Poetry | Contemplative Inquiry

August 9, 2017

STEPHEN BATCHELOR: THE EVERYDAY SUBLIME

Stephen Batchelor explores his view that “the mystical does not transcend the world but saturates it”. For me, this discussion has a resonance beyond the ranks of ‘secular Buddhism’. The passage below is from his book After Buddhism: rethinking the Dharma in a secular age (1). I am attracted to his view of ‘the everyday sublime’ and for me at least, its relevance extends well beyond Batchelor’s specific context.

“Meditation originates and culminates in the everyday sublime … [It] is about what is happening to this organism as it touches the environment in this moment. I do not reject the experience of the mystical. I reject the view that the mystical is concealed behind what is merely apparent, that it is anything other than what is occurring in time and space right now. The mystical does not transcend the world but saturates it. ‘The mystical is not how the world is,’ noted Ludwig Wittgenstein in 1921, ‘but that it is.’

“As understood by Edmund Burke and the Romantic poets, the sublime exceeds our capacity for representation. The world is excessive: every blade of grass, every ray of sun, every falling leaf is excessive. None of these things can be adequately captured in concepts, images, or words. They overreach us, spilling beyond the boundaries of thought. Their sublimity brings the thinking, calculating mind to a stop, leaving one speechless, overwhelmed with either wonder or terror. Yet for we human animals who delight and revel in our place, who crave security, certainty and consolation, the sublime is banished and forgotten. As a result, life is rendered opaque and flat. Each day is reduced to the repetition of familiar actions and events, which are blandly comforting but devoid of an intensity we both yearn for and fear.

“To experience the everyday sublime requires that we dismantle the perceptual conditioning that insists on seeing ourselves and the world as essentially comfortable, permanent, solid, and ‘mine’. It means to embrace suffering and conflict rather than to shy away from them, to cultivate the embodied attention that contemplates the tragic, changing, empty and impersonal dimensions of life, rather than succumbing to fantasies of self-glorification or self-loathing. This takes time. It is a life-long practice.

“The ordinary sublime is our ordinary life experienced from the perspective of the fourfold task [NB Batchelor’s reframe of the Buddhist four noble truths JN]. …

An open-hearted embrace of the totality of one’s existential situation
A letting go of the habitual restrictive patterns of thought and behavior triggered by that situation
A conscious valorization of those moments in which such reactive patterns have stilled
A commitment to a way of life that emerges from such stillness and responds empathetically, ethically and creatively to the situation in hand.

“Understood in this way, meditation is not about gaining proficiency in technical procedures claimed to guarantee attainments that correspond to the dogmas of a particular religious orthodoxy. Nor is its goal to achieve a privileged, transcendent insight into the ultimate nature of reality, mind, or God. In the light of the fourfold task, meditation is the ongoing cultivation of a sensibility, a way of attending to every aspect of experience within a framework of ethical values and goals.

…..

“As a sensibility, meditation enables us to cultivate an understanding of moment-to-moment experience much as we develop an appreciation of art or poetry or nature. Grounded in the body and the senses, we value an open-mindedness to what is unfamiliar, probe our sensorium with relentless curiosity, listen attentively to what others have to say, are willing to suspend habitual attitudes and opinions, and questions what is going on instead of simply taking things for granted. The disengagement of meditation is not an aloof regard (or disregard) but a perspective that engenders another kind of response to what is happening. And it begins with the breath, our primordial relationship to the fabric of the world in which we are embedded.”

Stephen Batchelor After Buddhism: rethinking the dharma for a secular age New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2015

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August 7, 2017

POEM: AU VIEUX JARDIN

I have sat here happy in the gardens,

Watching the still pool and the reeds

And the dark clouds

Which the wind of the upper air

Tore like the green leafy boughs

Of the divers-hued trees of late summer;

But though I greatly delight

In these and the water lilies,

That which sets me nighest to weeping

Is the rose and white colour of the smooth flag-stones

And the pale yellow grasses

Among them.

Richard Aldington in Imagist Poetry edited by Peter Jones London: Penguin, 1972 (Modern Penguin Classics)

The Imagists were a short-lived yet influential movement in early 20^th century poetry in the English language. Whilst an organized and at that time mostly young group, they were based in London and included both British and expatriate American members. The Imagist collections of the 1914-17 period include the work of: Ezra Pound; Richard Aldington; H.D. (Hilda Doolittle); Amy Lowell; D.H. Lawrence; William Carlos Williams; Ford Maddox Ford; T.E. Hulme; James Joyce; Marianne Craig Moore; E.E. Cummings; John Gould Fletcher. Years later, T.S. Eliot paid tribute to the Imagists as a formative influence.

