Poetry of Practice (4 of 5): Perspectives

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Poetry of Practice (4 of 5) with Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 17, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Poetry of Practice (4 of 5): Perspectives

Okay, we'll get started here. So I'm continuing on this theme of the poetry of practice, and part of the power of poetry is that it lets us see things in a different way. Maybe it's like pointing to things differently, perhaps by using some metaphor, or just using a different language—something different from the usual way that we consider things. Sometimes this perspective is surprising, like, "Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of it this way." And maybe there's a little bit of humor to it, or a little surprise, or even a little realization that doesn't feel so comfortable. When we recognize some of the deeper elements getting pointed to, we realize, "Oh, maybe I've just been on the surface, but there's something deeper there too."

So there are so many different ways in which another perspective might show up. Poetry helps us with this, I would say, and that's part of its power: to see things from a different perspective. It helps us not view or consider things in the usual way.

Today, as I've been doing in the preceding weeks, I'll drop in a poem during the guided meditation. I'll unpack the poem and talk about it and some of the themes, and maybe even share some additional poems after the guided meditation. Okay, so with that as an introduction, we'll take a meditation posture.

Guided Meditation

Taking a moment to settle in. Taking a moment to tune into this experience of beginning a meditation session.

I like to begin by noticing the experience of being in this particular configuration. It might include one's environment: what room you're in, what location you're in. Noticing the sounds, the temperature. And then noticing the bodily experience of this particular configuration. What is it like at this moment to be here and now?

Feeling the sensations in the feet and legs where you're connected, touching, feeling the pressure of whatever it is that you're sitting on. Feeling this support that it provides, the grounding. Feeling the sensations on the buttocks as there's this pressure and support. We're grounded, connected. We're here.

If you're leaning against a chair, couch, or whatever it might be, feeling the pressure against the back. And if you're sitting upright, feeling the uprightness. Feeling that support of the spine as it allows the shoulders and arms to just hang. I often, at the beginning, will just tuck the chin ever so slightly, maybe pushing the chin back as a way to have the head be steady and open up this tiny little space in the back of the neck. This is a very subtle, slight movement; it might not even be noticeable if somebody were watching you. And let the shoulders be far away from the ears.

Tuning into the sensations around the face. Sometimes there can be some tightness there, some tension. Can we allow it to relax?

And then allowing the attention to rest on the sensations of breathing. Noticing that the body knows how to breathe. It's just this natural movement associated with breathing.

Noticing the experience of inhales and exhales. How are they different? Can you feel into that answer? Rather than thinking or figuring it out, just notice the feelings of inhales and exhales. The sensations, the experience.

And as the mind wanders, it doesn't have to be a problem. It's just the next thing that's happening. Then very simply, gently, begin again with the sensations of breathing.

What would it be like to practice with a sense of openness? Open to what the experience might be, rather than having any particular expectations. Open, curious: what is this like?

Very short, there's absolutely nothing you need to do with this poem. You don't have to figure it out. Just allow it to land into your experience. The poem goes like this:

Another day walking in circles with an empty bowl, leaning on my staff in the middle of the road, my whole body shaking with hunger. What little strength I had left, left me. As I was falling to the ground I saw, I was the spoonful of rice and this whole world the bowl you can't miss, even if you try.

I'll repeat it:

Another day walking in circles with an empty bowl, leaning on my staff in the middle of the road, my whole body shaking with hunger. What little strength I had left, left me. As I was falling to the ground I saw, I was the spoonful of rice and this whole world the bowl you can't miss, even if you try.

Reflections

Welcome to this morning's short little talk. Again, I'm continuing with this theme of the poetry of practice, and this poem includes a surprise. I can maybe even just say, the biggest shifts in practice are a surprise. It's not like we can see a big shift coming and inch up upon it, knowing that in the next moment something big is going to happen. It doesn't happen that way.

All of us who have a meditation practice know this. It's often when we drop into a little deeper level or gain an insight; there's always an element of surprise to that. That's just the way the practice is. It's not like we could exactly see, "Oh, okay, as soon as I meditate for twelve and a half minutes longer, something is going to happen." But there's a way in which we're always bracing ourselves against surprises.

