Tonight we jump from 20th century and we come west from the east anyway, or we come east from the east to the west, what we call the west, to the United States. And before I talk about some of the, and read some of the poetry tonight, I want to ask you some questions about this chapbook that we're going to make. What may be a good idea in terms of, you know, reproducing it, making a couple of copies for the library, so that you can look at it at your leisure, would be if each of you either have already written a poem that you've given me that you would want in it, or you might want to rewrite on a piece of paper quite clearly so that we can simply take it

[01:04]

down to Xerox and turn it off that way rather than, we don't have time for someone to work on the computer to do it in some kind of nice font this time, but we could do it that way. Each of you could write a poem and bring it in, maybe by next week, something that you would like, and if they're very short, maybe two poems, something like that would be okay. I don't think I want to specify there has to be any particular length, tonight we're going to get into quite a bunch of different kinds of approaches to intensified experience, but something that we can simply put on the machine and that others, when they read it, it'll be legible enough, although I kind of like the way you wrote the other ones, because the way they look, the quick writing of it and so on, when you reproduce it, it's kind of neat, even if you have to squint your eyes

[02:08]

to make out the words sometimes. So, we'll see, does that sound okay? Well, that's a question, I'm glad you brought that up. Should you sign them? Well, we can have the book either in anonymous or you can sign your names, and if you don't, maybe we say sign your names and if you don't want to sign your names, don't, just write Anon. We can make up names. I've got them, I've got all of them, and I'll be happy to bring them back and you can fish through them, and I'd like to use them, and of course you can have those back, make another book out of them, maybe, too, at some time. Yeah, so each of us could have like one, eight and a half, and we should leave a margin for

[03:17]

binding, and some of that kind of stuff. Thank you, yeah. Yeah, and then maybe we'll make a cover up, and I think it would be nice to call it, Too Green to Burn Poetry, as one title. Too Green to Burn Poetry. This could be the status of something big. And so the next two weeks, I think what I'd like to do next week, from now on is have everybody bring in, there's poems next week that we'll reproduce, but also bring a favorite poem that you feel has some bearing, I mean, anyway, a poem that touches you, might have some bearing on your practice or your place in life with it. It can be your own, but it could also be, and maybe even more importantly, somebody else's, some poem that you find or that you recite that you've always liked, and that has significance,

[04:30]

signifies some aspect of your, what we might call, awakening or practice. This whole question of language is very interesting, as I've said from the beginning. The whole purpose of this class, in fact, is to awaken us, to make us more sensitive to the use of language, to intensify our perceptions and to clarify our visions in words. It used to be that words were understood as something that arises after the phenomena arises and is slapped on, in terms of description. But postmodern deconstruction look of language is something that's, in some sense, more real to both poets, and certainly is the view I take, is that language arises with perception. Concepts and language arise with perception.

[05:31]

Now the Vedas, you know, when you go all the way back in history to the early Vedas in India, those were sacred words, that was sacred language, that was fixed in stone. You did not mess around with the language once. In other words, universal language, universal, great universal truths and so on, that seem to come from on high from God. It can only be interpreted by a certain trained class of people and so on. That kind of language, you know, what's interesting in all this history, is that kind of language prevailed in India and still does to this day. That is the sacred word, you don't mess with it, the universals. But the interesting thing about Buddhism that makes it a little bit heretical in India was that language is always seen as conventional, conventional designation. Conventional designation arising with phenomena at the same time and naming it. And there's nobody in the West, in our literature,

[06:38]

who has a better grasp of the use of, with the awareness of how language and the way we characterize ourselves in the world are inseparable as William Shakespeare himself. Our great bardic poets are usually all attuned to the flow of language and to descriptive passages about language itself and its powers. Whitman does the same. Some of the people up today writing do the same. And this is, you know, now we're going to begin to enter descriptive poetry, poetry that abounds with metaphor, similes. And in other words, poetry that denotes more than connotes. In Indian philosophy, language either connoted or denoted. And what it connoted was considered universal, and what it denoted was considered simply conventional.

