Dear Friends,
In the penultimate track from this retreat, The Awakening Poem, DaRa reads a reflection which is sometimes attributed to by Sonny Carroll, although the wording on various websites isn’t always consistent.
You can read a version fairly close to DaRa’s recitation here:
https://www.michaelppowers.com/wisdom/awakening2.html
The poem didn’t really resonate with me, though there are some useful life lessons there.
Mark Coleman talks about the difficulties of expressing one’s understanding of esoteric experiences in language, and that there is a benefit in attempting to share one’s experience. In this talk, he suggests poetry is one way we can convey our understanding in a way that the heart can grok even if the rational mind can’t. You can listen to his talk (including lots of poems) here, Poetry of Awakening – Monday Night Dharma Talk from September 27, 2021:
https://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/67543/
For a practice today, check out Mark’s website for a variety of meditations for different themes:
https://markcoleman.org/talks/
Or maybe today you would like to invite your inner artist to express whatever taste of awakening that is alive for you, whether in poetry, writing, music, sketching, painting, movement, quilting, baking, …
With good wishes,
Andrea
AG
I have found great meaning and food for thought in all of these postings. Thank you. Every year, I find them a good way to start the trials and tribulations of yet another orbit of the sun.
I have written a lot of poems and of course read a lot of poems. The difficulty I have with poetry (and with words in general) is that it is so attached to definition and to the sliding paradoxical possibility of nuance and etymological reference and of course specific languages I do not understand. The highest way to express the inexpressible is through music. Music slides away from labels and remains both simple and infinitely complex. The most sublime patterns and structure are not human but of a higher order. The chatter of thoughts in my crowded mind-space dissolves and cathedrals of crystal and simple forest glens open to my frazzled mind. The arguments of the Suttas and the great treatises of human endeavour are smoothed out. The dharma is apparent without explanation or confusion. No need to say a word.
RND“`