What is POETRY ?
"Poetry has a noticeable, immediate effect on the mind. The simple act of reading poetry alters thought patterns and the shuttle of the breath. Poetry induces trance. Its words are chant. It's rhythms are drumbeats. Its images become the icons of the inner eye -- the transformational power of poetry. The ways poetry naturally expresses the sacred experience, the non-dogmatic nature of poetry. Poetry is more than a description of the sacred 'experience' -- it carries the experience itself." ~ Ivan Granger
_____________________________________________
'Every Shaped Thing' by Ivan Granger (1969 - )
Sighing,
every shaped thing
turns
heavenward.
Your altar
cannot possibly seat
the thousand thousand
idols.
Holding them,
what do you have?
Each gilded god
says:
"I am
impoverished
by the Sun.
I can only
point
up."
-- from Real Thirst:
Poetry of the Spiritual Journey,
by Ivan M. Granger
AbeBooks.com
I wrote thiat poem when I lived on Maui years ago. I had just finished a meditation and stepped outside to gaze at the forest of eucalyptus trees. Slowly looking around, I saw how everything is reaching, turning, pointing heavenward.
The material world, when objectified can become a confusing tangle of solidity, separation, and objects of desire, but in that moment, with my mind at rest and my eyes clear, the world danced before me, filled with a golden light. And I saw that while the world hides the Eternal, at the same time it ardently reveals it.
In that pure moment it was clear to me that everything is giddy with its own inner light. Consciously or unconsciously, everything is always orienting itself toward the light from which it draws its own life. All of creation -- every person, every thing, even every idea, "every shaped thing" -- is just a reflection of the divine radiance present everywhere. That beauty, that luminosity is both the snare and the key for us as souls active within the material world.
Whenever we desire a thing... or person or experience, we artificially deify it. The desire and mental fixation becomes a form of worship. We may tell ourselves, "I want this, I want that," but what we unknowingly crave is not the thing itself, it is that spark of the Eternal glimpsed within it. The desired object becomes a "gilded god" -- false in the sense that it is not truly the wholeness we seek - but also, like an "idol" or icon, when approached sincerely and openly, it embodies something essential for us: it points to the Divine which it reflects.
The frustrating truth is that no individual can ever gather enough objects of desire to satisfy desire. Every time we acquire that desired object or experience -- a new job, a new lover, money, an ice cream sundae -- there is a fleeting sense of satisfaction... and then it is gone. Within minutes we are once again feeling desire and looking for the next object to hang that desire on. We're looking for the next thing that sparkles. But it is not the object we actually seek, it is that 'shine'.
And that shine is the spark of the Divine. When we learn to see in gold the glimmer of the sun, then we see that everything shines -- everything! -- ourselves included. It is not possessing that object or experience that we desire, it is that we ache to recognize and participate in that glow. And everything glows. Recognizing this is when the heart is truly satisfied and comes to rest.
Ivan M. Granger is the founder and editor of the Poetry Chaikhana, a publishing house and online resource for sacred poetry from around the world.
"In dreams, I need you.
In reality, I love you.
In truth, I am you --
the longing in between
is a work of sheer beauty." -Roger Housden
♦ "THERAPY for MAVERICK PEOPLE" offers
compassionate relief thru Buddhist "Mindfulness" as ‘alternative’
therapy tools for relating with Your True Core Self • Individual counsel for
"Non-Ordinary" people ~Creatives, Rebels, Artists, Activists,
Intuitives, Fugitives - smart, cerebral, verbal, funny, artistic, gifted ~and
so Unhappy • Difficult to Communicate Feelings • Stress Wounded Spirit •
"Mindfulness" cultivates a stable, calm, kind, kewl, loving,
fearless, insightful "Big Good-Hearted Mind”
__________________________________________
a few words about
The Arts and it's relationship with Meditation
The ARTS, SPRITUALITY & MEDITATION
An ancient highly productive partnership
that's
been going on in all world cultures for millennia
–
so we're not going to review humanity’s amazing story
here.
There is Tao, Zen, Ikebana, Haiku, Bushido, Zen Gardens,
Ritual Dance, Noh Theater, Calligraphy, Zenga, Nanga,
Bonsai,
Religious Icon Craft, Temple Chanting& Sacred Music,
Negative
Space-use in art, Healing & Shaman Ritual, Geisha
Mindful Gestures,
Samurai, Tantric Erotic Art and the renown Tea Ceremony
etc upon etc.
