together now several times and just to express my appreciation for Joan's presence and what she has brought. And part of what she has brought is very much the feminine way of offering, the feminine way of giving. Because she has rooted the spirituality that she has offered in very deep personal stories.

[58:02]

And death not as an abstract practice, but death as a very intimate, immediate encounter in an individual and someone who loves them. And although Richard represents Zen Buddhism and spoke and the feminine, and spoke about the mind, I would just also share that to be a friend of Richard's, to really receive his friendship, is to experience the practice of the heart. And he may be somewhat embarrassed by my saying this, but Richard has a kind of tenderness and a caring for someone that to me is deeply representative of the practice of the heart.

[59:20]

And I say that so that we don't start making categories in that Zen Buddhism is about the mind and Sufism is about the heart. But at least for me, all the great traditions have within them wholeness. Earlier this summer I was here for the family camp. My wife and I were involved in teaching at the family camp. And I'm used to coming into the large tent and having it usually filled with silence.

[60:39]

So the first night I went to the family camp and it was the orientation night. And when I got to the tent, it was not filled with silence. Now, this for me was a very good lesson between what I may carry in a part of my mind and what reality is. I was never quite sure why I said yes to doing the family camp. I think primarily I said yes because I thought of it as an opportunity for my family and I to be together here.

[61:59]

But never did I imagine that when I would go in, the tent would be filled with about 30 children from one to about four. Aber nie hätte ich mir vorgestellt, dass als ich das Zelt betrat, dieses Zelt gefüllt war von etwa 30 Kindern im Alter zwischen 1 und 4 Jahren. Es war spät am Abend, die Leute waren weit gereist und einige Kinder weinten auch vor dem Zelt. And the parents had that kind of desperate look on their face that I know so well from being a parent. Like where you really would like your child to be quiet but it's the last thing in the world they're capable of doing at that moment. And at that moment, this thought welled up inside of me.

[63:19]

God, this is another mess you've gotten me into. Now, as I said earlier, there are certain advantages and disadvantages to having a God. One of the advantages is in a situation like that, you can kind of blame it on God. Maybe some of you have seen this American comedy team from an earlier time called Laurel and Hardy. Vielleicht kennen einige von euch dieses amerikanische Komödienteam, Laurie and Hardy. And the little guy is always saying to the big guy, this is another fine mess you've gotten me into. Und der Kleine sagt immer zum Großen, das ist wieder eine Art von Scheiße, in die du mich hineingebracht hast.

[64:30]

Now, at that very moment, I also had another thought come up inside of me. And that was, and you better show me a way out of this. Because I all of a sudden realized there was no way that I could talk about the God ideal and the beloved to a two, three or four year old. And all the terminology and language that I've spent years trying to understand and develop about Sufism and the articulation was at that moment of no avail. And I could see on everybody's faces, if something didn't happen, we were going to be in big trouble for a whole week.

[65:38]

And then came one of those wonderful moments of grace. There's a central practice in Sufism, which is called the zikr. And one form of the zikr, which I often lead, you combine two names of God, which are Allah and Hu. And the Allah, first of all, the Ah sound opens the heart chakra. And out of that opening, shall we say, comes the who, the divine presence.

[66:38]

So at that moment, God very graciously responded by giving me a new form of the zikr to share. So I'd like to pass it on to you. Now, it means that each of you have to turn and find a partner. Okay? To practice this special sikha, you have to remember what Christ said, to follow the way of the child.

[67:58]

And it's also a wonderful way to kind of break one's spiritual persona. So we'll just demonstrate it and then you can do it. I don't know it. That's fine. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. It's also a good way to get warm. Okay, here we go. Ah... Ah... Ah... Find a new partner.

[69:22]

We may have to move a little closer as the water comes into the arc from the edge. So the people on the sides aren't sitting in water. Last evening, individually, Richard and Joan both asked me the same question or made the same observation.

[71:27]

They said to me, every time we turn around, you're in the midst of hugging somebody. And individually, they both asked me how I felt about that. And I actually am quite appreciative of the question. Because I actually find a conscious embrace for me is a very deep spiritual practice. And just as Richard described how the very posture of sitting in Zazen reflects the practice and the orientation of the tradition, I would say for me, an embrace, when truly done, is reflective of the practice of the heart.

