Well, I thought I would start my talk this morning with a poem, a by-poem, that I wrote by Emily Dickinson. How's that? Can you hear? Maybe some of you know this poem. After great pain, a formal feeling comes. After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs. The stiff heart questions, was it he that bore and yesterday or centuries before? The feet, mechanical, go round. Of ground or air or ought, a wooden way, regardless

[01:29]

grown, a court's contentment like a stone. This is the hour of lead, remembered if outlived. As freezing persons recollect the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go. After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs. The stiff heart questions, was it he that bore and yesterday or centuries before? The feet, mechanical, go round. Of ground or air or ought, a wooden way, regardless grown, a court's contentment like a stone. This is the hour of lead, remembered if outlived. As freezing persons recollect

[02:36]

the snow, first chill, then stupor, then the letting go. So, Emily Dickinson, great religious poet, deep, deep explorer of the inner life. And this poem reminds me a lot of our practice, which as many of you know is very formal, practice is very formal. After great pain, a formal feeling comes. When you walk into the zendo, sometimes it feels like after a great storm, you know, the calm. The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs. I just

[03:43]

came back from a session in the Pacific Northwest and we were sitting there for five days. Then you walked into the zendo and everybody was sitting ceremonious like a tombstone, you know, like a beautiful cemetery, everyone sitting there, still, absolutely still and dignified and ceremonious. And, you know, lots of pain happens in session and in our life, but there can be a contentment, a court's contentment like a stone in the midst of honoring great pain. A Zen practice is a job that we never complete. Our understanding, our appreciation

[04:59]

of our life and of our practice goes on and on. And there's really almost no limit to the depth and subtlety that we can appreciate about our life. So I often feel that we're lucky to have this practice. It's inexhaustible because then we don't have to worry about now we're finished with it and what do we do now, you know? I mean, I feel sorry for poor Mr. Clinton, you know, what will he do after he's president? You know, he's pretty young and he reached the pinnacle of success in his profession and now what will he do? We don't have that problem. We will never reach the pinnacle. Even if we get bored with it, you know, then we have to study boredom. What's boredom? Where does boredom come from? So that's fascinating in itself,

[06:02]

you know? So it's an inexhaustible treasure and an inexhaustible possibility. So no matter how enlightened we get and how refined and perfect and increasingly perfect our enlightenment becomes, I think we always appreciate our humanness and we always feel some pain, the pain of humanness. Mostly we begin our practice with a desire to escape our pain. We would like to take up the practice and feel better, not have so much pain and suffering. But as we enter into the

[07:13]

practice and proceed with it, we see that somehow experiencing our human pain as it really is, is actually a much stronger thing and a much deeper thing than escaping our pain. When you really experience your suffering as it really is, somehow right in the middle of pain there's some relief, some release. Right at the heart of pain and suffering there's release, a quartz contentment like a stone. And the reason why this relief is stronger than the effort that we might want to make to escape from our pain, to get rid of it, is because escape from pain always has some fear and attachment associated with it. You know, we want to avoid something, so we're always a

[08:19]

little nervous that it might return, that it might be there when we turn around and look. But the kind of relief or release that we feel right at the heart of our pain and suffering doesn't have this fear or attachment associated with it, because we don't mind if pain arises. We can find contentment right there. So in this poem of Emily Dickinson, I like the image at the end of snow. If you live through your pain, you can recollect it like a freezing person recollects snow. First the chill, then the stupor, and then the letting go. Even though I've lived in this part of the

[09:23]

world for 25 or 30 years, I still miss the snow in the place where I grew up. When snow falls, it's very beautiful. Some of you know, very beautiful. Snow, in the beginning, it covers everything equally. So everything that looks different, trees look different from houses, houses look different from cars. But when it snows, everything is covered with the same look. Everything is just a shape in snow. When it snows, the whole world is snow. Everything is covered and everything is peaceful and pristine and beautiful. When we are able to stop trying to escape from our pain and just allow ourselves to

[10:38]

willingly experience it as it really is, without all of our extra theories about it and thoughts about it and likes and dislikes about it, we come to see profoundly that the pain that I am experiencing isn't my pain. It's just pain. And in the experience of just pain, we find all beings, because it's not my pain. All beings feel this. So oddly, that which I dislike and want to avoid at all costs, my pain and suffering, is that which joins me with everything and brings me this feeling of connection.

