Daniel Ladinsky

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Eat More Ice Cream

We can get there, as this very playful Hafiz poem points out, on this link. Maybe eating more ice cream will help; or trying to sit in Buddha's mind & heart for a couple minutes a day in meditation; or forgiving enough; or loving enough so that you become so light you can perch on a tiny branch with a bird and sing.

I heard a great story about this poem, that appears in two of my Hafiz books. In A Year With Hafiz it is on page 237.

That story was: A few years ago, a world famous spiritual teacher was dying. And someone close to him asked: "What is happening with your Beloved these days?” And this famous Zen-like teacher playfully quoted this short Hafiz poem.

Yeah, we will all get there, for as we evolve toward the threshold of Oneness, existence becomes a “tiny boat,” in that there becomes only you and God in it. And the great bumping starts— the great knowing laughter.

And never met “Bill J”; though thought he did some fine expounding on the poem. People all the time reprint my published work, and glad they do. I’m glad they are helping Hafiz to bump into more. May he help your heart and eyes and sounds to dance!

This page seems so short. Was gonna end with that last paragraph; but not now. So this. 

I posted some of my unpublished Hafiz verse recently on some international spiritual email group, and I myself was touched by the verse and felt in some ways it distilled Hafiz— I felt it defined somewhat, his remarkable role for centuries, and his extraordinary abilities. 

The last half of the poem is a perfect example of how I sometimes feel Hafiz says things from an angle and great Truth hardy anyone could really grasp or appreciate. But here it is, more of that unpublished work, until now: 

It decided to break its silence, the 

golden mountain. And the song I 

heard Her sing, I now weave into 

my own for you. 

I am so, so close to your holy body.

Moreover, God and I are a limb on 

your heart.

And we say thanks for our being,

for our being— your soul created.

— Hafiz

For over 600 years Hafiz has been known in the Persian culture as The Tongue of the Invisible. Or the one who speaks for God; the “golden mountain” is a synonym. And the idea of God saying thanks to us, what does a person do with that? Except maybe at some point become so still, you reach the threshold of Absolute Knowing, of being Everything. Of being Everything! 

Another beautiful and now very famous line of Hafiz goes:

I am a hole in a flute that the Christ's breath

moves through —listen to this music. 

Ahhh music! Ahhh partying! Ahhh Ice Cream! And the trying to be light enough, laugh enough, love enough to perch like the moon in the sky.