[07:41]

And there's, in epistemology in India today, there's still philosophical discussions about whether language is basically denoted, that is to say, simply descriptive, or whether its power really comes by connoting universal or, I would call it poetic understanding of the interdependence of things and the flavor that is not found in the word itself, but what the word points to and suggests by association. In King Richard II, there's this speech by Richard. He says, My brain, I'll prove the female to my soul. Now, I love the wonderful way of metaphor that Shakespeare. My brain, I'll prove the female to my soul, my soul, the father.

[08:46]

And these two beget a generation of still-breeding thoughts, and these same thoughts people this little world in humors like the people of this world, for no thought is contented. And so I am. Thus play I in one person many people, and none contented. Sometimes am I king. Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, and so I am. Then crushing penury persuades me I was better when a king. Then am I king again. And by and by think that I am unkinged, and straight am nothing. But whatever I be, nor I nor any man, but man is with nothing, shall be pleased till he be pleased with being nothing. With nothing shall he be pleased till he be eased with being nothing.

[09:54]

Well, that sounds kind of like something we... When will the time come that we will be pleased with being nothing till we are eased with being nothing? No, that's a speech from Richard II. Richard? I don't think so, but maybe. I don't remember exactly. I think he's actually on a grassy slope talking with others about what it feels like to be deposed. He says, Of comfort no man speak. You know that speech? Of comfort no man speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs.

[10:56]

Make dust our paper. And with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. He's been deposed. There's nothing left for him. Let's choose executors and talk of wills. And yet not so. For what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the earth? Our lands, our lives, nothing can we call our own but death and that small parcel of the barren earth that serves as pasting cover to our bones. For God's sake, let's sit on the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings, how some were deposed, some slain in wars, some haunted by the ghosts of those they deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some slain in the night, all murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the noble temples of a king keeps death his court. And there the antic sits, scoffing his state and laughing at his pomp,

[11:57]

allowing him a moment, no, allowing him, yeah, a moment allowing him a little, a breath, allowing him a breath, a little moment to monocrise, be feared, and kill with looks, infusing him with vain and self-conceit as if this flesh that walls about our life were brass impregnable and humored thus, comes at the end and with a little pin, bores through his castle wall and farewell king. Something like cover your heads or throw away ceremony, throw away honor, something in ceremonious forms, for you have, cover your head, mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence, for you have mistaken me all this while. I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends.

[12:59]

Subjected thus, how can you say to me I am a king? Now nobody but Shakespeare and that kind of bardic power can talk about impermanence and dying and that fall from grace and from power and from position like Shakespeare. Richard, just a second. Now here's a poem by an Australian poetess, poet. I think we call women now poets and not poetesses. Please. And it's called Weathering. And what I like about these poems now is that they're not subjected to this kind of rigid iambic forms and lines that Shakespeare had to work with,

[14:04]

but of course a much freer verse that we're more accustomed to working with today. Nevertheless, the use of her imagery, the so-called objective correlatives to name the interior landscape of her changing life, are wonderfully caught. She says, My face catches the wind from the snow line and flushes with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well, that was a metropolitan vanity, wanting to look young forever, to pass. I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty, only pretty enough to be seen with men who wanted to be seen with passable women. But now, now that I am in love with a place that doesn't care how I look or if I am happy, happy is how I look. And that's all. My hair will grow gray in any case,

[15:08]

my nails chip and flake, my waist thicken, and the years work all their usual changes. If my face is to be weather-beaten as well, it's little enough, lost for a year among lakes and dells, for simply to look out of my window at the high pass makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what my soul may wear over its new complexion. Fleur Adcock. That's her name. Where? Australia, I think. A-D-C-O-C-K? Yes. But now that I am in love with a place that doesn't care how I look or if I am happy, happy is how I look.

