Poetry Friday: from Auguries of Innocence

Is a difficult truth beautifully expressed made less difficult? Or, hearing it expressed beautifully, can we begin to accept it as the truth that it is?

Thay says, "No mud, no lotus," with a beauty that makes us smile.

William Blake says, with a beauty that makes us sigh:

It is right it should be so:

Man was made for Joy & Woe;

And when this we rightly know

Thro' the World we safely go.

Joy & Woe are woven fine,

A Clothing for the Soul divine;

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine.

(from "Auguries of Innocence")

I attended a retreat last Saturday with Sharon Salzberg and Cheri Maples. Cheri is a dharma teacher in Thay's tradition. One thing she talked about was how we all have our suffering; no one goes through life without experiencing suffering. Which is hard enough; then, on top of it, we are unhappy with the suffering we get. "We got the chicken shit, when we'd rather have the pig shit. Or the cow shit." Later, as a kind of gesture of compassion, she asked someone, "What kind did you get, the goat shit or the chicken shit? Mine's the goat shit." We all laughed. It was a way of saying, "Darling, I care about this suffering." Except that it came out sounding like, "Darling, I care about this shit." In the laughter was the silken twine, binding us together.

But about William Blake. There is so much more to him than "The Tyger." There is so much more to "The Tyger" than what is usually assumed when the poem is read to young children. Blake was a visionary, and by that I mean that he had visions. He trusted them utterly and this gave him great confidence. He was wrathful in his compassion for all beings.

From A Vision of the Last Judgment:

"What," it will be Question'd, "When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?" Oh no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty.'

May every sunrise greet you chanting, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Svaha!"

Poetry Friday: A Noiseless Patient Spider

This week, some lines from Walt Whitman.

A Noiseless Patient Spider
 
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

I've loved this poem for a long time, since before I could articulate how much of myself I saw in it. (Loving the poem was my way of articulating certain secret parts of myself.) Standing isolated, launching forth filament after filament into the seemingly "vacant vast surrounding." That was my sense of the universe -- vacant. And yet having an inkling that in fact, it is not all so vacant. An ocean is not a void -- it is a rich, life-giving substance. Seeking the spheres, emminating out like layers of consciousness, and seeking to connect them, and to connect myself to them. Seeking to build a bridge, to be a bridge, to something yet unseen, only mused about, but with faith that the venture will prove worthy.

This poem expresses a kind of courage that often remains hidden within myself, like a seed that needs much tender watering before it dares to venture forth a tendril. This poem waters that seed.

I see this poem as a bridge toward Right View. We (or I) start out feeling isolated, detached, surrounded yet alone; but as we (I) unreel ourselves outward, we (I) start to experience that which is "outward" as "inward" as well. Not so separate after all. "Till that bridge you will need is form'd" -- I love that phrase. Bridge or boat: either way I'll meet you on the other side.

 Hail Walt-Whitman-ishvara, Bodhisatva of Sphere Seekers!

Mud and Loot-us

When I invited folks from my sangha to visit this blog, I mistakenly typed the functional link as "mud and lootus. blogspot. com." When a few intrepid friends clicked, they received the message,

"Sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist. However, the name mudandlootus is available to register!"

"Mud & Lootus" -- that could be an interesting blog. It puts me in mind, for some reason, of The Iliad, which opens with a dispute over loot, war loot. The Greek hero Achilles falls into a sulking rage at having one of his war prizes, a young Trojan widow called Briseis, taken from him by Agamemnon, who had had to return his own war prize, Chryseis, to her father because he was a Trojan priest for Apollo, who in his divine annoyance had beset the Greeks with a plague of arrows raining from the sky. (It's complicated, epically so.)

Achilles responds the way many of us do (at least internally) when something is taken from us that we like: he taunts and withdraws from battle ("I quit!") and he complains to his mother ("It's not fair!"). His mother happens to be the goddess Thetis, and she, very unwisely (or perhaps with very subtle wisdom?) appeals to Zeus to turn the war against the Greeks until Achilles is properly respected again. This leads to the death of Patroklos, Achilles's dear friend, as well as thousands of Greeks, which leads to the death of Hector, as well as thousands of Trojans, which leads ... well, you get the idea.

The story is full of gods and men (and goddesses and women) behaving badly. But also, at times, honorably. The best and worst of our nature. Worst of all is wrath -- wrath over loot. If that's not mud, I don't know what is.

(And as we all know, eventually Achilles, too, met his mortal fate.)
















The Wrath of Brad Pitt