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Guided Meditation: This Moment; Dharmette: Poetry of Practice III (5 of 5): In the Moment - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 27, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Good morning, welcome. Today is the fifth day, the last day, and I'll be continuing this series on the Poetry of Practice. As I've been doing in the earlier days of the week, I'll do a little bit of a guided meditation, and then I'll drop in a poem. After the meditation, I'll talk about the poem a little bit.

There's something about poetry; in some ways, it can be really supportive of practice in that it uses language in a way that maybe has some precision, and yet it can be very evocative too. In some ways, a meditation can be like this too, where there's some precision and yet it can be evocative. Not precision in terms of using the usual language, but maybe there's a way in which it feels like this. With meditation, we're sometimes talking to that direct experience, like what's actually happening. Poetry is pointing to an experience, maybe not so much by describing it directly, but helping it to arise in the reader of the poem. I don't know if that made any sense.

Part of the poetry of practice for me is how poetry uses language to help you listen and experience, but without being prescriptive. Maybe that's what I'm pointing to. There's a way in which meditation practice often is prescriptive, but the art of practice is finding our way with the directions that are given. Some of you know, right? There are these 16 steps of Anapanasati¹, or all these distinct steps. I myself have given plenty of meditation instructions, and that's really helpful. But there's also another part of us, maybe that's the poetic part, that is reading between the lines, that is feeling our way into the moment instead of just following the instructions. Okay, so with that as a short introduction, we'll take a meditation.

Guided Meditation: This Moment

Take a meditation posture and feel into this moment.

What is the experience of this moment?

Can we inhabit the body, be present for the bodily experiences in this moment? The thoughts will do what thoughts do. Can we just be here now?

Feeling the foundation of our sitting surface. We're not floating in time from the past and the present. The mind is perhaps doing that, but the body is here now, connected, grounded.

Feeling the pressure against the body of our sitting surface.

Allowing the spine to be upright, reflecting our intention to pay attention.

Noticing any areas of tightness or tension in the body, around the eyes or mouth. Maybe with an exhale, letting the tension drain away. Allowing the shoulders to move away from the ears.

Allowing the back to feel supported, if it is supported. If it's not, to feel the uprightness.

Allowing the chest to be soft and the belly to be soft. We don't need to armor ourselves this meditation session. Can we just be open, at ease?

Bringing an aliveness of attention to the bodily experience. Resting the attention on the sensations of breathing. Tuning into, being sensitive to, what it feels like to have an in-breath, and what it feels like to have an out-breath.

Noticing the transitions between the in-breaths and out-breaths. I said "tension," but maybe that was a slip. A sticky transition. I have a little tension in the body this morning.

When the mind wanders, we just very simply, gently begin again with this sensation of breathing.

I'm going to drop in a poem. Just allow the poem to be received. You don't have to decide whether you like it or not, or what it means. Just let it be received and maybe allow it to touch you, if it does. If it doesn't, that's okay too.

This poem is called "In the Moment" by Billy Collins.²

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky, the kind that gives you no choice but to unbutton your shirt and sit outside in a rough wooden chair, and if a glass of iced tea and a volume of 17th-century poetry with a dark blue cover are available, then the picture could hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist and two black butterflies with white and red wing-dots bobbed around my head in the bright air.

I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment, but which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one, or any of those that were scuttling by seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions about the past and its tall, evasive sister, the future. My churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?³ Why did John Donne’s⁴ wife die so young? And, more pressingly, what could we serve the vegetarian twins who were coming to dinner that evening? Who knew that they were going to bring their own grapes? And why was that driver of that pickup flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day were squandered one by one, or more likely a thousand at a time, with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time, but that was not going to happen today, I had to admit to myself as I closed the book on the face of Thomas Traherne⁵ and returned to the house where I lit a flame under a pot full of floating brown eggs, and while they cooked in their bubbles, I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink to see if that crazy glass had anything special to tell me today.