[16:11]

I'm in a place that doesn't care how I look, so happy is how I look. And that's all. See, this kind of language, this kind of... what do you call it? Soul, maybe? This kind of feeling that pours forth from us in moments of our transition, the moments of reclaiming our lost selves, the self that we lost in all of the acculturation of our life. Someone said, I wrote it down, said that poetry is the language of the state of crisis. Poetry is the language of the state of crisis. And if you've ever been in a tight spot, lost somebody you love and so on,

[17:16]

you're very often driven to want to pick up a pencil and pen and express yourselves. After 9, 11, many people felt the need to sit down and express their feelings about a shocking event. Art in general. Art in general. Chung Soo says, I'm going to say, I'm going to try speaking some restless words and I want you to listen recklessly. I'm going to try to say some reckless words. I'm trying to break out of the usual constraints that I have bound myself up in terms of language. This is a whole different way of showing ourselves than was current in the Far East, in those earlier poems we read, in which the self, the pronoun I, my particular feelings are subsumed into, more like into space around the words.

[18:18]

Along this road, no one goes, this autumn eve. We know that's Ba Shou, we know somebody's there, but just catching that moment, that is the Zen idea. But I don't think Zen or Buddhism should be restricted in any particular way or form. Poetry is Zen, said W.H. Blythe, who was Robert Aitken's teacher. And the fact is that what we're trying to do by writing poems as individuals, we don't have to call ourselves poets, but by writing poems to get in touch with the feeling content of our life is the reason we write the poems, more than to see our poems out there in front of people.

[19:19]

Though there should be some way that, there should be some reason to write the poem in terms of wanting to connect with other people as well, and to do that elegantly. Tonight I want to read from this book before we get to our poems that we have read, and this is this book, which is what? What book? And Gary Gatch collected poems from all over the country, lay people and Buddhists, and laid it out under chapter headings, many different kinds of chapter headings. And the reason I want to read just a few of these poems is that we get an example of what people are doing today, and as inspiration for ourselves, as we live here confined to quarters,

[20:24]

confined to our black cushion. You know, as you sit on your black cushion, trying to push away thoughts, thoughts will come back even stronger, and maybe even some poetic thoughts, so-called some intensified language. And rather than trying to banish thinking from your zazen, why not just let the thoughts play in the fields of your mind, see what arises from that. Just sit with the poetry of your day-to-day life that wants to be heard, that discursively demands to be heard. And as long as we understand that it is all dependently co-arisen and has no intrinsic self, what's the problem? Is the boss thought that says, you should banish those thoughts and come back to breathing, which is a thought, which is an idea, which is language, is that thought more important than whatever else arises?

[21:27]

It's like that one's put on, yeah, it's put on the, you know, the black vestures of the judge and jury and sits there and watching you to be sure the rest of your thoughts that they don't kind of sneak out of the classroom, which is the classroom of trying to get free from thoughts. It's a big joke. Instead of trying to get out of your thoughts, treat all the words as golden as our heritage, as the very life breath of our being words. Treat them as sacred in that sense because they are so passing, so ephemeral. The time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome and say, sit here, eat.

[22:30]

You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine, give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes. Peel your own image from the mirror. Sit, feast on your life. Sit, feast on your life. Is it warm? Oh, I'm sorry, that was Derek Walcott. Well-known, most of these poems I read are... Here's a quick one. Cats yawn because they realize there's nothing to do. Jack Kerouac.

[23:33]

Part of a long poem called The Scripture of the Golden Eternity. Top ten American poetry. Nanao Sakaki, a Japanese contemporary poet, wanderer who came to this country under the auspices of Gary Snyder and gave many readings in the 70s and 80s. Top ten American poetry. I like this. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. Walt Whitman. The government of the people, by the people, for the people. Thomas Jefferson. You deserve a break today. McDonald's. Where science gets down to business. Rockwell International. Kick the letter habit. Bell System. Crime hits everybody. Everybody ought to hit back. Chicago Crime Commission. Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible. Monsanto. I think America's future is black. Cole Black.

