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Poetry of Practice II (1 of 5) Guided Meditation; Poetry of Practice II (1 of 5) - Disgorged - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 16, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Poetry of Practice II (1 of 5) Guided Meditation

Good morning, all. What a pleasure it is to be here, and what a warm welcome I received in the chat, so thank you for that. As many of you can see from the title of the YouTube video, we're going to do "Poetry of Practice" again with some different poems. I was here, I think it was in August, a couple of months ago, doing some poetry and I had so much fun doing that. I heard from a number of you that you enjoyed it too, so here we are again, the Poetry of Practice.

Maybe I'll start in a similar way that I started back in August, and that is to just recognize that there is a way in which we can engage with practice and we can engage with the Buddhist teachings in a way that is maybe focused on learning, understanding, and learning or understanding technique or teachings. Right, there's all these Buddhist lists. But there's this emphasis on learning, like gaining something that we didn't have, gaining some knowledge that we didn't have. To be sure, I love this way. I like to learn new things and to explore new topics. But that's not the only way to engage with teachings and practice.

This way in which we feel like we have to consume lots of information, it can be helpful, but there's also a way that invites another type of knowing—like this way in which we might touch with awareness or something like that. There's this, maybe, a caress of information, a caress of something. I don't even quite know how to explain it, but this way in which poetry allows this opening of the heart and the softening of that which wants to know more and learn more.

Maybe poetry also is like a type of coming home; that is, that we have to be here and present to feel the poem, to touch into the poem. So the way that I'm describing it, poetry is maybe a little bit more of a somatic experience. And maybe even the way that I'm using that type of language is maybe a little not so straightforward. But I'm hoping that all of us have read poetry and maybe you understand what I'm talking to—that there's a way in which poetry sometimes invites this recognition. A recognition of something that's true and pure inside of us, as opposed to just amassing more information. It allows us to soften this always leaning into evaluation or leaning into the next moment: "Do I understand it? Do I got it?" As opposed to maybe the question is, "Oh, what does this feel like?" as opposed to, "What am I supposed to learn?"

So poetry is a way that we allow language to touch us in a different way. A different way than our normal way of interacting with perhaps Buddhist teachings, or perhaps even just the world in general. Many of you know that there's plenty of verse in the Pali Canon¹. In the earliest Buddhist literature, there's lots of verse. There's the Awakening poems, there's the Dhammapada², there's the Atthakavagga³, the Book of Eights, the Sutta Nipata⁴. You know, all these.

And so today I'll drop in some verses from contemporary times. I'll drop in some during our sit, and then during the little dharma talk, maybe unpack it a little bit what this poem means. I'm delighted to share these with you, not necessarily because all of you will love these poems, but hopefully just with the introduction of poetry itself as a pointing towards different ways. Different ways of being with our experience, different ways of being with information, and we can use all these ways to support our practice.

Okay, with that as an introduction, just take a moment to really settle in. Maybe a large exhale as we sit, whether that's literal or figurative. Take a meditation posture and perhaps feel these sensations of sitting. Feel the pressure of the chair, cushion, the couch, the bed—whatever you're sitting on. Feeling the pressure against the body, feeling the body in contact.

We're here, connected, grounded, just here.

Can we feel the sensations on the back of our legs that are in contact? Our feet that are in contact? And the sensations on the back? If we're leaning against the back of a chair, feel the sensations on the back side where we're sitting. Bringing an aliveness of attention to this experience of being connected to whatever it is we're sitting on and connected to here.

Can we bring some mindfulness into the bodily experience? Inhabiting the body with presence, with aliveness. Alive to the body and the way it feels right now.

And then setting the sense of direction. The orientation of this meditation is one of kindness. Kindness to ourselves and openness to the experience, as best we can.

If you work with chronic pain or acute pain at this moment, is there a neutral or pleasant experience you can rest your attention on, rather than the uncomfortable? Not denying, not pretending that the uncomfortable isn't there, just choosing as best we can to rest our attention elsewhere. Maybe it is the pressure against the buttocks as we're sitting. That's neutral and tangible.

Holding yourself in care, holding yourself with a kind attitude, with warmth.

So we're here with an attitude of care, and then rest your attention on the sensations of breathing. Feeling the bodily experience of inhales and exhales.

Feeling the stretching and the release of the stretch that occurs with breathing.

Tuning in to, becoming sensitive to the experience of breathing.

The movements in the body as the body breathes.

Feeling the beginning, middle, and end of an inhale.

Feel the beginning, middle, and end of an exhale.

And feeling the transitions between inhales and exhales.

When the mind wanders, we don't have to make it a problem. We just very simply, gently begin again.