[11:49]

So pain, when willingly faced and merged with, oddly brings a kind of contentment, like Emily Dickinson says, a deep, deep contentment, like a stone. Not even human contentment, but the contentment of a stone. And it brings with it also, I think, a human feeling, a very human feeling of gratitude. And of course, as she says, a profound release and a letting go. So my situation, my problems, my shortcomings, my tremendous difficulties, all these things are my doorways, my opportunities for really appreciating all of life.

[12:53]

And with the Spirit, I can really and truly, without exaggerating about it, in a quiet way, be grateful for everything that happens. This is a fundamental teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha. So just for a moment, will you join me in a little meditation? Sitting up straight and calming your body, finding your breath in your belly, feeling each breath rise and fall in the belly. And I invite you to join me in this, but of course, if this is not

[13:58]

an appropriate meditation for you, then just be with your breath and you can easily disassociate any meaning from my words and just be present with sound and breathing. So when you breathe in, breathe in your pain and suffering, whatever it is, your grief, your unfinished business, your anger or resentment or hopelessness, self-hatred, or just garden variety, complaining about everything, breathe it in. And when you breathe out, just breathe out relief.

[15:05]

Breathing in again, your pain and suffering, and breathing out relief, release. Letting it all be there, coming in, letting it all go, breathing out. So

[16:28]

breathing in. And then if you can, and if you feel comfortable with it, breathe in all pain and suffering of the whole world, all violence and injustice and abuse and suffering, breathe it in and breathe out relief and release for everyone. And if you are imaginative or visual, you can breathe it in as if it were smoky stuff and breathe it out like falling snow.

[17:34]

Breathing in the smoke of all suffering and breathing out the relief and release of pure falling snow. So thank you. It's a very nice thing to do together.

[18:38]

I've been studying a text of Dogen Zenji, a really important seminal text for our school, and so I want to share some words of Dogen this morning, which I can't tell if it has anything to do with all of this or not, but we'll see as we go along whether it does. This is from, these words are from an important writing of Dogen called the Genjo Koan, which is translated by various people in various ways, but I'm going to use the translation in a book called Moon in a Dew Drop, which is a really nice book. If you don't have it, it's in the bookstore, I'm sure. And the translation there was done by Kastanahasi and many of us here at Zen Center, and we translated Genjo Koan as actualizing the fundamental point

[19:44]

in each moment of our lives. Everything arises. Can we access it? This is the subject of Dogen's writing, Genjo Koan, and it really is the fundamental point of our school. So I thought I would continue with my study of this text and share a few lines from it with you. So toward the beginning, Dogen says, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come

[20:47]

forward and experience themselves, or maybe experience you, is awakening. So this is a really important saying of Dogen. Truly, you know, each one of us right now is sitting in the middle of the universe. You know, in Zen altar, we create the middle of the universe and we put the Buddha on the altar in the middle of the universe. But when we bow to the Buddha or when we relate to the Buddha on the altar, we understand that we are in the middle of the universe, each one of us. And really and truly, there's nothing in the world more important than your life.

[21:52]

Every moment of your life, there's nothing in this whole world more important than that. So I think it's very funny how we always worry about missing out on something. You know, we're going to miss the Dharma talk or we're going to miss this movie or we're going to miss this bar mitzvah or something, you know. But how could we miss it, you know, wherever we are? That's the center of the universe. I always get a chuckle, you know, that you turn on the TV and they're giving you the news. But that's not the news. The news is right here, right now, nowhere else. I remember when I was many years ago in Tassajara in the monastery, I had planned for a number of years to go there. Now we have a marvelous system where you can just

[23:03]

show up and you don't have to pay. It's a great thing, you know. You can go to Tassajara and pay maybe just a little bit and stay there until you die without paying anything. It's true, you could. In those days when I went there, you couldn't do that. You had to have a pretty sizable pile of money so that you could pay for your stay there. And eventually maybe you would be able to be on staff and continue to stay. So I worked for a number of years to save up the money to go there, and I finally had some money to go. But along the way of saving up the money was not the plan, but after a while I had a wife and two children, suddenly, just like that, boom, you know. And my wife had not saved up a pile of money to go to Tassajara, so immediately my pile of money was reduced in half. So that was hard for me to adjust to,

