Zen Master Rilke: Seeing It All As a Whole. From the Buddha-Rilke Series
In this booklet, the renowned poet, mystic and visionary R.M. Rilke (1875—1926) speaks to… Gautama Buddha and reflects on the great unity and right understanding of things, the way of the bodhisattva and the five meditations of the heart. The poet also appears as the protagonist of the great tantra of Tibetan Buddhism, ´The All-Creating King´. The illustrations include some Zen-style fantasy portraits of Rilke.
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Translator Vladislav Tsylyov
Illustrator Vladislav Tsylyov
© Vladislav Tsylyov, 2024
© Vladislav Tsylyov, translation, 2024
© Vladislav Tsylyov, illustrations, 2024
ISBN 978-5-0060-8131-4
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Rilke
Some Notes on the Booklet
This book continues my Buddha-Rilke series, in which the outstanding poet, mystic and visionary Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926) appears as… a Zen master.
The booklet contains three short etudes which, from different angles, reveal the poet́s spiritual formation during the period of his ́Middle Waý.
The first and third etudes are the poet́s dialogues with Gautama Buddha on the great unity and right understanding of things, the way of the bodhisattva and the five meditations of the heart. In the second etude, the poet appears as the protagonist not only of his famous poem ́Buddha in Glorý, but also of the great Tantra of Tibetan Buddhism, The All-Creating King.
Rilkés voice is authentic in all the dialogues. All his words are quotations from his letters; they are given in my translation. The sayings of Gautama Buddha are taken from The Gospel of Buddha by Paul Carus (1852—1919), Project Gutenberg, and are quoted with the characteristics of the original.
To make the text easier to read, speech marks have been removed from all the dialogues.
The booklet contains a large number of varied and thought-provoking illustrations, among which I would like to mention the public domain works of Odilon Redon (1840—1916), the remarkable French Symbolist artist. Among my own drawings, the reader will find some Zen-like fantasy portraits of Rilke. One such portrait appears on the cover of the book.
All the images used to create the collages in the book are in the public domain, including photographs from the early 20th century, except for those from my personal archive.
I hope that this booklet, like all the others, will surprise the reader and show the great poet in a new light.
Zen Master Rilke: We Are the Bees of the Invisible, 2023.
Zen Master Rilke: There Are No Teachings, 2023.
Zen Master Rilke: The Gatha of the Idiot Who Plays Ball, 2023.
About the Correct Comprehension of Things
There are beings whose eyes are scarcely covered with dust…
– Gautama Buddha
Rilke >– early 20th century photo
In Rodińs Sanctum Sanctorum
He has raised his world above us in a magnificent vault and placed it in the midst of nature.
– R.M. Rilke, Auguste Rodin
Every artist worthy of the name must express the whole truth of nature: not only the outer truth, but above all the inner truth.
– Auguste Rodin
In 1902, Rainer Maria Rilke, then a little-known but very ambitious and promising writer, the author of ́eight or nine bookś and several dramas which, in the poet́s own words, ́received only ironic comments after their performance in Berliń, faced a serious crisis in his philosophy of life. It is hard to believe that after two inspiring and eventful journeys to Russia, the results of which led Rilke, in his God-seeking impulse, to write two delightful parts of The Book of Hours, the young man was literally on the verge of despair. Without a permanent home, devastated, losing faith in himself, he felt ́like a dead man in an old gravé.
Camille Claudel, Man Leaning,1886> – early 20th century photo.
Nothing about me is real. I keep crumbling and disintegrating.
the poet bitterly describes his creative impotence. But a ghostly hope still warmed his soul, ́cast into the abyss of desolatioń: it was a happy coincidence that he was commissioned by a prestigious publisher to write a book about his then idol, a famous contemporary, ́hardly the greatest of the livinǵ, the sculptor Auguste Rodin.
On 1 August 1902, Rilke, who had never needed a spiritual guide so much, wrote an enthusiastic letter to the hero of his future book: the poet was thrilled at the mere thought that he would soon have the opportunity to ́approach́ the ingenious master, the creator of immense power, and perhaps receive from him true advice, a saving blessing, communion from the ́hands that create greatnesś. In such an atmosphere of exaltation, it seems quite natural that Rilke, who did not even know Rodin in absentia, should call him nothing less than ́my Masteŕ:
My Master,
I have written to you from Haseldorf that I am coming to Paris in September to prepare the publication of a book on your work. But I have not yet told you that it will be a great event for me, for my work (work as a writer, or rather as a poet), to come close to you. Your art is such (I have felt this for a long time) that it knows how to give bread and gold to painters, poets and sculptors: to all artists who have set out on the path of suffering and who want nothing more than that ray of eternity which is the supreme goal of creative life.
Auguste Rodin >– early 20th century photography.
With almost the religious sincerity of a disciple, the young poet confessed to Rodin his ́feelingś for him:
My whole life has changed since I learned of your existence, my Master, and the day I see you will be truly extraordinary (and perhaps the happiest) of my days. Unfortunately, there are no translations of my books, so I cannot hope that you will give them even a cursory glance; and yet, when I arrive, I shall present you with one or two of them in the original language, for it is important to me to know that some of my confessions will find their place among your things, in your possession, beside you, just as one leaves a silver heart on the altar of a marvellous martyr.