[24:35]

Atlantic Richfield Company. Have a Coke and a smile. Coca-Cola. Private property, no trespassing. Dead-end road. Anonymous. That's pretty good, huh? See, but the thing is, it's wonderful you can make it out of anything. It's like found objects in art. Just pick it up. Yeah. The top ten of American poetry. He's got many poems in here. This is under original mind heading. There's some wonderful stuff in here. I really think this is a great book they put up. I want to just give you some more examples here. The Empty Shrine Buddha. If you grow your hair,

[25:36]

you save on heating bills. Thus the globe rolls over. Poverty is something money can't buy. Poverty is something money can't buy. Philip Whelan. Our own Philip Whelan. You know, the thing about, I was watching a video about Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and so on before Allen Ginsberg died. And it was like the 60s, he said, was the politics of ecstasy. And the poetry was the poetry of an ecstatic movement in this country. Even though it was engaged, it was stepping out of the 50s into the 60s and engaging the world in a new dynamic, in a fresh new way, a romantic way, of course. And it was done to the cadences of jazz,

[26:38]

which was very popular at that time, very much a music. So Ginsberg, his whole teaching, not whole teaching, but a lot of his teaching was about the line in terms of the length of the breath. So you might try that. You might actually try to write a poem or your lines that you can say in a single breath and see how that works. Breath poems, he calls them. These days I wear my robe half open, the purple silk parts showing scarlet lining, the thick blue sash, a tangle on the floor. I sway around the house easily, feel the weight of the robe, a cool breeze on my skin as I pass the window and see no one's watching, only blue sky outlines, clear-cut mountains half clothed and green grass tufts

[27:39]

peek through the cracked brown earth. That has so many sensual, that's Patricia Donegan, that has so many wonderful sensual things in it, the robe half open, the color purple blue parts swaying around the house easily and the weight of the robe, you can feel it, the cool breeze, the tactile sensations of the poem as well as the visual aspects. Only blue sky outlines, clear mountains. Wonderful to be able to get so many different things in a poem, many different senses. Meets a Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's wife, summer butterfly, one meeting, one lifetime, deep valley. One meeting, one lifetime,

[28:42]

deep valley. Listen to this one, Snow. In the morning, when I wake in the cocoon of my dreams, all silence has been restored, all silence so persuasive as to hang on the trees, to bend them to the ground, to snuff out the flowers burning bright petals, to shh, the soft Buddha statue on the walkway. I open my eyes, I rip my cocoon from my sides, my sticky, fragile wings and fly into this morning of snow. You know who wrote that? Jessamyn Meyerhoff, age 14. Beautiful poem, age 14. When I wake from the cocoon of my dreams, all silence has been restored. All silence so persuasive. How can a 14-year-old know that? Yeah, so persuasive as to hang on to the trees,

[29:44]

to bend them to the ground, to snuff out the flowers burning bright petals, to shh, the soft Buddha statue on the walkway. I open my eyes, I rip my cocoon from my sides, my sticky, fragile wings and fly into this morning of snow. Remember how we talked about moving from one dimension to another in a single poem? It's natural. A man comes to the door a million times, says he wants to be a monk. He sits and stares on his own appointed cushion, at his own appointed piece of wall, or at his shadow, the way it flickers and moves in the morning, or at his hands with two thumbs pressed tightly together to keep them from curling away, sinking into the groove where his ankles meet, or at his neighbor out of the corner of his eye, the way his neighbor sags forward and drops his head. He reminds himself to be mindful

[30:46]

a million times, and when I meet him on the path he always bows to me quietly, he always bows to me quietly, and asks me how my day has been and am I shining grandly. I have seldom met a monk and daily meet a Buddha, a child, or a mother, or a whale in song. Jessamyn Ha Firehoff I think it was the same year. Same person, those are both by Jessamyn. She's the daughter of Keith and Leslie Meierhoff at Tassar. And was born there, and grew up there. Many of you know her, many of you don't. Today she's a midwife, I think. Where? New York City. Brilliant, brilliant girl.

