The Visions of Daquqi

Husam,
tell about the visions of Daquqi,
who said,
              "I have traveled East and West not knowing
which way I was going, following the moon,
lost inside God."
                        Someone asked, "Why do you go bare-
footed over the stones and thorns?"
                                                    "What," he answered.
"What."
            A bewildered lover doesn't walk on feet.
He or she walks on love. There are no "long"
or "short" trips for those. No time.
The body learned from the spirit how to travel.
A saint's body moves in the unconditioned way,
though it seems to be in conditionedness.

Daquqi said,
                  "One day I was going along
looking to see in people the shining of the Friend,
so I would recognize the ocean in a drop,
the sun in a bright speck.
                                     I came to the shore
at twilight and saw seven candles. I hurried
along the beach toward them. The light of each
lifted into the sky. I was amazed. My amazement
was amazed. Waves of bewilderment
broke over my head.

What are these candles that no one seems to see?
In the presence of such lights people were looking
for lamps to buy!
                         Then the seven became one,
in the middle of the sky's rim.
                                           Then that
fanned out to seven again. There were connections
between the candles that cannot be said.
I saw, but I cannot say.

I ran closer. I fell. I lay there awhile.
I got up and ran again. I had no head and no feet.

They became seven men, and then seven trees,
so dense with leaves and fruit
that no limbs were visible.
                                      Flashes of light
spurted from each fruit like juice!

And most marvelous of all was that hundreds
of thousands of people were passing beside the trees,
risking their lives, sacrificing everything,
to find some scrap of shade.
                                         They made peculiar parasols
out of pieces of wool. They tried anything.
And no one saw the trees with their tremendous shade!
The caravans had no food, and yet food was dropping
all about them. If anyone had said,
                                                   'Look! Over here!'
they would have thought him insane, or drunk.

How can this happen? Or am I dreaming?
I walk up to the trees. I eat the fruit.
I might as well believe.
                                  And still I see people
searching so desperately for an unripe grape,
with these vineyards around them,
heavy with perfect bunches.

Then the seven trees became one, and then seven again.
At every second they were both seven and one.

They were doing the ritual prayer, kneeling and bowing,
without knees or waists!
                                    Then they were seven men
seated in meditation for the sake of the one reality.

I came closer and waved. They called,
                                                       'O Daquqi,
the glory and the crown!'  
                                     'How do they know my name?'
I thought. 'They've never seen me till now.'
Immediately they knew my thought,
and smiled at each other.
                                     'Honored one,
is this still hidden from you? I-low can anything
be hidden from one so dissolved in God?'

'If this is the spirit-reality,' [ said to myself,
'how is it we're speaking words and saying names?'

One of the seven answered, 'Names, sometimes
the names slip away, but it's not forgetfulness.
It's our being so absorbed.'

Then they all said to me,
'Would you lead us in prayer?'
                                            'Yes. But wait awhile.
I am still in some temporal confusion
that will be solved by companionship with you.

Through companionship with the ground a grapevine
grows. It opens into the earth's darkness
and flies. It becomes selfless
in the presence of its origin and learns
what it really is.'
                        They nodded, as though saying,
'Whenever you're ready.' That nodding
was a flame in my heart.
                                    I was freed from hourly time,
from sequence and relation."

                                            Everyone has a stable
and a trainer appointed to him or her. If you break away,
the trainer comes and gets you. You think
you're making choices, but the trainer is actually
leading you around.
                             You like to deny
that you have a keeper. You say,
                                               "It's my powerful
animal urges."