The Imagists had three rules, designed to encourage freshness and clarity in observation and precision in expression. For me this gives them contemplative interest. Ezra Pound in particular was fascinated by Chinese and Japanese poetry, then beginning to become available in the West.

Direct treatment of the ‘thing’, whether subjective or objective.
To use absolutely no word that did not contribute to the presentation.
As regarding rhythm: to compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

In the poem above, I was particularly moved by the way in which freshness, clarity and precision allowed the poet to both feel and contain strong emotion. For me, contemplative spaces embrace such feelings, whilst also providing a clear space around them.

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July 18, 2017

POEM: LOST

Desolate and lone

All night long on the lake

Where fog trails and mist creeps,

The whistle of a boat

Calls and cries unendingly,

Like some lost child

In tears and trouble

Hunting the harbor’s breast

And the harbor’s eyes.

Carl Sandburg Chicago poems, New York: Dover Publications, 1994. (First published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, in 1916)

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) left school aged 11, working in a variety of jobs such as barbershop porter, milk truck driver, brickyard worker and wheat harvester. He enlisted with the 6th. Illinois Infantry in 1898 and served in the Spanish-American War.

In 1913, he moved to Chicago and became one of a group of writers responsible for the Chicago Renaissance in arts and letters. His work reflects an awareness of the U.S. as an increasingly urban nation, frequently celebrating the drive and energy of the working people of the industrial Midwest. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950.

However, in the poem above, a note of loneliness and alienation is conjured up by the whistle of a boat on Lake Michigan – alienation, yet with some hope, or hint of a hope, of homecoming.

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July 3, 2017

POEM: THE JOURNEY

This poem by Mary Oliver is included in the material for my Mindful Self-Compassion course. I wonder how many readers feel some resonance with it.

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations……

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–

determined to save

the only life you could save.

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June 26, 2017

POEM: I CAN WADE GRIEF

I can wade Grief –

Whole pools of it

–

I’m used to that –

But the least push of Joy

Breaks up my feet

–

And I tip –

drunken

Emily Dickinson

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June 14, 2017

POEM: SILENT ILLUMINATION

Silently and serenely, one forgets all words,

Clearly and vividly, it appears before you.

When one realizes it, time has no limits.

When experienced, your surroundings come to life.

Singularly illuminating this bright awareness,

Full of wonder is the pure illumination.

The moon’s appearance, a river of stars,

Snow-clad pines, clouds hovering on mountain peaks.

In darkness, they glow with brightness.

In shadows, they shine with a splendid light.

Like the dreaming of a crane flying in empty space,

Like the clear, still water of an autumn pool,

Endless eons dissolve into nothingness,

Each indistinguishable from the other.

Chan Master Sheng-Yen The Poetry of Enlightenment: poems by ancient Chan Masters New York: Dharma Drum Publications, 1987

This is the first section of a longer piece by Hongzhi (in this text transliterated as Hung Chi), who lived in China from 1097-1157. He developed a version of what we now call mindfulness meditation called Silent Illumination.

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May 11, 2017

POEM: GREEN MAN

William Anderson’s classic Green Man poem has thirteen verses of four lines each, and follows the wheel of the year from the Winter Solstice. As I write we have just reached the sixth verse, which has an off with my head theme. The honey of love is over and speaking through the oak is yet to come.

Like antlers, like veins in the brain, the birches

Mark patterns of mind on the red winter sky;

‘I am thought of all plants’, says the Green Man,

‘I am thought of all plants’, says he.

The hungry birds harry the last berries of rowan

But white is her bark in the darkness of rain;

‘I rise with the sap’, says the Green Man,

‘I rise with the sap’, says he.

The ashes are clashing their boughs like sword-dancers

Their black buds are tracing wild faces in the clouds;

‘I come with the wind’, says the Green Man.

‘I come with the wind’, says he.

The alders are rattling as though ready for battle

Guarding the grove where she waits for her lover;

‘I burn with desire’, says the Green Man,

‘I burn with desire’, says he.

