Checkmate

I found a Rumi poem this morning that pretty much sums it up for me. Here's an excerpt:

The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.
Work on it with manual discipline,
and the bitter tanning acid of grief,
and you'll become lovely, and very strong.

If you can't do this work yourself, don't worry.
You don't even have to make a decision,
one way or another. The Friend, who knows
a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,
and grief, and sickness,
                                  as medicine, as happiness,
as the essence of the moment when you are beaten,
when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say,
with Hallaj's voice,
                                 I trust you to kill me.

There are a few stanzas earlier in the poem that are exactly the Tibetan Lo Jong (Mind Training) teaching. In essence: those that harm you are your precious teachers. Rumi says:

Those that make you return, for whatever reason,
to God's solitude, be grateful to them.
Worry about the others, who give you
delicious comforts that keep you from prayer.
Friends are enemies sometimes,
and enemies friends.