[31:47]

Both of those young women are. The Zen Do In a decrepit part of town, a rear-ended pinto slumps at the curb. The Zen Do is in an old house, and in front yard of raked dirt, goldfish get used to their pond. Holding my view of Zen, I enter. The Roshi does not console. He does, however, smile when asked about fear. Always the spiritual tourist, I notice irrelevancies, sandal styles, but become peaceful the next day I return with my children, who become entranced with a cat. They sit more comfortably than I on the mat and enjoy the gongs. I want them to take it all seriously. When they say, let's go, I let go. Nice turn at the end, huh?

[32:47]

Somebody called Tom Greening, I don't know. I just kind of took these samplers of narrative poems, lyrical poems, angry poems. We'll come to a couple of those. Not that one, it's too long. Oh. And then, you short story writers, you who like longer narrative poems, can do something like this, perhaps. 5.30 a.m., downtown, ghetto, Richmond, winter, still black, morning. I get out of the car, but gas station attendant disappears behind the bulletproof plexiglass window as two black-haired women and two black guys approach, high on blow. The tall one wants a dollar for gas, the fat one a cigarette, both happily given, no sense of fear. The tall one goes to his truck to write down his number, should I hear of a hauling job,

[33:52]

a long shot, his desperation to find work. Anyway, sometime before Christmas, he's got eleven children. The fat one is mumbling and making strange hand gestures, but when I look into his gleaming eyes, there's a presence between us, a fumbling with his hands again. He says, I can't express myself. I say, you're doing fine. He holds both his arms out wide, saying, it's so big. Yeah, I say, it's big and beyond words. You understand, he says. Most people don't understand. Yes. Then he gives me a hug until the tall one comes back, but his pen is hollow, where once was its cartridge. So he returns to the truck. The fat one says, I'm a fisherman too. I come from the sea. Brother, we all come from the sea. Which brings him to hug me again until the tall one returns with wet blue numbers smeared on tatters of paper, barely legible. Now the fat one wants to write his name and number, which he scrawls, as I think,

[34:54]

getting later and later for studious, no, studiously, I think, getting later and later for Dokusan, then realize it's happening now. Wow. Good turn, huh? I mean, they're a nice narrative with just enough details, but plenty of excellent, people come alive. We all respond to it, great, great poem by somebody named Gary Rosenthal. So try that kind of thing, you know. Then there's the poem, what I call the happiness poem, or the poem of sudden enlightenment. And this, of course, is by a famous poet, you know, Milos. It's called Gift. Maybe it's a famous poem by now. A day so happy, a day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I knew no one worth my envying him.

[35:56]

Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot. To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me. In my body, I felt no pain. When straightening up, I saw the blue sky and the sails. I'm sorry. When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails. See? You know, here it's all kind of, you know, happy, and, you know, you're working in the garden. It's kind of abstract things about, you know, values that the person has. But then there's that moment. You had that moment. You suddenly turn, and the world opens up. As I was straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails. Enlightenment poem. Now, see, what you can do, what we can do, is start picking up on stuff like this. And when you go into dokusan with different people, you can say, when straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails. And then he answers with... Rinzo.

[36:59]

Let's see. What's a... Ajax, boom, boom, the foaming cleanser. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. In other words, when you want to talk about something cleansing, and maybe talk about something, when you're trying to cleanse your mind of rambling thoughts, Ajax, boom, boom. And then find one that takes you away from this kitchen sink, you know. Nowhere on this earth is it not, nowhere on this earth is it not a place where lovers turn lightly in sleep in each other's arms, the blue pastures of dusk flowing gladly into the dawn. This is the beginning of something. Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere on this earth is it not a place

[38:00]

where lovers turn lightly in sleep in each other's arms, the blue pastures of dusk flowing gladly down into the dawn. Nowhere that is not reached by the scent of good bread through an open window, by the flash of fish in the flashing of summer streams, or the trees unfolding their praises, apricots, pears, of the winter chill nights. I love that, the trees unfolding their praises of the winter chill nights. Briefly, briefly, we see it and forget, as if the spell were too powerful to hold on the tongue, as if we preferred the weight to the prize. Like a horse that carries on his back the sack of oats he will need unsuspecting, looking always ahead, over the mountains to where sweet springs lie. He remembers this much from his youth, the taste of things cold and pure,

[39:01]

while the water's sound sings on and on, unlistened to in his ears, while each step is nothing less than the glistening river body reentering home. Does that sound like a poet? Jane Hirshfield, one of our alumni. Now that poet, as if, as if that comparison, as if it were. To be in not to be, to be in not to be, that is the answer. To be in not to be, that is the answer. Tom Kelly. My hat vanished when that cat that sat up looked straight at it. That hat had had it. Playing with language, like you do very well at it.