ART always was SPIRITUAL, a human’s higher-expression of
The Sacred.
– Actually in all cultures world-wide ! A Mindful
Meditative Artful Sacredness.
Art-making, art-viewing or art-experiencing
are inherently 'contemplative' activities . . .
that naturally benefit from meditation ~
Meditation strengthens the art maker's mindfulness and
awareness. Meditation enhances the creative and viewing processes in specific
ways – it helps to synchronize mind and body, right and left hemispheres of the
brain, and our intuitive and intellectual abilities. The mindfulness &
awareness practices found in meditation develop our perception so that we may
see and experiencethings
as they truly are. This leads us to genuine spontaneity
and pure, un-selfconscious, full expression. A 'creative process' based in the
practice of meditation dissolves creative blockages, reveals the source of
creativity, leading to clear perception.
In the 'experiencing-process', meditation develops
intuition, our pure felt-sense, sharpens our native intelligence and can lead
us towards an experience of the aesthetically profound or sublime – where our
felt & thought senses come together – to further awaken the 'creative' and
the 'viewing' processes.
~ Steven Saitzyk - Professor, Humanities& Sciences,
Art Center College of Design – Los Angeles
and International Director of Shambhala Art
The Practice of MEDITATION:
The Benefits ? – enhances & strengthens
the art-maker's mindfulness & awareness.
“Meditation ...a doorway to
the
significantly
deep
unconscious.”
“Before meditation, before I used to ‘sit’ regularly
like I do now – I used to be only semi-conscious
and impulsively leap at the first images n’ things
that arose in my mind, and at what soon became
so banal - but I’d already started on it, or often
got way into it. But now I simply meditate and wait.
Sometimes I can wait quite awhile quite patiently.
I’ve simply learned to quietly wait by training myself.
That’s all, just that. I’m training myself in
stillness.
And in the stillness the deeper regions of my mind
slowly unfold - and I only observe, not reacting,
not seizing on anything, not grasping. Just
witnessing and waiting. I see so much now.” ~ J.L.
________________________________
Thru a willing, consistent meditation practice -
gradually & naturally you expand& deepen
an authentic, attentive, open, clear, uncluttered,
wide, roomy, calm spacious field of awareness
-
less & less disturbed by ongoing, shallow,
chaotic,
obsessively running mental-images & commentary
-
a panoramic field - toned, strengthened&
stabilized
with a naturalistic meditation practice-approach ~ art
uncompromised with 'religion' or prescribed methods
-
so you can have it readily available to you personally
-
effortlessly, open, spontaneous & without efforting
....
Ah, then there's lots n' lots of vivid, deep, rich room
for true creative manifestation to naturally
arise
in that much more silent, more user-friendly
field
of e x p a n d e d awareness that's now all
yours.
Just learn to begin to sit still sans ego.
Simplistic?
Of course it is. It's just that you're not simple
yet !
Ahh, but soon... your subtle depths are
calling...
~ Akasa Levi
BTW, Some really good ancient Buddhist Art ~
http://www.buddhanet.net/gallery.htm
_______________________________
"If one's thoughts towards 'spirituality'
were of the same passionate intensity
as those of a couple falling in 'love' –
one would become a Buddha right now,
in this very body, in this very life."
~ from The Love Poems
of the Sixth Dalai Lama ( 1703 AD )
_________________________________
___________________________________
“ART” is what You call 'That'.
What I call 'That' - is just That.
~ William Eggleston, photographer
Since all things are essentially naked,
clear and free from obscurations –
at least from their side, of course . . . .
There is nothing to 'attain' or 'realize'.
The 'Everyday Practice' of a practical
'Everyday Enlightenment' is simply
to 'd e v e l o p' into all situations,
and all emotions, and to all people –
as they simply come to you . . .
experiencing everything totally
without reservations and blockages -
so that one never withdraws, or aloof,
or centralizes back onto oneself.
~ Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
________________________________________
The ARTS, SPRITUALITY & MEDITATION: The Benefits –
Meditation strengthens the art-maker's mindfulness &
awareness.
No "Beliefs" – A Core Understanding of Buddhism"
No 'beliefs': just watching, witnessing, perceiving, just
noticing,
just investigating, just observing, observing, observing,
observing'
– with absolute 'bare attentiveness' – just seeing, hearing,
feeling –
without 'beliefs', without 'faith-in', without buying-in.
