THE TEA HUT DISCOURSE
ON STILLNESS ( YIN –SHADE)
Last week we are blessed by Allah Taala to be invited and hear the discourse of Master Izi, the founder and sagely caretaker of Dailin Nur Tea Institute, Miyazaki Prefecture situated in South east of Kyoto, Japan. He asked one of his Malaysian student Zuigan to read several passages from the renown modern sufic text – The Hundred Steps written by a contemporary Darqawi Sufi Master from the West – Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi which he personally met and granted the special idhin or permission to revive the old decayed and remnants of Zen Shobozenbo school in the East.
Master Izi other close associates and occidental Japan scholars in the early 1970s are T.Izutsu, D.Suzuki, Dr.Sachiko Murata, Nakura Nakajima, Narushi Kawabata and Eka Kurashowa. Here are the excerpt of discourses that jolted down and retype again by petit Masako San :
One – Between Madness and Stillness
Sidi Zuigan read the text from page 38 of The Hundred Steps :
“ Sufism or the Path begins as a madness; its middle is a science (specific knowledge);
its end is stillness”. In arabic, it is junun, funun and sukun.
Master Izi commented – ‘How are we going to define what is madness in our society today ? Do we had to rely on descriptions by medical doctors, the psychiatrists and the psychologist like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Boss, RD Laing and Eric Fromm ? Or we can learn from the famous sufic metaphor of madman Majnun and his lover Layla ? In the European, we also had the Italian version of Romeo and Juliet. Is madness relative to what we want to see and what destruction or confusion it brought on its initially unsuspected encounters ? Eric Fromm book got its famous title as ‘The Sane Society’. The great German thinker philosopher F.Nietzsche who finally succumbed to madness had written several brilliant books such as – Thus Spoke Zarathustra (A book for everyone and no one), Ecce Homo , Beyond Good and Evil, The Gay Science and The Wanderer and Its Shadow. How we wish to walk, travel, listen and response to Zarathusra sagely sermons !
“One can be silent and sit still only when one has arrow and bow (long reach);
otherwise one babbles and quarrels. May your peace be a victory !
I do not spare you, I love you from the deep heart, my brothers in war ! “
It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it STATE: they hang a sword and a hundred desires over them. The state is the coldest monster. Coldly it lies, too and this lie creeps from its mouth: ‘ I , the state, am the people !’. Now open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.
In wickedness, the arrogant and the weak man meet. But they misunderstand one another. I know you. Here the metamorphosis, your spirit becomes a lion; it wants to capture freedom and be a master in its own desert. A light dawned on me : I need companions, living ones.
Sidi Zuigan read on : “ Kufr itself is a madness, a refined one because it cannot see itself wrong. The state as told by Nietzsche will be manipulated by later forces to bring destruction upon mankind, no religions can hold against this tribe called democracy and free market capitalism. Their power lies in a magic formula. A Ring of Niuebeliung as subtly depicted by Wagner”.
The Quran warned us : ‘ they have eyes but cant see, they have ears but cant hear and they have hearts but cannot perceive…the divine command/realities’. When it was told –don’t spread destruction on the earth (la tufsidu fil-ardh), they answered- we only intend good action (islah) or progress and development ! They treat mankind as equal, one man one vote..the way to mass madmen and to bring down the elites, nobles and sagely rulers, kings and sultaniyya !
The science fiction film- MATRIX – unfold this deception, entrapment and freedom that the hacker hero Neo must submit, learn, deceive, fight and discover the mystical power from Oracle, Morpheus and Trinity in order to escape and defeat the forces of agent Smith and the vast network of Matrix simulated world that none can break out, except death and transformation of self subtle Qi.
So what the next step this Path opens up to the seeker ? The faqir has now entered into the arena of contemplation and its fruits. Hal (spiritual lights) does not come from event, or from outside or from feelings, or from nafs in any of its modalities (appearances that distract the seeker).
The faqir must learn to move with its motions as the sailor changes sail with the winds. Do not tell what comes on the heart to others..he can only report this inner experiences to his Shaykh or to a recognized one among the salihun. Hal put in motion what was still, then it calms it and finally gives it rest. These are the effects of love (from Allah and His Awliya). Now only now, can we talk about love for the first time. (Matrix must fall in love with Trinity to realize his folly and subtle feelings and be free from it)
Master Izi says- ‘ One cup of real Tea refresh the spirit. Two cups of drink will indicate the host is appreciating your travel, your struggle, your trust and friendship’ . Zen masters take elaborate preparation to set up a tea hut meeting with guests, always with several tea attendants or disciples to serve and take notes of exchange of knowledge and wisdom of Tao’. No weapons are allowed inside the tatami tea hut and the tea pot, cups, boiled water and some cakes are arranged to indicate each guest/host ranks.
Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi further elaborated about this seeker ‘warid-refreshing experience’: “ It is the lights from the Absolute Lord of Majesty and Generous Gifts ( Dzal Jalali wal Ikram ). He may still think it flows from him to existence, but in truth, flows over existence that engulfing him. All actions becomes his actions, all other have his spirits. This is the first dissolution of the barriers of separation. He is temporarily without time, space melts, and he tastes from the Sea of Oneness “.
Nietzsche says in Thus Spoke Zarathustra : “ Shatter, shatter the good and just ! O my brother, have you understood this saying too ? Do you flee from me ? Are you afraid. Do you tremble at this words ? Now you shall be sea farers, brave, patient seafarers ! The sea is stormy ! “.
We go back to topic on The Stillness of Hundred Steps –Sukun (page 98). This stillness is the heart of the Wali, is not a state, but his condition, filling him both in jihad and in contemplation ! He may taste the excitement of battle (or war) but his stillness (marifa) rules him and he drinks the vision of the Face and he glorifies Allah. Oh what praise and what glorification may pour from the heart of a man (like this- a perfected one )
Master Izi commented : “ What a poor copy of box office films heroes like Neo, Jet Li Hero, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, James Bond, Brave Hearts, Hidden Tiger and Crouching Dragon, Dances With Wolves, BenHur, Genghis Khan and poor elected Popes and all dead canonized Saints. Once time they were burned and hanged alive when they challenged the church powers. Now the Modern State bestow the highest awards to its most loyal, richest, obedient politicians and senile citizens..some pothomously (after many years of death- ghosts titles) for contributions to the State (almost sacred/supreme entities, legally cannot be changed except by force and revolution and wars). This is the opposites of madness and stillness (enslavement of life in our current society where the billions and trillions of false wealth and banking power elites hold mankind in ransom and enthralled).
They have only one ENEMY, that is a free man that will bring their RULE and STATE to pieces. Or we don’t need them. We survive, we hide, we speak language of separation and gatheredness, we trade, we teach, we submit, we lose small wars but prepare for Big War, we do zikir and Ismul azim. Some in the seat of powers, some trained in elite groups and mergers warfare, some teach in universities, some get annihilated and some returned with robes of honour.
The People of Wisdom
The people of this Wisdom, call it Islamic Zen or Tao of Islam or I Ching of Tawhid or The Middle Path or Sufism, The Life Transaction, The Straight Path… some of them have retreated to mountains, others became rulers and scholars, imams and shuyukh, some are rich in their poverty, mighty in their helplessness, some exiled and cast out, some moved in the sea of sensory and the sea of meanings. Do you want to become a Warrior in His Path ? Are you satisfied with what the State offers ? Are comfortable in your High Offices ? Are you still not Rich enough ? Set out.
“ If you seek power or renown or reward from men by this Noble Path then knowledge that is has in it nothing but sorrow for you. One who knows that will be content with with tajrid (stripping away) and rich in it, a king even if Allah puts him in rags, as he will remain a faqir (one of the poor in the Tariq) even if Allah robes him in the robes of a king.
Every king dies like a faqir while every faqir dies like a king. The sufi is universal. He has reduced and then eliminated the marks of selfhood to allow a clear view of the Cosmic Reality. “
He has rolled up the cosmos in its turn and obliterated it. He has gone beyond.
It is the self chosen pattern of life one has adopted in order to deepen knowledge until one reaches one’s own source, one’s spring of life, to drink of the Water of Illumination.
Shariat is submitting.
Tariqat is handing over.
Haqiqat is victory.
It is coming out from the safe place of ordinary existence into the alien existence of search. It means the abandoning the autobiographical project of fame and fulfillment, for the self/nafs has become for the seeker, an enemy..until it is transformed into its luminous reality which is pure spirit-ruh.
The time is short. It must be seized. Cut through !
Breaking norms is the Path. Its fruits are witnessing and illumination.
The Darqawi Way fuqara are sober as they are majestic/beautiful. They are beggar /kings as they are warrior/saints….what more do we want and desire ? “ Wake up Sidi Zuigan ! , take this empty tea cups away and bring in the lotus moon-cakes from Xi-an and the dragon red fruits from Mr. Malik’s Bandung highland farm !. Masako San, lift up the left bamboo window for morning sunlight to enter ! Mr. Shuyu Min and Ridha Lua, we sincerely hope you may visit us again next summer.
Shaykh Abul Abbas Mursi said :
‘ It is difficult to reach a Teacher. It is easy to reach Allah (vast sign/indications leading to such men and friends of Allah). The pleasure of life is only in the company of the fuqara-they are the sultans, the masters and the princes’ (Madinah Press 1998) .
Dailin Nur Tea Hut 5th December 2006.
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