[24:09]

but I adjusted to that. But then the next problem was that since most of the time we were there, we had tiny children and we were sharing child care together. There weren't any other children in the monastery. That meant that I was doing half of the monastic schedule, and the other half of the time I was doing child care. So I had a hard time adjusting to this, and I really suffered a lot because I was missing out. You know, I had a little wonderful system. We had twin boys and I put them in a wheelbarrow in order to feed them, because they couldn't escape in the wheelbarrow. They couldn't run around. They were stuck there. And then they were extremely messy eaters. So after the meal was over, I could just take them out of the wheelbarrow and hose down the wheelbarrow

[25:13]

and it was a very easy system. I had many systems like this. But anyway, at first I was really suffering a lot because I was missing out. I mean, I would be feeding my little boys, which of course was a joy, but still the joy was quite ruined because of my mind thinking, oh no, you know, everybody's in the zendo having the zendo meal, but I have to be out here with these little fellows feeding them lunch. Every human being actually within a radius of about 20 miles was in the zendo, except for me and my little boys. So woe is me. It was very bad. I was very upset about it. And then one day I realized after a dharma talk that I was missing because I was watching my sons that, you know, just as I said, the dharma talk wasn't in the zendo.

[26:23]

At the time that I was feeding my sons, that was the dharma talk. So I began during the times when there were dharma talks that I was missing, I began saying, okay, this is the beginning of the dharma talk, you know, now, and it will end when the roshi comes out of the zendo, and maybe I'll learn a great deal during this dharma talk, and I would pay attention especially to what I was doing during that time. And it helped quite a bit, and I felt much better. And I realized that the dharma talks that I would attend were the ones that I needed to hear, and the dharma talks that I didn't attend were the ones I didn't need to hear, and I would hear them in another way. And that's always how it is, because we're all sitting in the middle of the universe. We are the ten o'clock news, each one of us. But the trick is that if we project our ego

[27:31]

onto this fact that we are in the center of the universe, and we arrogantly go around thinking, I'm the center of the universe, what other people are doing is irrelevant, because I'm the center of the universe. I'm the most important thing. I have to really watch out for everything, because I'm the most important thing. If we think like this, then this is, of course, really a grandiose delusion and a grandiose selfishness. So, to understand that we're the center of the universe means to let go of holding on to ourself, and to let go of holding on to our practice as if it were ourself, because we can substitute the gross and easily dismissed ego for something else, like practice or compassion or something, that we substitute and make a more refined and ornamented sense of ego,

[28:38]

and then impose that on others and on ourselves. So, we don't make ourselves or our practice a kind of ideology or a kind of doctrine that we project onto things. This is what Dogen is saying here, to carry the self forward is delusion. Instead, we do the opposite of this. We try to be aware of what arises inside of us, our thoughts, our feelings, our attitudes, but we let go of all that, moment after moment, and just return to the present without holding on. In this way, we let everything in the world come forward to teach us. Everything is our teacher. And when we are attentive to our lives in this way, then we are co-operating

[29:41]

with reality. We are dancing with our lives, and there is never any need to resist or fight or push away or hold on, because it's an endless unfolding, an endless dance. I think this is what Dogen's energy means, by letting things come forward and experiencing themselves in us. He goes on, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhists, and those who are greatly deluded about realization are non-Buddhists. Or you could say, those who are greatly enlightened about delusion are Buddhists, and those who are greatly deluded about enlightenment are non-Buddhists. This is a typical Dogen pithy expression.

