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Guided Meditation: Stopping; Dharmette: Poetry of Practice III (4 of 5): Facts of Life - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 26, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

So, greetings, greetings everybody. Welcome.

This morning, I want to drop in a poem that reminds me a little bit of part of the Buddha's biography, part of the way in which he found his way to Awakening. Maybe it's a modern-day version of part of his biography, and I'll unpack that later during the dharmette, and it'll become obvious to you once I drop in the poem.

But I wanted to say just a few words about poetry, and that is that to fully enter a poem, there's a way in which we must stop and step away from our usual way of showing up. We don't think about people reading poetry while they're doing something else. Instead, I tend to think—and this is my own experience—I read poetry when I'm seated, when I'm sitting down and have a book in front of me. It's shifting out of something I'm doing while I'm fixing a meal or walking. Sometimes we see people with their devices while they're walking or something like that, but instead, to stop and pay attention to a poem is a way to help bring that poem to life.

So often, we're just caught up in getting from one place to another, doing one thing and then the next thing, and often there isn't a compelling reason to just stop. Except this is what mindfulness practice can be. I don't have to stop, but maybe a meditation practice, to take a meditation posture. And we might say that poetry is also a way that encourages us to stop and enter into a different way of being with the moment, to kind of interrupt this momentum that we often have with whatever is compelling us to go on and on to the next moment. So poetry is a way that really encourages us to stop and really enter into the world that it is offering us.

So with that as an introduction, let's take a meditation posture.

Guided Meditation: Stopping

Arriving into this moment, putting aside all the going and doing, and in some kind of way, stopping. We might even say allowing this moment.

Connecting. Connecting to the experiences of this moment. Most likely those experiences include pressure against the body where the body meets the sitting surface. If sitting in a chair and using a backrest or a couch, perhaps it might be pressure against the back. Pressure against the backside, the buttocks. Feeling that we're planted here. We're here, this location right now, this moment. Pressure on the back of the legs and to the feet, wherever they are touching.

Going to the top of the body, feeling into the face. Sometimes there can be tension around the eyes or the jaw, mouth. Just noticing. Just noticing. It might be that our noticing brings a softness or ease to any tightness, and it might not be too.

The neck, sometimes the back of the neck can have some tension. Can that be okay?

The shoulders. Letting the shoulder blades slide down the back.

The chest. And the belly.

Embodying this moment, inhabiting this moment, experiencing this moment.

Tuning into the sensations of breathing, the experience of the body breathing.

And when the mind wanders, it doesn't have to be a problem. Very simply, gently, begin again.

And we allow this meditation period to be an opportunity to stop all the goings and comings and just be with this moment as best we can. As best we can.

And the story that the tradition has about the Buddha, his biography, his spiritual quest, it begins with him meeting the Heavenly Messengers¹: old age, sickness, and death. There was something about seeing that that stirred him, roused him to seek an end to suffering.

What happens when we encounter Heavenly Messengers? Can it be a support for our practice, for our life?

Dharmette: Poetry of Practice III (4 of 5): Facts of Life

There's a poem I'd like to drop in. It's by Pádraig Ó Tuama.² It's called "The Facts of Life."

The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama.

That you were born and you will die, that you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not, that you will lie, if only to yourself, that you will get tired, that you will learn most from the situations you did not choose, that there will be some things that move you more than you can say, that you will live, that you must be loved, that you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention, that you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be, that life isn’t fair, that life is sometimes good and sometimes even better than good, that life is often not so good, that life is real, and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning-given, where meaning’s scarce, that you will learn to live with regret, that you will learn to live with respect, that the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constricting, that you will probably be okay, that you must accept change before you die, but you will die anyway, so you might as well live, and you might as well love, you might as well love, you might as well love.

The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama.

