Beyond right and wrong
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoings or rightdoings,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to think about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense."
These beautiful words of Rumi (tr. Coleman Barks and John Moyne) resonate in the heart long before reason sets in and asks "what does this mean?" In this article it is my plan however to allow the faculty of reason flight to analyse this poem, as it leads us to awakening to our true nature, which is not the job of reason at all but of the heart and whole body surrendering at last to what truly IS.
In the phrase, "beyond ideas of wrongdoings or rightdoings" Rumi is immediately pointing us to the world of opposites through the justaposition of two opposing poles, right and wrong. Also, he simultaneously points us beyond that. Perhaps he could have chosen any opposties, hot and cold, life and death, misery and ecstasy. On one level any opposites would do, for it is beyond the world of opposites that he intends to point us. However he chose wrongdoings and rightdoings. Why was that? I think it is because there we have moralising and sermon making, the stuff of religious dogma. Rumi is also pointng us beyond religion.
Then comes another soul tugging expression: "when the soul lies down in that grass" is redolent with surrender. What happens? We have the line "the world is too full to think about." The world is that place where the opposites operate.
The world of opposites is a world in which everything appears as duality, opposites springing up all over. When we occupy a state of being in duality we will be buffeted by the opposites, sometimes getting caught up in one half of the oppoistes and feeling the distress of not experiencing the other side, as when we are caught up in sadness or fear, and have lost access to joy and courage. Beyond the world of opposites (wrong and right), when we surrender into that field of grass, "ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense," surrendering to that which is beyond, separateness dissolves.
This is precisely non-dual recognition.
"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep."
Now we switch metaphors. in spiritual discourse we keep talking about awakening. Note that it is an active kind of word, the present continuous verbal form indicates something that is happening now and still and ongoing. Dawn is a transitional period, the liminal state between night and day, when the diurnal creatures, as we naturally are, wake up. There is an urgency in Rumi's tone, "Don't go back to sleep". The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell and you must ask for what you really want. You need to be familiar with your heart's deepest yearning, you need to bring that out into the open, don't deny it!
He continues:
"People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
Yes, people are awakening and falling asleep again! The two worlds, one of duality and one of non-duality, touch in this metaphor of the liminal state of dawn, now recast as a doorsill, the place neither in or out.
It is so common. We have a glimpse of that which is beyond the door, a brief recognition of the truth of non-duality, then the world of duality closes in around us, we have gone back to sleep in other words. "don't go back to sleep" Rumi entreats us.
This round and open door is the gateless gate of Zen. It is constructed of concepts and the deeply rooted belief in otherness and separation, yet when one has passed it and lost all sense of other, there is no gate, there never was. The barrier to making the shift permamently into the non-dual state is the incredible stickiness of our sense of selfhood in the limited sense of other than others. Out beyond this door, beyond the opposites, there is a field, a field of non-dual awareness. Lying down in that grass we are beyond duality, simply being as Consciousness itself, emanating experience.
The references to the liminal states in this poem bring to mind the states we achieve in yoga nidra, and for sure, in yoga nidra we have a practice of liminality, (if that is a word, it is now,) which is very powerful. Yoga nidra, when we travel through it fully alert, brings us to "dawn" and the "doorsill" of our being, it is such a powerful place, we can fall over into that field of non-duality so easily there, if we surrender to it. The only thing that might be holding us back is the strong idea of separate self, "I-ness". Keep practising. Eventually I-ness will surrender to the Truth.
Practice extends even into everyday life. Being attentive to whatever truly is, that's the key. Start with sensation, trace back to the awareness aware of sensation, be with whatever is here before thought, or in spite of thought. Thought happens, where does it happen? In Awareness. Sensation happens. Where does it happen? In Awareness. tastes, smells, light, colour, shapes, sounds all happen, where do they happen? In Awareness. That which is percieved, is in Awareness. So go to that Awareness, go there. That's the practice. Do it any time, all the time, and come to dwell in that field beyond the world of duality. practising.