I'll read this poem again. "In the Moment" by Billy Collins.

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky, the kind that gives you no choice but to unbutton your shirt and sit outside in a rough wooden chair, and if a glass of iced tea and a volume of 17th-century poetry with a dark blue cover are available, then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist and two black butterflies with white and red wing-dots bobbed around my head in the bright air. I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment, but which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one, or any of those that were scuttling by seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions about the past and its tall, evasive sister, the future. My churchyard held the bones of John... George Herbert?³ Why did John Donne’s⁴ wife die so young? And more pressingly, what could we serve the vegetarian twins who were coming to dinner that evening? Who knew that they were going to bring their own grapes? And why was the driver of that pickup flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day were squandered one by one, or more likely a thousand at a time with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time, but that was not going to happen today, I had to admit to myself as I closed the book on the face of Thomas Traherne⁵ and returned to the house where I lit a flame under a pot full of floating brown eggs, and while they cooked in their bubbles, I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink to see if that crazy glass had anything special to tell me.

Dharmette: Poetry of Practice III (5 of 5): In the Moment

Good morning, welcome. As we were encountering Billy Collins,² this poet, some of you might be familiar with him. He was the Poet Laureate, I think, from 2001 to 2003. He writes in a way that seems very accessible and often with a little bit of whimsy in it, and talks about ordinary experiences. If I remember correctly, this poem was published in 2016, so relatively not so long ago.

Before I read the poem again, something that I love about this poem—there are so many fun things here—is that he's talking about how he's just not mindful, he's just not being present. And yet, he's giving us minute details about his day. He actually was present. He actually was being mindful, but he has this idea about what mindfulness is supposed to look like, what the experience is supposed to be. Because it's not matching his expectations, he's just kind of like, "Oh, I'm not mindful." Or maybe he's using poetic license and saying he's not mindful, but then demonstrating that he is. I don't know, it's kind of fun for me, though, this protesting that he's not being mindful, and yet he's relating how much he notices about what happens in a part of a day.

So again, the poem is "In the Moment" by Billy Collins.²

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky, the kind that gives you no choice but to unbutton your shirt and sit outside in a rough wooden chair, and if a glass of iced tea and a volume of 17th-century poetry with a dark blue cover are available, then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist and two black butterflies with white and red wing-dots bobbed around my head in the bright air. I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment, but which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one, or any of those that were scuttling by seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions about the past and its tall, evasive sister, the future. What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?³ Why did John Donne’s⁴ wife die so young? And more pressingly, what could we serve the vegetarian twins who were coming to dinner that evening? Who knew that they were going to bring their own grapes? And why was the driver of that pickup flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day were squandered one by one, or more likely a thousand at a time, with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time, but that was not going to happen today, I had to admit to myself as I closed the book on the face of Thomas Traherne⁵ and returned to the house where I lit a flame under a pot full of floating brown eggs, and while they cooked in their bubbles, I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink to see if that crazy glass had anything special to tell me today.

I know this poem makes me smile. It makes me smile when I read it. I appreciate how he has this idea, "Okay, the conditions are finally perfect. I'm going to meditate here, and it's going to be great." It's this serene summer day, and he has presumably something that's enjoyable, this book of poetry. I love this little detail he gives us: the color of the cover of the book. So he's definitely present. And later, when he closes the book, he even tells us what page he's on. He's on the page that has the picture of this person, Thomas Traherne.⁵ I don't know who Thomas Traherne is.

He has this idea about time. It's very interesting for me, the way time shows up in here in so many different ways. "I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment." He wants to be in the particular place of time, like just now. He says that he wanted to be this "pea of being"—you know, like green peas, snap peas, chickpeas—a pea of being inside the "green pod of time." I don't know, when I hear this, I feel like the pod of time is something that's oppressive, that squishes you in. You're like peas in a pod. I don't know if that's the expression that we use, that they are snug. But meditation isn't like that. The moment after moment is going, and we're just noticing, we're being present as these peas are going. I feel like he has this idea about time that doesn't feel quite right, even though it's a little bit playful when he talks about how he was "too knotted up with questions about the past and its tall, evasive sister, the future." Questions about the past and the future. So noticing that the mind is in these different places in time, whereas he wanted to be here in the moment where the body is.