Holy Indifferent.
No demand. No identifying with it. See it clearly, maybe
leave it entirely alone.
Not psychologizing about it, not rationalizing,
reasoning, justifying, not storytelling.
Not dismissing, not banishing, not fixing it, not
meddling. Just observing, observing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Silly Solipsistic Zen Story about
the ‘Real Purpose’ of Meditation Training?
Taken from true facts, as the story so goes, Bhante Sudu
Hom'dru, was an American Buddhist monk who grew up on a small chicken farm near
Woodstock, NY. Now barefoot, painfully, mindfully walking the narrow ridges of
hot sun-baked clay crossing a dry rice paddy field near Bodhgaya, North India,
mid 1970’s – with his noble Samurai-blooded Japanese Zen monk-teacher Shibuya
Sensei. Once a teenager questing through an Elvis 50’s, this
delusively-romantic, magical-thinking American always wanted his very own Zen
teacher-friend ever since finding alternatives in ‘Jazz’, finding Jack
Kerouac’s 'Beat' open On The Road,
and especially late night radio-listening to early Jean
Shepard dramatically invoke the mystical Fu Manchu or intone a good Haiku -
circa 1958 - when ‘hip’ was shared among the very sparse few who knew. This
funny, yet indignant Jewish ‘young soul’ evolved into this really ‘old soul’
robed sanyassi that partially ‘awakened’ himself way outside a parched desert
village in India. It was high-noon in ‘search of secret India’ – so he gave up
looking to Hesse’s Siddhartha for guidance or Gurdjieff’s elusive Meetings With
Remakable Men to lead him forward - and thus became a monk himself – and he
ironically found an ‘identity’ to finish-up all identity-seeking – that Long
Last Role of the Buddhist – And it was still so bloody hot. Foolish
barefoot yogi ! This novice, this overheated new monk had a Question: This monk
always had a question. Like a persistent child. Yet, it is so sad so many of us
loose that quality early on in life. ‘Answers’ offered don’t seem to ultimately
do it for us, nor permanently resolve anything & we stop ‘asking’. Many of
the monk's questions usually began with the same lead-in: "What is the
'purpose' of . . this or that or such n' such"? This monk was still
involved with ‘reasons’ & ‘purposes’ to things or ideas. Lots of ‘content’,
still little wisdom-‘context’. He hadn’t re-discovered his ‘wonder’ yet.
Except he did begin to see that it all is an
unconsciously performed stage ‘magic show’ for him o 'observe' everyday
‘illusions’ – just our fumbling attempts at some self-conscious Human Hocus
Pokus – manifesting here alongside Nature’s Grand Guileless Illusions. This
monk knew he was fragile, still fascinated by a tempting-performance. He asked
Questions to sizably reduce his options.
“Oh, I've seen that – another ‘Repeat’ on TV t’nite”. Wisdom
thins out repeat shows. Less to cling to. "Sensei?" he asked
him e.nun.ci.a.ting in slow, simple words because Sensei’s English at the
time was not too good. "What is the purpose of Zen-training?"
Sensei responded warp speed in his Asian-accented English – "To become
aseempahton." Well, not getting the word quite discernable at all - the
young monk asked once again, "Sensei? – What is the real purpose of
Zen-training?" So Shibuya Sensei patiently repeated again & again, till
the word finally punched itself through – the esoterically mysterious word WAS
now finally, clearly comprehendible at last – "Ahh ~ Purpose of Zen
training is to become a-seem-pah-ton – a-seem-pah-ton - and he wiggled
his wagging fingers wildly in the air for the briefest
moment – then tapped his fingers on the young monk's smooth-shaven
monk-head. "Seem-pah-ton" – "The Purpose of Zen training
is to become a Simpleton". They both had a good chuckle. They then
continued to walk on in silence. The monk thought about how having a
simpleton’s empty-head could allow room for more Space and Peace to be in his
simplifying mind – BE his mind ! So he could see better with it - make
wiser, kinder choices with it - and now 'know' simple happiness. He then
stubbed his toe on a clump of clay. "F#@k" –– But no Katsu shout of
Satori today!
~ Bhante Sudu Hom'dru ( 1975 )
end.
No comments:
Post a Comment