[40:03]

My hat vanished when the cat that sat up looked straight at it. That hat had had it. Then they have a section of poems called Visual Language. Some drawings in language with it. Who was it that said, I think therefore I am? Descartes. Fred says, I think therefore I am not. I have to talk to Fred. I tell the truck where to go, the road tells the truck where to go, the road almost always wins. Now, here's someone that I read last Sunday, the dropout monk abbot,

[41:05]

Buddhist activist, jail bird, miracle. You blockheads who ask what Buddha is should start asking about everything else instead. Ask about everything. When you're hungry, ask about food. Ask the moonlight about the way. Find a port where lemon trees bloom, where lemon trees bloom. Ask about places to drink in the port. Ask and ask till nothing's left to ask. You blockheads who ask what Buddha is should start asking about everything else instead. Ask about everything. When you're hungry, ask about food. Ask the moonlight about the way. Find a port where lemon trees bloom, where lemon trees bloom. Ask about places to drink in the port. Ask and ask till nothing's left to ask. And then this is a really tough one.

[42:09]

But this is, this guy in the Korean War was forced to carry corpses on his back when the North Koreans invaded his part of the country. And he watched his parents being slaughtered. Cut parents away. Cut children away. This and that and this, not that, and anything else as well, cut off and dispatched by the sharp blade of night. Every morning, heaven and earth are heaped up with dead things. Our job is to bury them all day long and establish there a new world. In a temple's main hall, down with Buddha, down with handsome, well-fed Buddha. What's he doing up there with that oh, so casually elegant, wispy beard? Next, break down the painted whore of a crossbeam. A dragon's head? What use is that, a dragon's head? Tear down that temple. Drive out the monks. Turn it all into dust and maggots.

[43:12]

Buddha with nothing, that's real Buddha. Our foul-mouthed soul, street market mother, she's real Buddha. We're all of us, Buddha, [...] real. Living Buddha? One single cigarette, now there's a real cool, holy Buddha. No, not that either. Not even supposing this world were a piece of cake with everyone living it up and living well, all equally able to rig themselves out in high-class gear with lots and lots of goods produced thanks to Korean-American technological collaboration. Each one able to live freely with no robbing of rights. Paradise even, paradise even. Utter Eden unequaled, all plastered with jewels. Still, still, even then, day after day, people would have to change the world. Why, of course, in any case, day after day, this world must all be overturned and renewed to become a newly blooming lotus flower,

[44:16]

and that, that is Buddha. Down for sure with those 1500 years rolling on foolish rambling along, time fast asleep like stagnant water that stinks and stinks. So don't hesitate to use strong language because the next two weeks, you're on. It's your poetry for the next two weeks. We'll dim the lights. We'll get a little, we'll get one of those, you know, what do you call, wash tubs? Turn it up on the end. We'll get Mick on the drums. Can you stand up? Huh? Yeah, we'll have some poetry. The golden age returns. My robe hangs in the garden dripping like a tree. One day I'll step out of my body exactly like this.

[45:19]

My robe hangs in the garden dripping like a tree. One day I'll step out of my body exactly like this. Who's that? Several haiku. Peter Levitt. A couple more. Do you know him? Is he a teacher? Oh, is that so? The moon in the dew drop is the real moon. The moon in the sky is an illusion. Which Madhyamaka school does that represent? Helen Ginsberg. Madhyamaka states that neither the mind nor the world is either real or unreal. The moon in the dew drop is the real moon. The moon in the sky is an illusion. Which Madhyamaka school does that represent? Didactic poem we were talking about?