He talks about how so many of the things that we think about turn out not to matter. I don't know who George Herbert³ is, or John Donne,⁴ but he asks, "What churchyard had the bones of George Herbert?" These things, I guess, are pretty inconsequential. Whether the bones are here or there, it's not like we can change them. And, "Why did John Donne's wife die so young?" This is also something else that we can't change. Things that maybe don't have a consequence, even if we do know the answer to them. How often are we thinking about things or wondering about things that turn out not really to matter? It's interesting, he doesn't mention Google in this poem, even though it got published in 2016, so the internet is there and available. But maybe there are modern-day things that we are looking for on our phone, trying to find the answer to, that turn out to be inconsequential.

Getting back to this idea of time, he talks about "the priceless moments of the day." This idea that time is fleeting, and that there's some beauty to it. Maybe some of the pricelessness of it is what made him feel like he wanted to grab on to each of them.

One thing that really strikes me about this poem is the lack of describing his inner life. His inner experiences are all about things that are happening out there. I guess maybe he's talking about questions that he has, but again, it's not related to his inner life. He feels really disconnected from his body, and instead, these are all just things that are happening in his mind. He does mention his body, but it's also about things that are out there when these butterflies are near his head and his wrist. "I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist and two black butterflies with white and red wing-dots bobbed around my head in the bright air." So that's our only clue that this person even has a body, but it's only because there's something out there that's interacting with him. I think this is part of the connection between not being here in time, in this moment, and not being connected with one's body. The mind, we know this, is often in the past or in the future.

I just get a kick out of this poem. You just imagine sitting in the backyard thinking it's going to be lovely, and then trying to meditate or be present, and then, "I'm just going to go make some eggs." But he's present for that too. He's present for the way that the water is bubbling and that the eggs are brown. That's okay.

I'll read this poem one more time.

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky, the kind that gives you no choice but to unbutton your shirt and sit outside in a rough wooden chair, and if a glass of iced tea and a volume of 17th-century poetry with a dark blue cover are available, then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist and two black butterflies with white and red wing-dots bobbed around my head in the bright air. I could feel the day offering itself to me, and I wanted nothing more than to be in the moment, but which moment? Not that one, or that one, or that one, or any of those that were scuttling by seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted up with questions about the past and its tall, evasive future... its tall, evasive sister, the future. What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?³ Why did John Donne’s⁴ wife die so young? And more pressingly, what could we serve the vegetarian twins who were coming to dinner that evening? Who knew that they would bring their own grapes?

I'm hoping that Zoom is doing some noise cancellation for me here, and I apologize if it's not and there's a lot of noise outside.

Who knew that they were going to bring their own grapes? And why was the driver of that pickup flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day were squandered one by one, or more likely a thousand at a time, with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being inside the green pod of time, but that was not going to happen today, I had to admit to myself as I closed the book on the face of Thomas Traherne⁵ and returned to the house where I lit a flame under a pot full of floating brown eggs, and while they cooked in their bubbles, I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink to see if that crazy glass had anything special to tell me today.

May you find yourself being present for some moments today, whether they're mundane, whether you find yourself asking pointless questions, or whether you find some beauty and grace today. Whatever you experience, may you be present for your life as it's unfolding. Thank you, and thank you for practicing with me today. It's been lovely to share this poetry of practice this week. Thank you.

It's very sweet to read your comments. I know poetry isn't for everybody, and there were seasons in my life when it certainly was not for me. I wasn't a fan of poetry, but now I just love it.