[30:45]

So this is, in a way, the opposite of what you would think, right? You think Buddhas are ones who are enlightened. They're enlightened about enlightenment. But he says, no, Buddhas are ones who are enlightened about delusion. So when we really get the hang of our practice, it becomes clear to us, I think maybe little by little or maybe all of a sudden, that there isn't any state that we would enter into later on, called enlightenment. And there isn't anything external, an attitude or state of mind or an approach to reality or something like that, that we're going to acquire or we're going to experience. Because practice and enlightenment are all together one thing, and they're always right now. They're always radically right here

[31:52]

where we are. So it's our pain, it's our delusion, to fully enter our pain and our delusion and find the calm center right in the middle of it. Right now. Always right now. That's our only enlightenment. There isn't any other. So to really allow our experience, to really permit our experience without resistance, with full appreciation, regardless of whether we like it or not, is our enlightenment, is our connection, is our freedom. I've always thought that it was one of the most amazing things, that Buddha became enlightened. You know, after a tremendous struggle, he became enlightened under the Bodhi tree,

[32:57]

experiencing a tremendous bliss. And you would think that when he finally began to teach, he would start yakking about, wow, enlightenment is great, and you should see this under the Bodhi tree, and everything is wonderful, and everything is all one, and it's union, and you should go for it. But he didn't say anything like that. It's odd. The first thing he said was, suffering, it's all suffering, all conditioned things are characterized fundamentally by the nature of suffering. Isn't that odd that he would say that? And he said it because he wanted to be compassionate. He wanted to actually, he doubted, you know, at first, whether he should teach, because he thought this will be useless. And he was finally convinced that it would be useful. And so, from the very beginning, he wanted to teach in a way that was going to be useful. And so he realized, let's start from where we are. If I tell them all about enlightenment,

[34:08]

they'll either go crazy or get discouraged. Let's start from where we are. So, he began with the noble truth of suffering, to appreciate that the very nature of all conditioned things is suffering. And then, of course, to understand the roots of the suffering, to know that the suffering can be put to rest, and to know that there's a way of doing that. But in the first truth, the truth of suffering, to really appreciate that first truth, all the truths are there. So, those who have great enlightenment about delusion, about suffering, are Buddhists. The rest of us will go around thinking that later on we'll get enlightenment, and we'll have relief, and things will be better in the future, and

[35:11]

somehow we're going to get around all these problems. We're non-Buddhists because we don't just stop and turn around where we are. That's what Dogen says here. Then he goes on to say, further, there are those who continue realizing, or continue enlightenment beyond enlightenment, those who are in delusion throughout delusion. There are those who continue enlightenment beyond enlightenment, and those who are in delusion throughout delusion. So, as I said in the beginning, our enlightenment is an endless journey. And each point on the journey is the central point, and the final point. There are an infinite number of destinations, and each destination is the only place to be.

[36:18]

So, this is why, in our way, we understand enlightenment to be enlightenment beyond enlightenment. In the Bodhisattva vows that we'll say after the talk, we say, Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So, to realize enlightenment is actually a beginning point. To really, through almost always, but not always, our sitting practice, the oneness, and the multiplicity, and the perfection of everything that is, to really experience that. This is a good beginning. But does this insight pervade our whole lives? That's the question.

[37:26]

And there's no end to the challenge of that question. Each new situation, each new difficulty, is a way of stretching and developing our enlightenment. And then the part about delusion throughout delusion. It's not exactly clear, I suppose, whether those who are enlightened beyond enlightenment are one kind of people, and then the other kind of people are those people who are deluded throughout delusion. Or whether they're the same person, or the same people. I think they're the same people. I think to be enlightened beyond enlightenment is to be deluded throughout delusion. I always liked this part. I always thought it was good to be deluded. Again, the Bodhisattva vows. We say, sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

[38:35]

So in Zen practice, our commitment is not so much to be enlightened and save ourselves. Maybe, again, we start with this kind of desire, but as we continue with it, we see that there's no relief except through suffering. And there's no freedom for ourselves except through the freedom of everyone else. So to realize beyond realization, to be enlightened beyond enlightenment, is to be deluded throughout delusion. Sentient beings are infinite. I personally am going to save them. No, you can't get more deluded than that, can you? That's about the pinnacle of delusion. Because even if I were a really good savior, I mean, excellent, the best, how could I save an infinite number of sentient beings with a finite amount of time? Which I

[39:42]

have a finite amount of time, getting shorter all the time. I mean, I haven't saved anybody yet. How am I going to do that? And yet I say this in all seriousness, and I mean it. I mean, this is delusion, right? This is really almost dangerous delusion. But this is our spirit, and this is our commitment in our practice, that we will definitely keep practicing with our full energy until there's completely peace in our hearts and simultaneously peace in our world. This is it. We're not going to stop until that. And we're not going to stop practicing until we can treat ourselves with true justice,