[46:23]

You got your didactic poem ready for tonight now? One more maybe. There's one in here. There's one here. Maybe that's it. And this is the last one. If I can find it. One of my favorite poems, sent to me by Lou Hartman. Someone like to read? Yes, Jane. Mired in delusion, nostrils stuffed with it.

[47:24]

Ah, the scent of Buddha Dharma. Read it again, louder. Mired in delusion, nostrils stuffed with it. Ah, the scent of Buddha Dharma. The scent? Scent. He did say scent. Thank you. Another one? Anybody else? Yeah. Fine. We have no restrictions here. Almost. Now read it loudly and slowly. Who hates me to incorporate chocolate powder into their huge, immovable desert? Oh, Judy, please come down from the mountain. Some of us are broke and have no problems.

[48:25]

Because if you wake up in the morning and think, healing is a skill map, or even this glass of water is complicated, then point that one finger to the rising sun over the evergreen ocean today. Morning, session, challenger. Here I am, and here I still am. An awakening is not a secret, and Buddha is not a secret. Oh, Judy, are you like the crescent of purity more distinguished? And I don't know if I contained anyone, but point again to the heartbreaking emptiness, and I'll follow the tides and the goodwill of this warm place that I love with all my heart. Because in the dawn, when the self-portraits come streaming in, I remember that everything strings to be inevitable, even as it's being killed off forever. And I'll tell you where you can stick it. And we'll raise our voices up and sing, we are not one with everything. And hello to the idea of going to the store to buy more ice, because we are running out. Hello to the idea of feelings that are unintroduced, and it's in the game of finding meaning in coincidence. Hello to all the intricately rendered worlds, beginning to rise. Hello, what was the last line?

[49:27]

Hello to all the intricately rendered worlds, beginning to rise. I'd like to see that one in print so I could read it more slowly, and hear it more slowly. Okay. That's very rich, a lot of imagery in that one, to kind of digest. It's helpful if we read a little more slowly. Well, thank you. Maybe you could put that one on a piece of paper. Somebody else? Practice giving, he said. I did not expect it to place me smack dab in the middle of the whole Dependent Arising co-creating show. All the teachings of the Buddhas and Ancestors. Go ahead. Eat shit. Cohen would like that.

[50:30]

Closer, please, where the love is clear and even spring vanishes. The rivers flow swiftly, refilling ocean basins. There is no thirst. Once more. The rivers flow swiftly, refilling ocean basins. There is no thirst. Thank you. The rivers flow swiftly, here again, flat on my back. Nothing Dogen can say will let me forget when you were here, too. Good. Yes. Violence lives in the surface of the water.

[51:38]

When raised and bubbled, the next fishes are sliding into the kitchen sink. Once more, please. Violence lives on the surface of the water when raised and bubbled, the next fishes are sliding into the kitchen sink. Yes, Nick. The first one to arrive creates the universe. The last one to leave destroys it. Later, in the lobby, they pass without a word or nod or glance. It could have been written all over my mouth.

[52:46]

Somebody else? Yes. Can I read my poem from last night's conference? Uh-huh. The severed finger, a gateway opens to Buddha's body. The billion atoms dancing like bubbles in the galaxy. Virutana's jewel-stored tongue bursts in bubbles. Pop, pop, pop. Avalokiteshvara sits behind him, watching the severed finger of Rumi's read woman. Of Rumi's what? Read. R-E-A-D. Lament. Thank you. I also mentioned last week that it would be interesting to try a little exercise to see if you could write something without using adjectives and adverbs,

[53:55]

just verbs and nouns. Remember? Anybody try that? Yeah? Well, I already read it, but I threw a couple back in. So, can I read it without? Okay. Practice giving, he said. I did not expect it to place me in the middle of the show. Read the other version. Okay. Practice giving, he said. I did not expect it to place me smack dab in the middle of the whole Dependent Arising co-creating show. Which one is better though? I think it was. Which one do you like? I like the simple one. That's interesting. Do you mind if we talk about that a second? Yeah, I do.

