Tapas - Fasting and Using Hardship

There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound box 
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean 
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and new energy makes you 
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.
Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.

When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits 
where your spirit should,
an ugly metal statue 
in place of the Kaaba.
When you fast,
 good habits gather like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon’s ring.
Don’t give it 
to some illusion and lose your power,
 but even if you have, if you’ve lost all will and control, 
they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing 
out of the ground, pennants flying above them.

A table descends to your tents, 
Jesus’ table. 

Expect to see it, when you fast, this table 
spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

 -Jalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273)

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"It's like this my friend -
If nothing that you didn't want
Should ever fall upon you,
It would be impossible
For what you want to manifest.
When the wise have finished,
Everything they didn't want
Becomes the source of all they want;
So take it on, with pleasure!"

 -Walking Through Fire, Jamyang Shepay Dorje 1648- 1721