[72:40]

Because first of all, to embrace, I have to literally open myself. And I have to make room to take the other inside me. into that home that Joan was speaking about, into the inner home of my heart. And when the embrace is really the essence of the practice, what I offer to the other is the sofa of my heart. And there one is invited in a certain sense to take refuge in that sofa. And at the same time, when the practice is a genuinely shared practice, I am invited into the home of the heart of the other.

[74:05]

And I am given refuge. And I find in the way I'm held, I find the sofa. Now, I'm also reminded what Christ said about prayer, not to make it vain repetition. So the embrace when it's a true spiritual practice from the Sufi perspective, is not when it's an empty form. Or when it's imposed upon the other. Or that it's because the thing you do when you're with Sufis at the Sufi camp.

[75:36]

Then it's in danger of losing its authenticity as a spiritual practice. Jalaluddin Rumi in one of his poems said, Oh, for a friend to mingle his soul with mine. And that to me is what the practice of the embrace is about. It's why it is a practice of the heart. And that is what it is about in this practice of the embrace. This is a practice of the heart. And at that moment, if it's an authentic embrace, there is the sense of meeting the soul of another. And at the same time, one of the great gifts of the practice is in meeting the soul of another I become aware of my own soul.

[76:37]

As Hazrat Inayat Khan said, heart speaks to heart, soul speaks to soul. So the embrace can be a means, a passage, a gate by which hearts meet, souls meet. Now, there's also sometimes a greeting in traditional Sufism between one practitioner and another. And the greeting is a word, Ya'azim. And it's translated when it's used as a greeting as how beautifully does God appear before me as you.

[77:53]

So the embrace is an opening in which the divine appears before one, but in a marvelously tangible way, a way that I can embrace and feel even physically. And also, from the Sufi perspective, one of the ways the world is perceived is as the intermingling of divine qualities.

[78:57]

Now it is said that Shams Tabriz, who is the teacher of Jalal ad-Din Rumi and the source of inspiration for all of his poetry, said in a kind of deep moment in his heart, a prayer, he asked God, if he could meet one of God's beloveds. And by that is meant one in whom I can see and experience the divine presence and the divine qualities. So compassion and beauty and the whole gamut truth of divine qualities, not as an abstraction, but as met in a very tangible, immediate encounter.

[80:07]

So another way it is a spiritual practice, at least my experience of it, is in meeting each person when it is an authentic embrace, is a way of encountering some facet of the divine quality that stands before me. And the one I embrace who brings the livingness of that divine quality into my being, evokes a divine quality as a response within me. Now, Suthism also speaks about the human being in a way that has a similarity to what struck me when Richard said, we bring mountain mind to the mountains.

[81:31]

We bring mountain mind to the mountains. From the Sufi perspective, the purpose of the human being is to make God aware of the being of God. So maybe we could say that, and I'm playing with language here, that God is... And the human being, from the Sufi perspective, makes God conscious of what God is. So from a Sufi perspective, in the depth of the embrace is also the possibility that in the experience of my heart in encountering the other, God becomes aware of the beauty within God as the other.

[82:58]

And in my... seeing the face of the other. And Sufism is very much concerned with that which transpires behind that which appears. In seeing the divine in the face of the other, At that moment, God sees God's Self through my eyes. And here I'm using very much Sufi language. I realize it can sound quite cumbersome, but this sense of, in a certain state of consciousness, the human being It becomes the eyes of God.

[84:09]

So that for me is why the embrace is a spiritual practice. And it also has to have an element, which I find the Buddhist tradition brings with such perfection. The embrace also has to have a clarity of mind about it. So in a certain sense, as Joan was speaking earlier about not getting over-identified or over-lost in the experiences that she had, there also has to be a way that one stands in the embrace

[85:24]

And the term in Sufism is to stand in the security of the heart and not get overwhelmed by the embrace. My family and I have been living in England this year and one of the things I have felt very much in trying to understand the, shall we say, the soul of England is that at least on a mythological level, there's some place where the soul of England is deeply identified with the Grail myth, Parsifal and the Grail myth.

[86:34]

And if you're familiar with the myth, Parsifal goes into the Grail Castle the first time and he drinks from the Grail but he forgets to do the most essential thing which is to ask the two questions that will heal the Fisher King. Aber er vergisst das Wesentliche, er vergisst die beiden Fragen zu stellen, die den König heilen können. And the questions are, what is the Grail and whom does the Grail serve? Und die Fragen sind, was ist der Grail und wem dient der Grail?

[87:32]

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