[54:56]

I mean, I struggled with it. How many people like the first version better than the second? Yeah. How about the second one? How about the first version? The long version. The long version. There's something about poetry, Zen poetry or poetry about Zen that what we can suggest and leave out seems to be more powerful than what we sometimes state. But not necessarily. That was a great gift that Ryokan and those poets had to suggest so much with so little. But their language is made for that in the sense that ours is not with the use of ideograph. Yes.

[55:57]

Yeah. You're going the wrong way. You're going the wrong way. Thank you. Great. Now, if you want to try an Allen Ginsberg exercise

[57:08]

from the Naropa Institute, here it is. Thank you. The first part of the poem. Let's see. Mind clearing exercise. Confusion and complexity to simplicity in five verses of 21 syllables each. I don't care about the 21 syllables, but it's interesting. Confusion and complexity to simplicity in five verses. And he gives an example called Big Eats. First one, then it changes.

[58:11]

Sooner or later, let go what you loved, hated, or shrugged off. You walk in the park, you look at the sky, sit on a pillow, count up the stars in your head, get up and eat. You see it? See how he moved from kind of the hustle bustle of the big deal bargains, meat stock market newspaper. And he said try to do it in 21 syllables with each one of those verses. And that's the rolling line that he likes, the breath line. But you could try it and move from complexity, confusion and complexity to simplicity. Well, he says five verses. You could use three. He did it. Big deal bargains TV meat stock market newspaper headlines love life metropolis. That's the first one, 21. Huh? You slipped, Ellen.

[59:26]

Not dead yet. Huffing, puffing, upstairs, downstairs, telephone office, mail checks, secretary revolt, the Soviet legislative communist bloc inspired Gorbachev's wife and Yeltsin to shut up and tear or stand on a tank in front of White House denouncing puss pussists puss September breeze sway branches and leaves in a calm schoolyard under humid gray sky. Drink your decaf, Ginsburg, old communist New York Times adding, be glad you're not Trotsky. So that kind of thing is a fun it's interesting to work with because it makes you think and find the visual work the visual images that make it work. Yeah.

[60:29]

I didn't do anything quite that exciting, but I did do a bare bones poem. Egos and tall peaks, barricades, valley and stream called home. Once more? Egos and tall peaks, barricades, valley and stream called home. Okay. Well, it's 20 of. Next week you're on. Bring poems you love. Bring a heart on fire. Bring burning embers of words. Let's turn on this. Let's turn on our language. Let's find new ways to express the Dharma. Look at this practice. I think Red's having you do the same thing in class. But that's about a specific

[61:32]

koan. This is freer than that. It's about curing the flu. It's about curing the flu. About curing the flu? That's what he said last night. It's curing his flu? His fever broke after class. Wow, really? Well, there you go. The power of language. Next week, it's true. You're sick sometimes. The power of language can change it. I'm a firm believer in the power of poetic expression. It's just a reflection. I don't know if this is something you would bend, but it seems like it's catching both ends of the spectrum. There's the minimalist poetry that we have so powerfully from Japanese haiku that's so subjective. It's actually really hard to do. And then there's the Ginzburg tradition

[62:36]

which is letting everything into your consciousness. Allowing everything that arises. I don't know. So these are a lot of Ginzburg poems from 30 years ago and more. And now we're in another... That generation is gone and it's your generation now that has to pick up on it. Find its own form. Maybe it's time to fill it out again. I think this generation and your generation is not the ecstatic generation. Which generation? Which generation? I'm looking at the young people. Aren't you young? Well, yeah. The boomers or the Xers? The boomers or the Xers, right?

[63:37]

Or the Yers. There you go. There's a subject right there. Generational poetry. Do you need to love them? Bring something that moves you. The one you write you don't have to love. Usually you don't. But bring another poem also that you want to read maybe. Next week the poems I want you to bring is something you can read from someone else and then bring your own poems, the ones that we want to put into the book. Next week and maybe the week after. May you hear our intention May you hear our intention May you hear our intention

[64:29]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