I'm going to drop in a poem. You don't have to do anything with this poem. Allow it to be received. You don't have to try to understand it or apply it. Just hear it. This is about somebody undergoing their experience in a meditation retreat.

When I first floundered in
no one knew me, not even myself
staggering under a Saratoga trunk
crammed with humiliations bottled
like urine samples, nail kegs⁵ of anger,
carbons of abusive letters, chemistry
quizzes with F's, even the horse
I never had, and two casseroles
left over from the DeMolay dip supper⁶.
No one remarked that I had brought too much.

I was wearing three fur hats donated
by opulent cousins, my feet encased
in cement ever since the failure
of the patio project, and my mouth full
of barbs as an old trout.
No one praised my appearance.

The trunk fell off my back
disgorging its unusual contents at my stone
feet, which also came off.
The fur hats tumbled like a moth-eaten
avalanche burying a small monk.
No one noticed.
No one now.
No one.

I'll read it again.

When I first floundered in
no one knew me, not even myself
staggering under a Saratoga trunk
crammed with humiliations bottled
like urine samples, nail kegs of anger,
carbons of abusive letters, chemistry
quizzes with F's, even the horse
I never had, and two casseroles
left over from the DeMolay dip supper.
No one remarked that I had brought too much.

I was wearing three fur hats donated
by opulent cousins, my feet encased
in cement ever since the failure
of the patio project, and my mouth full
of barbs as an old trout.
No one praised my appearance.

The trunk fell off my back
disgorging its unusual contents at my stone
feet, which also came off.
The fur hats tumbled like a moth-eaten
avalanche burying a small monk.
No one noticed.
No one now.
No one.

Poetry of Practice II (1 of 5) - Disgorged

So for those of you who are here for the poem, this is called "Zazen"⁷ by Virginia Hamilton Adair. Again, that's "Zazen" by Virginia Hamilton Adair. I don't know if you can hear this, I have this background noise going on. I'm just going to close my door here for a moment, I'll be right back.

Okay, sorry that I had to make that sound go away. Some of you who have listened to some of the happy hours I've done, or some dharma talks, or Path of Fearlessness know that I really enjoy poems that have a certain amount of whimsy to them and that have a lot of imagery in them. I think that's part of the power of poems, right? They're not being explicit, but they're pointing to something that we can feel or imagine, a different way of understanding something.

So this poem, "Zazen" by Virginia Hamilton Adair, is describing a meditation retreat—maybe it's a daylong or a retreat or something. It seems like there's so many wonderful images here. Maybe I'll begin by reading it again.

When I first floundered in
no one knew me, not even myself
staggering under a Saratoga trunk
crammed with humiliations bottled
like urine samples, nail kegs of anger,
carbons of abusive letters, chemistry
quizzes with F's, even the horse
I never had, and two casseroles
left over from the DeMolay dip supper.
No one remarked that I had brought too much.

I was wearing three fur hats donated
by opulent cousins, my feet encased
in cement ever since the failure
of the patio project, and my mouth full
of barbs as an old trout.
No one praised my appearance.

The trunk fell off my back
disgorging its unusual contents at my stone
feet, which also came off.
The fur hats tumbled like a moth-eaten
avalanche burying a small monk.
No one noticed.

I kind of like this unconventional but evocative imagery that's used here. For example, the poet uses this first line, "When I first floundered in." This floundered in, clumsily, maybe with some confusion, some staggering. It reminds me of when I first came to a meditation hall. I really didn't know what to expect, what was happening, or what I was supposed to do. Maybe there's a way that we feel that way with our own meditation practice, or even if we go to meditation centers or meditation retreats, we feel like, "Okay, is there a protocol here that I'm supposed to follow?" We feel a bit awkward.

And then the poet writes, "no one knew me, not even myself." Oh, I just love this line because such a big part of meditation practice is self-understanding. For example, I had no idea how much planning I did until I started meditation practice and I just saw what was going on in my mind. Then as I continued with meditation practice, I discovered that probably underneath all this planning was some fear. I couldn't even necessarily tell you exactly what the fear was about, but I just knew that I had to be prepared just in case. Maybe I didn't have confidence that I could handle whatever it was that was going to happen. And this is for me part of the power of poetry, that just a few lines can be really evocative of so much.

Because also we might understand this line "no one knew me, not even myself" as this recognition that sometimes meditation centers initially can't be this really warm, welcoming place. Maybe some are, maybe some aren't. If they're filled with some shy introverts, or if you come a little bit late—and some people, maybe not late, but maybe not too early, are already meditating. So they're sitting there with their eyes closed, and so there's a way in which you just come in and you kind of wonder, "Is this okay?" And for some people, and certainly for some communities, this can be really off-putting. This sense of just going into a meditation hall, a meditation space, and there isn't necessarily a warm welcoming.