[40:44]

and until all sentient beings in our world are treated with true justice. That's when we'll end and enter enlightenment and extinct. Not till then. This is, I mean, really deluded, right? It's especially deluded considering that we realize that there's really no problem inside us or in our world, that the whole world is perfect. It doesn't need to be saved. And we're already perfect, and we don't even need to practice at all. But that's just merely enlightenment. That doesn't go far enough, see? We have to also have delusion, beyond delusion. So, this grand delusion is absolutely essential

[41:48]

for our practice. So, we, bodhisattvas, are supremely deluded, and this is our bodhisattva work, to be deluded throughout delusion. This is how I think Dogen means here. And then he says, when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily know that they are Buddhas. They don't stop and take stock of their Buddhahood, like somebody who reads the paper and sees whether their stock went up or down. The Buddhas don't do that. They just go on with their practice. Just like in your own meditation practice, if you sit and meditate and get very, very intimate with your experience, it's a beautiful thing. But then when you say, oh, look at that, I'm really

[42:49]

intimate with my experience. That's great. Pretty soon you're thinking and your mind is wandering and you're all confused. Because if you try to possess your experience, you lose it. So, Buddhas don't necessarily notice that they're Buddhas. They just go on. Somebody, when we had a class on this saying, somebody said, well, in the sutras, Buddha says, I'm Buddha. He doesn't say, I'm somebody else. He acknowledges that he's Buddha. Well, that's true. But on the other hand, he doesn't make that much of it. You don't see in the sutras, Buddha getting in arguments with people about whether or not he's Buddha. I mean, you can imagine if somebody came along and said, well, you're not Buddha, he would say, oh, okay. But everybody needs a name and an address. Otherwise, how can you get all these wonderful

[43:51]

mailings that we all get? So, Buddha had to say that he was somebody and so he said, I'm Buddha. But he didn't necessarily have to, I think, make a point of it. So, we can also name our experience or name ourselves or our lives, if necessary, but we don't need to make such a big point of it. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they are Buddhas. However, they are actualized Buddhas and they go on actualizing Buddhas. In other words, they go on doing the activity of Buddhas. It doesn't matter what they call it. So, the important thing is our activity now and going forward in practice. It doesn't really matter what we call it.

[44:51]

The next part says, when you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. So, this very much reminds me of our Zazen practice. In our meditation practice, we make the effort to line up body and mind exactly. Usually, mind is going one way and body is going another way and mind has no idea what body is doing and body doesn't know what mind is doing. But when we line them up, then our experience of our lives is quite different. It's quite intimate. So, in sitting Zazen, you bring your mind to your breath and your posture.

[46:02]

Nothing else is thinking. Just thinking about mind and posture. If you forget a little bit, you bring it back. But that's the effort. And when mind and body are really aligned, then our life is very present and very intense. And then if we hear a sound or see something, it's really there. It's very intimate. We can't say if it's inside or outside. And even a thought is no different. If in that moment of really intimate alignment of body and mind, a thought arises in the mind, that thought is just as intimate and we can't say whether it's inside or outside. So, in that way, more and more bringing our whole life together in the present moment, our experience can be very intimate with suffering, with joy, with others, whatever arises.

[47:13]

He says, unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, which is the thing and the reflection are not the same. And unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, which are two different things, when we enter our lives in this way, one thing that we experience is completely enough. So, really, in our practice, there is a kind of deeply felt sense of satisfaction just to think this one thought, just to look into the face of this one person. Whatever it is that we're doing, and it doesn't have to be something special, but whatever it is that we're doing, one side illuminated, the other side is dark, is a kind

[48:15]

of technical language, which means in each thing that's illuminated by our consciousness, the darkness of all of reality comes up. So, one thing, everything is included. If we can meet that one thing with this kind of body and mind unified, we can have a life that is full of deep, deep intimacy with all things, in every individual thing. This is what Dogen says here. And then the last part that I'll comment on briefly is a very famous saying of Dogen that I'm sure you've heard here before, I hope you have anyway. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. Do you know this one? Yeah, everybody knows this one. Good to hear it again. To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

