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Poetry of Practice II (4 of 5) Guided Meditation; Poetry of Practice II (4 of 5): Making the Sacred and Profane - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 19, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Poetry of Practice II (4 of 5) Guided Meditation

A warm welcome to everybody, wherever you are in all these different places. Before I turned on the recording, I was thinking it's beautiful that we all come together in this way.

Today, I'm going to continue this series, The Poetry of Practice. There are so many things we could say about poetry, but one thing is that part of its power, part of the way it makes an impact on us, is that it allows us to see things in a different way, from a fresh perspective. Sometimes it's even a surprising perspective, which can bring a sense of delight or maybe even a sense of, "Wait, what?"—a twinge of uncertainty that shakes things up a little bit.

I love this about poetry. To be sure, I'm not a scholar of poetry or literature, but I like poetry that has imagery. Sometimes imagery allows us to consider or experience things in a different way. Today I'll share another poem that has some imagery I really appreciate. I'll drop in this poem after a short guided meditation. We will have a chance to settle and get quiet, and then we can just allow this poem to enter or touch us in some kind of way, without having to analyze it during the meditation.

With that as an introduction, we can take a meditation posture. Finding a configuration of the body that expresses our intention to meditate, but also has some ease.

Traditionally, this is in a sitting posture with an uprightness, a steadiness usually focused around the spine. The spine being upright, the vertebrae stacked on one another, and letting the limbs just hang. Letting the arms just hang from that uprightness. Letting the spine be upright, and allowing the muscles to be relaxed.

Feeling into that experience—the experience that is being had right now.

This is part of the art of practice: finding this balance between alertness and relaxation. You can begin by feeling grounded, supported by whatever it is we're sitting on, standing on, lying on, or walking on. Whichever posture you're in, feeling the pressure against the body. Feeling the contact of the body with the ground or foundation, and feeling the stability that this contact provides. And from this stableness can arise the spine, or this sense of uprightness.

Tuning into the bodily experience, including the experience of breathing. Feeling the movement of the body as it breathes. The obvious large movements, as well as the more subtle, smaller movements. Without having to dig for them, but rather receiving them, allowing them, welcoming them into awareness.

Noticing the real rhythm of the breathing. There's a way the rhythm itself can be supportive. Inhales and exhales. Transitions between inhales and exhales. Very simply, just this pattern of breathing being repeated.

It wouldn't be surprising if the mind wandered and entered into imaginations, stories, and thoughts. What if we don't make that a problem? Instead, we recognize that this is what minds do, and we very simply, gently begin again. Tuning into and becoming sensitive to the experience of breathing.

Nothing in particular needs to be happening. We're just noticing what's happening and resting our attention on the sensations of breathing.

Can we bring an attitude of warmth and care to this experience, to this moment, and the next moment, and the next, softening any harshness?

Bringing a sense of presence to the moments. Being present for the experience of breathing.

I'm going to drop in a poem. There is nothing you have to do with this poem; just allow it to be received. At the end of this meditation, after I ring the bell, I'll give the name of the poem and the poet. But for now, just allow the poem to be experienced. The poem goes like this:

In the secret temple of my heart was an altar with nothing on it. I loved nothing, the pure potential of it.

Sometimes when others journeyed here, I sensed they were surprised, perhaps even sorry for me, as if it would be better with a lotus, or a cross, or a star, or a figurine, or a photo of someone, or a stone. Always something.

I tried, in fact, to put things on the altar. But no thing let itself stay.

There was a day when, in a single moment, the altar had everything on it. And by everything, I mean everything. Every bee, every stick, every plastic bag and beetle. Every crushed empty can, every crumpled shirt, every door handle, compass, broken thermometer, apple, trash can, tree. Everything.

And it was so beautiful I wept for hours. Oh, the pure potential of it.

And then that altar was no longer in some secret temple in my heart, but everywhere. Everywhere a place to worship. Everything a prayer waiting to be heard, to be touched.