And then the poet continues: "staggering under a Saratoga trunk / crammed with..." and then she gives this big long list of things. Right, it's true, we bring baggage wherever we go, whether we realize we're doing it or not. There's this heaviness that can follow us, and she puts this long list. Some of what I kind of like are these "carbons of abusive letters." Like, you know, these things we keep copies of, things that are painful, harmful. You might even use the word trauma here. Like, these are carbon copies; they aren't the original things, but there's these carbon copies that we're keeping with us.

I don't know exactly when this poem was written, but again, those of you probably remember we used to use carbon paper and type on things to keep a copy. And the carbons are always a little bit fuzzy, not quite as clear. I mean, they were obviously carbon, and they were on a different piece of paper, so there's this recognition that it's not the original harm, but a copy of it that we're carrying with us.

And these "chemistry quizzes with F's" that the poet is also bringing. Yeah, right, the things that happened to us when we're young. I was just sharing with some friends recently that when I was maybe eleven years old or something, I wanted to sign up for choir practice or chorus at my school because my friends were. The chorus teacher asked me, "Diana, maybe you can just mouth the words because my voice... I don't know how to carry a tune. It's just not possible for me." And then this shows up when I'm starting to begin a meditation retreat and I'm supposed to be leading the chant and I have a microphone on, and everybody's going to be hearing me chanting. I feel like, "Oh yeah, this little voice that says, 'Diana, you're not a very good chanter or singer or something like this.'" So these things that we carry around with us that are extra, extra.

But I appreciate that the poet concludes: "No one remarked that I had brought too much." Well, maybe nobody's talking at all, or maybe they didn't see what she had brought, or maybe they saw but weren't saying anything. There's a way in which this can be helpful, but it also can be a little bit disconcerting like, "Doesn't anybody acknowledge what's happening here?"

And so we might say that there's a sense of progress or a sense of movement during this poem because first is the arriving, and then maybe it's the sense of practicing. The poet writes, "I was wearing three fur hats donated / by opulent cousins." For me, I'm thinking like, these are things that our family puts on us—expectations they have, or things that they think we like. "Oh, you're the one... you're the smart one, you're the funny one, you're the dumb one, you're the silly one." You know, like these things that family gives to us. Maybe I'm reading too much into this poem, but there can be a way in which what we are carrying, what we're holding with us, are things that family has given us.

Then the poet, again, Virginia Hamilton Adair, continues: "my feet encased / in cement ever since the failure / of the patio project." Right, the sense of stuckness we get when we have a sense of failure. And then she also says, "and my mouth full / of barbs as an old trout." We might even say maybe she's doing a little bit of body scanning, right? She's talking about her head—hats—the mouth full of barbs, and feet encased in cement. And full of barbs as an old trout. Right, these are trout, they take the bait and then they get caught. So what are the things that we do to take bait that we get caught with?

And then there's this sense of shame or inadequacy that's part of this poem. A sense of not being good enough. Right, there's nothing in this poem where she's feeling comfortable or at ease or with warmth towards herself. This sense of lack, this sense of inadequacy often drives a real strong sense of seeking that shows up in our spiritual practice. We're convinced that this moment is lacking, this self is lacking, so we're always spilling over into the next moment that holds the promise of somehow being better, more satisfying.

And then the poet describes: "The trunk fell off my back / disgorging its unusual contents..." Disgorging! What a fantastic verb. Like, this discharging, this expelling, this emitting, which isn't smooth or effortless. Like, this letting go that happens often is something that's not easy, not straightforward. And part of what's getting disgorged are these identities for her. "Maybe I'm the one who doesn't do well in chemistry. I'm the one who failed the patio project."

And meditation in some ways is a purification practice, maybe an extraction practice where there's the removal of everything that's extra. Part of what's extra are the ways that we identify with what's happened to us in the past and limit ourselves with these types of ideas. To be sure, these moments of freedom can feel like an unburdening, disgorging the Saratoga trunk, falling off our back. Like the lightening.

And then lastly, I'll close with this use of the poet using this word "no one." "No one knew me, not even myself... No one remarked that I had brought too much... No one praised my appearance... No one noticed." And then she ends just with, "No one."

A recognition that not even she was there. No one. There's not a self, we have all these identities that we take up, but part of this practice, this disgorging if you will, this purification if you will, is a letting go of these selves that we create and feel so much like we have to bolster and support and defend.

So this poem "Zazen" by Virginia Hamilton Adair just for me brings a sense of delight, and I hope maybe it did for you today, for you this morning. And maybe you can bring this sense of delight with you as you go throughout your day. Thank you very much for joining me this morning, and I'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.