In and out of the yellowing wands of the willow

The pollen-bright bees are plundering the catkins;

‘I am honey of love’, says the Green Man,

‘I am honey of love’, says he.

The hedges of quick are thick with may-blossom

As the dancers advance on their leaf-covered king;

‘It’s off with my head’, says the Green Man,

‘It’s off with my head’, says he.

Green Man becomes grown man in flames of the oak

As its crown forms his mask and its leafage his features;

‘I speak through the oak’, says the Green Man,

‘I speak through the oak’, says he.

The holly is flowering as hay fields are rolling

Their gleaming long grasses like waves of the sea;

‘I shine with the sun’, says the Green Man,

‘I shine with the sun’, says he.

The hazels are rocking the cups with their nuts

As the harvesters shout when the last leaf is cut;

‘I swim with the salmon’, says the Green Man,

‘I swim with the salmon’, says he.

The globes of the grapes are robing with bloom

Like the hazes of autumn, like the Milky Way’s stardust;

‘I am crushed for your drink’, says the Green Man,

‘I am crushed for your drink’, says he.

The aspen drops silver on leaves of earth’s salver

And the poplars shed gold on the young ivy flower heads;

‘I have paid for your pleasure’, says the Green Man,

‘I have paid for your pleasure’, says he.

The reed beds are flanking in silence the islands

Where meditates Wisdom as she waits and waits;

‘I have kept her secret’, says the Green Man,

‘I have kept her secret’, says he.

The bark of the elder makes whistles for children

To call to the deer as they rove over the snow;

‘I am born in the dark’, says the Green Man,

‘I am born in the dark’, says he.

From: William Anderson Green Man: archetype of our oneness with the Earth Harper Collins: London & San Francisco, 1990

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March 22, 2017

POEM: THE OLD INTERIOR ANGEL

Young, male and

immortal as I was,

I stopped at the first sight

Of that broken bridge.

The taut cables snapped

and the bridge planks

concertina-ed

into a crazy jumble

over the drop,

four hundred feet

to the craggy

stream.

I sat and watched

the wind shiver on the broken planks,

as if by looking hard

and long enough, the life-line

might spontaneously

repair itself –

but watched in vain.

an hour I sat

in silence,

checking each

involuntary movement

of the body toward

that trembling

bridge

with a fearful mind,

and an emphatic

shake of the head.

Finally, facing defeat

and about to go back

the way I came

to meet the others.

Three days round

by another pass.

Enter the old mountain woman

with her stooped gait,

her dark clothes

and her dung basket

clasped to her back.

Small feet shuffling

for the precious

gold-brown

fuel for cooking food.

Intent on the ground

she glimpsed my feet

and looking up

said “Namaste”

“I greet the God in you”

the last syllable

held like a song.

I inclined my head

and clasped my hands

to reply, but

before I could look up,

she turned her lined face

and went straight across

that shivering chaos

of wood

and broken steel

in one movement.

One day the hero

sits down,

afraid to take

another step,

and the old interior angel

limps slowly in

with her no-nonsense

compassion

and her old secret

and goes ahead.

“Namaste”

you say

and follow.

David Whyte River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 Langley, Washington: Rivers Press, 2007

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February 22, 2017

POEM: THE OPENING OF EYES

That day I saw beneath dark clouds,

the passing light over the water

and I heard the voice of the world speak out,

I knew then, as I had before,

life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book

waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.

It is the vision of far off things

seen for the silence they hold.

It is the heart after years

of secret conversing,

speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert

fallen to his knees before the lit bush.

It is the man throwing away his shoes

as if to enter heaven

and finding himself astonished,

opened at last,

fallen in love with solid ground.

David Whyte River Flow: New & Selected Poems 1984-2007 Langley, Washington: Rivers Press, 2007

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February 6, 2017

POEM: GRAVITY’S LAW

How surely gravity’s law

Strong as an ocean current,

Takes hold of even the strongest thing

And pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing – each stone, blossom, child – is held in place.

Only we, in our arrogance,

Push out beyond what we belong to

For some empty freedom.

If we surrendered to Earth’s intelligence

We could rise up, rooted, like trees …

This is what the things can teach us: to fall,

Patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

Before he can fly.

Rainer Maria Rilke Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God New York: Riverhead, 1996 (Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

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