And inside the most beautiful nothing. Not even an altar, which is oddly everything.

I can't say how. Sometimes when I am quiet enough, I notice it. Sometimes when I get out of the way, I fall all the way in.

I'll read the poem again:

In the secret temple of my heart was an altar with nothing on it. I loved nothing, the pure potential of it.

Sometimes when others journeyed here, I sensed they were surprised, perhaps even sorry for me, as if it would be better with a lotus, or a cross, or a star, or a figurine, or a photo of someone, or a stone. Always something.

I tried, in fact, to put things on the altar. But no thing let itself stay.

There was a day when, in a single moment, the altar had everything on it. And by everything, I mean everything. Every bee, every stick, every plastic bag and beetle. Every crushed empty can, every crumpled shirt, every door handle, compass, broken thermometer, apple, trash can, tree. Everything.

And it was so beautiful I wept for hours. Oh, the pure potential of it.

And then that altar was no longer in some secret temple in my heart, but everywhere. Everywhere a place to worship. Everything a prayer waiting to be heard, to be touched.

And inside the most beautiful nothing. Not even an altar, which is oddly everything.

I can't say how. Sometimes when I am quiet enough, I notice it. Sometimes when I get out of the way, I fall all the way in.

Poetry of Practice II (4 of 5): Making the Sacred and Profane

So, this poem has a curious title. It's a very long title. I'll say the poet is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer¹—she spells her first name like "Merry Christmas." She is a beautiful, wonderful poet. The title of this poem is "After Reading 'What's in the Temple' by Tom Barrett, I Considered His Question." Tom Barrett² is another poet who wrote a poem called "What's in the Temple." So again, the title of what I just read is "After Reading 'What's in the Temple' by Tom Barrett, I Considered His Question" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

To continue our exploration of the poetry of practice, I'll share something from John Brehm³, a mindfulness teacher who created a collection of mindfulness poems. None of the poems that I have been sharing are in his collection, but he writes that poetry presents a powerful way to disrupt the habitual momentum of the mind, its automatic reactions, and its obsessive self-concerns.

He continues, saying, "To fully enter a poem, we must first stop and step away from the more immediate demands of life and engage in an imaginative activity that has no obvious practical value." I appreciate his framing it this way, that to enter a poem requires us to stop or interrupt our normal way of thinking, or our usual way of doing whatever it is we do, and to engage in an imaginative activity. Poems do require a certain imagination, especially ones that have a lot of imagery. I also like that John Brehm includes that it "has no obvious practical value," because so often we're concerned with what's practical.

Lastly, he writes, "More importantly, we must shift out of our everyday consciousness, the speedy mind wrapped in its self-centered stories and projections." Usually, our minds are trying to make us happy, avoid difficulties, and stave off pain and difficult emotions. But if I were to stretch John Brehm's discussion about poetry, I would say that to fully enter a poem is to enter the temple of the heart, rather than being caught up in the thinking of the mind.

Maybe in this way, the form of today's offering is related to its content—the fact that it's a poem. I'll read this poem again, the one that I just dropped into the guided meditation. The title is "After Reading 'What's in the Temple' by Tom Barrett, I Considered His Question," and I'll unpack it a little bit after I read it. I just love Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's poems. She has a lot of whimsy, and she's a Buddhist practitioner as well, which kind of shines through in her poetry.

Here is the poem:

In the secret temple of my heart was an altar with nothing on it. I loved nothing, the pure potential of it.

Sometimes when others journeyed here, I sensed they were surprised, perhaps even sorry for me, as if it would be better with a lotus, or a cross, or a star, or a figurine, or a photo of someone, or a stone. Always something.

I tried, in fact, to put things on the altar. But no thing let itself stay.

There was a day when, in a single moment, the altar had everything on it. And by everything, I mean everything. Every bee, every stick, every plastic bag and beetle. Every crushed empty can, every crumpled shirt, every door handle, compass, broken thermometer, apple, trash can, tree. Everything.

