Poem: Rumi’s “The Guest House”
I came late to the party of Rumi’s poetry, but I’m beginning to think that I’ll end up being one of those guests who sticks around too long and doesn’t leave until long after politeness requires it. Rumi (a Sufi who lived much of his 13th century life in what is now Turkey) is the perfect Buddhist poet, even moreso because he was a Muslim.
Jack Kornfield, whose gift is to quilt blankets of wisdom from the narratives around him, makes a lot of use of Rumi. One of Kornfield’s messages has to do with your body. He reminds us of how much time we and others spend on gerbil wheels at the gymn, starving ourselves to be thin, having flesh removed from parts we want to be smaller and moved to parts we want to be bigger.
"It’s a rental," says Kornfield. "We’re all just renting. Would you put a new kitchen into a rental house?" The point: Lighten up. If you spill a little soda on a rental carpet, you wipe it up, sure, but you don’t rent a steam cleaner. Your body isn’t your temple. Your lease could run out at any time.
Rumi adds a layer to this. Your body isn’t just a rental, it’s a guest house. It has visitors. You may not find them all to be congenial, but you should welcome them all.
Rumi’s "The Guest House"
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
—trasnlated by Coleman Barks
This is a great Rumi poem, but I am not sure that what you have written captures the depth or mystery of the poem. And the comment attributed to Jack Kornfield regarding the body being “a rental” and the point you make that the body is not a temple could be misleading. Many “spiritual” teachers often deny our embodied selves, and spend alot of time trying to transcend this material world and the sensory world of the body. Taken further, many “spiritual” teachers also deny the material world adopting, like Eckhardt Tolle, something called space consciousness, whatever this means.
In my view, Rumi’s poem is not about the body – it is about how our whole being is visited by “joys, depressions, meanness or sorrows”. We need to welcome all these states of being, and not try to get rid of them, as is the modern way. And again, “spiritual” teachers often teach about the light, and try to push away the dark. We need to embrace both the light and the dark, our shadow side. We can learn alot about ourselves if we welcome all vistors, say hello to whatever is with us (be it sorrow or joy), and embrace our various states of being. And we should also welcome and be at home with our bodies, which are, indeed, temples in which we should celebrate our very existence. If not in our bodies, where else?
@Peter — thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
At school Rumi was mostly famous for being the most expensive book you were forced to buy
Really? The most expensive book I ever bought –well, it was a cdrom by that time — was a 500$ copy of the OED. I bought it for myself as a graduation present when I finished the phd — to this day, it ranks up there with my old jeep as one of my all time favorite purchases.