Hafiz was a Persian poet from the 14th century who became acclaimed throughout the Islamic world during his lifetime, and remains one of the most celebrated of the Persian poets today (“A poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, then raise it to nourish your beautiful, parched holy mouth.“)
The “fake” part this article alludes to comes from the fact that an American poet, named Daniel Ladinsky, has been publishing books under the name of the famed Persian poet Hafez for more than 20 years. They are beautiful poetry in English, and do contain some profound wisdom. Yet if you love a tradition, you have to speak the truth: Ladinsky’s translations have no earthly connection to what the historical Hafez of Shiraz, the 14th-century Persian sage, ever said. Read more.
Here is Hafiz Daniel Ladinsky on laughter:
Be full of sorrow, that you may become hill of joy; weep, that you may break into laughter.
Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl
I have a thousand brilliant lies for the question: How are you? I have a thousand brilliant lies for the question: What is God? If you think that the Truth can be known from words, if you think that the sun and the ocean can pass through that tiny opening called the mouth, someone should start laughing! Someone should start wildly laughing now!
May this marriage be blessed. May this marriage be as sweet as milk and honey. May this marriage be as intoxicating as old wine. May this marriage be fruitful like a date tree. May this marriage be full of laughter and everyday a paradise. May this marriage be a seal of compassion for here and hereafter. May this marriage be as welcome as the full moon in the night sky. Listen lovers, now you go on, as I become silent and kiss this blessed night.
Only a Perfect One who is always laughing at the word two can make you know of Love.
Sing because this is a food our starving world needs. Laugh because that is the purest sound.
Sometimes in order to help He makes us cry
Happy the eye that sheds tears for His sake
Fortunate the heart that burns for His sake
Laughter always follow tears
Blessed are those who understand
Life blossoms wherever water flows
Where tears are shed divine mercy is shown
The core of the seen and unseen universe smiles, but remember smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter.
There are many ways to the Divine. I have chosen the ways of song, dance, and laughter.
What is this precious love and laughter budding in our hearts? It is the glorious sound of a soul waking up!
Within tears, find hidden laughter
Seek treasures amid ruins, sincere one.
Hafiz Daniel Ladinsky Laughter
What is Laughter? What is Laughter?
It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!
It is the sun poking it sweet head out
From behind a cloud
You have been carrying too long.
Veiling your eyes and heart.
It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure
That is your Real body— called truth.
It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight
To embrace everyone and everything in this world.
Laughter is the polestar
Held in the sky by our Beloved
Who eternally says,
“Yes, dear ones, come this way,
Come this way toward Me and Love!
Come with your tender mouths moving
And your beautiful tongues conducting songs
And with your movements– your magic movements
of hands and feet and glands and cells– Dancing!
Know that to God’s Eye,
All movement is a Wondrous Language,
And Music–such exquisite, wild Music!”
O what is laughter Hafiz?
What is this precious love and laughter
Budding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound
Of a soul waking up!
I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz
by Daniel Ladinsky. Mobius Press, Oakland, CA, pp. 125.
More quotes by Hafiz Daniel Ladinsky
An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.
Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the vast fields of light…And let it breathe.
Carry your heart through this world like a life-giving sun.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.
For a day, just for one day, talk about that which disturbs no one and bring some peace into those beautiful eyes.
God and I have built an immense fire together. We keep each other happy and warm.
I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? She responded, ‘love lifts me.
Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins that may buy you just a moment of pleasure, but then drag you for days like a broken man behind a farting camel.
Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.
Now is the time to understand that all your ideas of right and wrong were just a child’s training wheels to be laid aside when you finally live with veracity and love.
People say that the soul, on hearing the song of creation, entered the body, but in reality the soul itself was the song.
The beauty of You delights me. The sight of You amazes me. For the pearl does this… and the ocean does that.
The earth would die if the sun stopped kissing her.
The heart is a thousand stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.
The sun will stand as your best man and whistle when you have found the courage to marry forgiveness when you have found the courage to marry Love.
This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.
Time is a factory where everyone slaves away earning enough love to break their own chains.
Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.
We are people who need to love, because Love is the soul’s life, Love is simply creation’s greatest joy.
We have not come here to take prisoners but to surrender ever more deeply to freedom and joy.
What do sad people have in common? It seems they have all built a shrine to the past and often go there and do a strange wail and worship. What is the beginning of Happiness? It is to stop being so religious like that.
What is the root of all these words? One thing: Love. But a love so deep and sweet it needed to express itself with scents, sounds, colors that never before existed.
When all your desires are distilled you will cast just two votes: To love more, and be happy.
Related Links
- I heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
- Some Straight Talk About The Healing Power Of Love
- Osho on laughter
- 120 Inspirational Quotes About Laughter
- 250 Random Acts Of Kindness
- 40 Ideas To Experience Childlike Playfulness As Adults
- Top 40 Classic Happy Songs To Make You Feel Good Playlist
how do you license content that belongs to someone else? Did Dan Ladinsky grant you permission to digitize his published work? Was permission given to you to alter the cover of said published work? I do not think, Mr. Gendry, that this is a laughing matter!
Sebastian,
Daniel Ladinsky here. And saw this just the other day. GOOGLE fed it to me with my dose of morning world news. And I shared your blog with a internation wide website (but a rather small audience) I contribute to now and then and even said: “My general feeling about something like this is: I am glad Hafiz is sprinkling angel dust on Planet E, cause we can sure use it.” And then I added in that post, ‘my bottom line is:’ “Thanks to anyone
bringing the name Hafiz to the world.”
Would appreciate it though if you bought one of the original copies of I Heard God Laughing and used that original cover if you
keep that blog up, and hope you do. Penguin. bought that book, along with 6 others of mine. And Penguin’s cover for IHGL is quite different.
One more thing: A little story I crafted right now goes:
A zen master sitting midair on a butterfly wing was asked: ‘How are you pulling that
off?’ And he replied, “The radiance of knowing, of laughter … has made me so ‘light’. ”
A big hug to ya,
Daniel
I’d like to know Mr Ladinsky’s views on this
concerning his having used the name of Hafiz when Hafiz never wrote the “ translations” Daniel Ladinsky has published under his own name.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/opinions/2020/6/14/fake-hafez-how-a-supreme-persian-poet-of-love-was-erased
Oops. I had no idea. Thank you for pointing this out. Now corrected.