And it was so beautiful I wept for hours. Oh, the pure potential of it.

And then that altar was no longer in some secret temple in my heart, but everywhere. Everywhere a place to worship. Everything a prayer waiting to be heard, to be touched.

And inside the most beautiful nothing. Not even an altar, which is oddly everything.

I can't say how. Sometimes when I am quiet enough, I notice it. Sometimes when I get out of the way, I fall all the way in.

We've kind of entered into a conversation between two poets: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's response to what Tom Barrett wrote. Tom Barrett's poem, "What's in the Temple," includes these lines:

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart, what would you worship there? What would you bring to sacrifice?

In his poem, he also includes these lines:

We don't build many temples anymore. Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.

So, this question: what do you worship? What do you sacrifice? Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's response is to say that she's not making these distinctions. As soon as we designate something as sacred, then everything else, by definition, becomes profane. Our minds naturally make these distinctions. If we call something sacred, we are saying it is spiritually significant, to be treated with reverence and respect, and there are certain rules or norms about how we interact with it. Implicit in this is the idea that this will help me find more freedom, more peace, or more ease. But of course, implicit in that is that everything else that isn't sacred—the profane, the ordinary, the everyday, the secular—won't help me find more freedom, and might even be an obstacle.

In this poem, she is pointing to what happens if we stop making those distinctions. Then everything becomes sacred. Even the ugly, the unwanted. Everything becomes connected to beauty and truth, even the very ordinary things that we tend to dismiss, disregard, or not even notice. She includes in her poem: "Every crumpled shirt, every door handle, compass, broken thermometer, apple, trash can, tree." I imagine the poet just sitting there, looking around, and naming what's in her visual experience.

There is a way in which when we label things, it limits them. It makes an object this and not that. Which of course is true, but it also maybe undermines the sense that meditation practice is about being present for whatever is arising. By folding whatever the experience is into our practice, we find more freedom.

What happens if we stop labeling things? I know this is contrary to typical practice instructions, and to be sure, it's very helpful to label and make note of things. But what if there's a way we can be within an experience without reifying it, without limiting it, without somehow making it permanent?

I first discovered this the very first time I ever heard Buddhist teachings. The teacher—this was in a yoga studio—gave this demonstration. They were holding up an object; for them, it was a pen. In the same way, I'm holding up a striker for the bell. I'm calling it a striker. It is a striker, that's how it can be used. But maybe it's also a back scratcher, something that can help you reach a place on your back. Or what if you wanted to scare an intruder? You could throw this object and it would become a weapon. Or maybe if this got taped to my hand, it would become a splint. I'm just making these things up, but as soon as we call this one object a striker, it's limited. It's just this, and not all those other things.

To be sure, labels are helpful and important. We need them, and we use them. This is what the mind naturally does. But what if we softened all these labels? Sacred, profane, bell striker, back scratcher. If we stop making these distinctions between sacred and profane, then there is no longer a maker of the distinctions. There is no longer an entity at the center assigning things as sacred or profane. There is no longer something sitting here saying, "Oh yes, this is good, this is bad; this will help me in my spiritual life, this won't."

This idea of making something sacred or profane revolves around a center—a center that's a "me" or "mine." "This will help me, or this won't help me." What if there's no center? What if there are just experiences without a center? I think this is what the poet is pointing to when she writes, "Sometimes when I get out of the way, I fall all the way in."

This is real freedom. A real, deep freedom. I know it's a paradox, this idea of making labels or distinctions and not making them, but this is part of the paradox of practice, and maybe the art of practice. What if we softened and lessened this distinction between what goes in the temple and what's outside of the temple? What if everything is ordinary? What if everything is extraordinary?

Thank you. Thank you for your practice. What would it be like today to notice everything in a way that isn't dismissive? Not in a way that we have to furtively always be mindful of everything, but just to be with whatever the moment brings us, whatever is arising in the moment. Thank you, and we'll see you tomorrow.