[49:18]

And to study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by everything. When actualized by everything, your body and mind, as well as the bodies and minds of others, drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So, these are four, almost they seem like steps or stages. They're not really, because each one contains all we need, but they're presented that way, perhaps so that we can understand. It's hard to say everything at the same time, so usually you have to say things one at a time. So, Dogen says them like that. So, I'll give a brief comment on each one of these. To study

[50:26]

the Buddha way is to study the self. And my commentary to this is that you start where you are. No use complaining. Just start where you are. Your opportunity is always where you are, no matter how hopeless or confused the situation seems to be. It's the only place to start. The second to study the self is to forget the self. You will find that when you really get close in with your experience, whatever it is, your experience that can seem, from the point of view of ego, so confined and so bound, you will find that right in the middle of your experience, there's a great deal of space. There's a great deal of freedom. And in a certain way, the closer you see

[51:30]

and merge with what's happening to you, the more it just disappears. And you see that you are not a problem. You just open up your hand and your heart and you can breathe with whatever's there. To forget the self is to be actualized by everything. When this is the case with you, then in every period of Zazen, in every moment of your life, is a series of endless deep encounters, endless challenges, endlessly interesting and calling you forth into your life. To be actualized by everything is to drop body and mind. This experience you don't hold on to. These moment-by-moment encounters are gone, each one, and we face another one,

[52:32]

without anything left over, anything that we want to hold on to, that we need to hold on to. You just get used to the idea of letting everything go when the time comes. And you join with everything in this, because the whole world is letting go, moment after moment. That's the nature of time. That's the nature of being. Letting go, moment after moment. And this no trace remains, and this no trace continues endlessly. So letting go is an endless proposition. It's just your life. And then you let go of your life. And it doesn't end. It goes on. Your practice continues on beyond that. There's an old saying, life is short, art is long. Life is short, practice is long.

[53:37]

So you come to appreciate that what you're involved with is not really this teensy little span of time, which we call our life, but something that's immense. And not only taking place in this little place of our physical movement, but everywhere at once. So all of us deluded bodhisattvas are involved in an endless project with all sentient beings, much bigger than our own life. That's why we don't need to be anxious or hurry, because it would be stupid to hurry to complete an endless task, right? Or to be worried about it. So no worry. We just keep going. So if there's a few temporary setbacks, 10, 20 years, what's the big deal?

[54:37]

If our whole life is just this terrible struggle, just give it up and start another one. Why worry? On the other hand, we can't waste time. We can't fool around. So there's no need to be anxious, but also we can't afford to fool around. We have to get started this moment and continue moment after moment. So this is our job in practice, a noble endless task. So you can write this on your resume. What have you done? I haven't been involved in a noble endless task. And they say, well, but I thought you were an optometrist. Well, yes, this is one of the vehicles for my noble endless task.

[55:50]

But what I'm really doing is a noble endless task. And everyone is too. Everyone is. Nobody is not. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been born in the first place. That's why we're born, don't you think? To undertake this. And so other people, somebody may not say that they're involved in a noble endless task, but we know that they are. And so we vow you too are involved in this noble endless task. Thank you for helping me and mine. This is our life together. So that's just a few thoughts I'm sharing with you about D'Angelo Cohen. And since I started with a poem of Emily Dickinson, I will also conclude with a poem of Emily Dickinson. You should all read as many poems of Emily Dickinson as possible,

[56:54]

because she's a great poet and very hard to understand. Harder to understand than Dogen. People think Dogen is hard to understand. But Emily Dickinson is much harder to understand. When you were in school, maybe you read some poems by Emily Dickinson, but they don't tell you the real poems. They just give you a few. Like that, Emily Dickinson. But they cleaned it up quite a bit. And the real Emily Dickinson, very hard to understand and very deep and basically subversive. So they don't want to tell you. But here's a last poem by Emily Dickinson. And then we can probably leave you to mine or something. A solemn thing it was, I said. A woman, white. Now this white thing, I have to tell you that one of Emily Dickinson's chief

[57:56]

themes is about death. She's always writing about death. When Emily Dickinson goes to heaven, he may die in the funeral and so on. Emily Dickinson, death is a very complex meditation that she dreams true.

[58:12]

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