This poem, "The Facts of Life" by Pádraig Ó Tuama, for me, when I first read this, it had an impact on me. There's something... you know, so often poetry is, as I said earlier, a change in perspective or helps us to see things differently. And I really felt like, oh yeah, this did help me to see things differently. One thing it helped me to see is that sometimes I have a bias that poetry should just be uplifting and enjoyable or something like this. But there's something about this poem, its directness, saying things that I feel like we don't want to say, but feels so much in line with the Dharma. The First Noble Truth is, you know, there is Dukkha.³

And in some ways, this is what Pádraig Ó Tuama is saying in this poem as well. And he's saying it in a way that feels relevant and feels, for me, touching. I'll talk about this, or I'll just start making this personal here, but this one sentence: "that you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be." It's funny how when we think about time, well yeah, most of us, when we think about time, we usually do it in relationship to ourselves. You know, "this was when I was young," "I guess this might be when I'm older," or somehow later or something like this. But this whole idea, "a fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers," kind of transports us to another time when we're not at the center of it, right? We don't even exist yet. And yet there's still a little bit of a personal feeling to it. I love this. It's a way to honor our parents—of two strangers at one time, they didn't even know one another. And then just this strict, clinical, biological thing of a fusion of a sperm and an egg helps kind of take us out of the middle of everything. And in some ways, this is a deep not-self teaching—how we're actually not at the center of everything, even though we imagine that we are, and we experience that we are, and we think that we are, but turns out we're not.

And another thing about this poem that I think is really beautiful is he starts with, "that you were born and you will die," and we recognize this as one of the Heavenly Messengers, right? Death is like, okay, we know this. But then this one, "that you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not," like this feels a little bit more personal. Like, oh yeah, we don't always get it perfect. We don't always get it right. And maybe sometimes we have fear, fear that gets in the way, or maybe we don't even know what gets in the way. But sometimes we haven't loved enough, and sometimes we have. And can we allow the fullness of our life—the things that we did well, the things that we didn't do so well? Can we allow it to be there instead of trying to run away from those things that we didn't do so well and only embrace those things that we did well? Or maybe we can't even see clearly what is the difference between loving enough and not loving enough.

And the poet, he includes, "that you will get tired." Just one sentence, "that you will get tired." Like, we have the story of the Buddha, this relentless movement towards Awakening, and we have this idealized version of ourselves and our heroes and stories that we often neglect this part: "that you will get tired." I love it. It just kind of brings the humanity into our lives, brings the fullness of our experience into life. And then the next line, "that you will learn most from the situations you did not choose." Yeah, there's a way in which... I mean, it's almost a cliche, right? That, "I wouldn't wish this on anybody, but you know, I learned a lot from it" or something like this. And maybe that's helpful, maybe it's not helpful. But if the things that we choose are things that are comfortable and familiar, it turns out that's not where the greatest growth happens. And there's a part of us that knows that, that recognizes that.

And then how could I not mention this whole idea of love in this poem? That love gets mentioned throughout this poem and is sprinkled in, like, "sometimes we will love enough, sometimes we won't," "that you will live, that you must be loved," and "that we must love." He throws in here at the end, right? That you might as well love. You might as well love. What does it mean to love? To love ourselves, to love our life such as it is, to love others. And what does it mean to just love without any particular object, just radiating love despite all these things that happen in our life, despite all the ways that our life didn't turn out the way that we thought it was going to.

I'll read this poem, "The Facts of Life," by Pádraig Ó Tuama. What would it be like to hear these as if they were Heavenly Messengers, modern-day Heavenly Messengers?

that you were born and you will die, that you will sometimes love enough and sometimes not, that you will lie, if only to yourself, that you will get tired, that you will learn most from the situations you did not choose, that there will be some things that move you more than you can say, that you will live, that you must be loved, that you will avoid questions most urgently in need of your attention, that you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be, that life isn’t fair, that life is sometimes good and sometimes even better than good, that life is often not so good, that life is real, and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning-given where meaning’s scarce, that you will learn to live with regret, that you will learn to live with respect, that the structures that constrict you may not be permanently constricting, that you will probably be okay, that you must accept change before you die, but you will die anyway, so you might as well live, and you might as well love, you might as well love, you might as well love.

Reflections

And I think I'll end there this morning. You might as well love. They're part of The Facts of Life. How might that show up for you today, and tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after? Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you all for your kind notes and the way that our sangha here online, it's beautiful. Beautiful.