One way that I sometimes think about practice is this idea of going up a children's slide. At little playgrounds they have these slides, and it takes some effort to walk up to the top. That's some effort, but then you get to the top and off you go, sliding down. So it's not like there's always a complete letting go, and it's not like there's always just effort. The difference between this analogy that I'm making up and actual practice is, of course, that we don't really know when we're at the top of the slide and the sliding down is about to happen.

I'll read the same poem that I dropped into the guided meditation, and maybe I'll unpack it a little bit, and we'll see how this is. The poem goes like this:

Another day walking in circles with an empty bowl, leaning on my staff in the middle of the road, my whole body shaking with hunger. What little strength I had left, left me. As I was falling to the ground I saw, I was the spoonful of rice and this whole world the bowl you can't miss, even if you try.

There are lots of different ways we might interpret this poem, and I'm offering you some thoughts. This is just one person's ideas. I certainly don't want to sit here and say this is the authoritative way; I'm just offering some food for thought, some things to consider. But maybe you have your own interpretation. Maybe there's a way in which your life experience and your practice would point to a different interpretation. For me, this is part of what I love about poetry, that there doesn't have to be one way. We're not necessarily sure exactly what the poet is pointing to, and maybe it lands differently for all of us. Poetry is like an invitation for us to explore for ourselves.

Okay, so this poem. The poet writes, "Another day walking in circles with an empty bowl." As I pointed out a few days ago, in this poem, this idea of walking in circles is this feeling of not getting anywhere. Maybe there's some movement happening, but there's no sense of going anywhere, this feeling of stuckness.

We might even imagine that the person in the poem is on an alms round^[1]. They might be a nun or monastic who goes out with their alms bowl on alms rounds to see if somebody would put a meal for them to eat in their alms bowl. So I like this idea: "Another day." This isn't the first time it has happened. So even though it's happened before, she didn't completely give up. It's kind of like still persevering even though there's this feeling of stuckness or not getting what she wanted.

This empty bowl, I would say, is pointing to this sense of lack. This sense of insufficiency, this sense of needing more. And maybe for those of us who don't go on alms rounds, it's pointing to the sense of seeking. "Something's not quite right. I need more. I need something in order to feel full, in order to feel complete." I think many of us come to a spiritual practice because there is this sense of lack, and then spiritual practice becomes this really strong sense of seeking.

So the next lines: "leaning on my staff in the middle of the road, my whole body shaking with hunger." It's like this idea of leaning on a staff, using a cane, recognizing that we need support, but not letting that stop us. Maybe we can't walk as easily as we once could, but that doesn't mean that we completely stop walking. The person in this poem is just using the support that's needed, which sounds like a very skillful, wise thing to do.

And then the poem is saying, "in the middle of the road." So she hasn't arrived at her destination, but she is not quite where she started, and maybe not quite where she's going. Maybe she's in the midst of crossing over the flood^[2]. Some of you know this expression that's common in Buddhist teachings of how to cross over the flood, how to get to the other shore. The poet here, rather than using this analogy of crossing the river, says she's just crossing a road and is in the midst of crossing. She's not quite there yet, but maybe didn't even recognize she's not quite there yet.

"Shaking with hunger." Feeling this sense of lack thoroughly. It's uncomfortable. We do not want to feel this. Nobody wants to feel this. But maybe there's a point where it is no longer possible to stop feeling it. It becomes the most dominant experience: this real sense of wanting something different, and maybe there's a sense of possibility that there can be something different.

In a poem that I read on an earlier day in this series, there's a sense of trembling, feeling it all through the body as a physical, visceral experience. It's not so much thoughts. Here, that same idea is getting expressed through shaking with hunger. It's really feeling thoroughly that there's something here that's not quite right and this wish for it to be right.

And then a surprise happens. It is a kind of letting go, letting us feel exactly what we don't want to feel. None of us want to feel this shaking with hunger, or this trembling, or this sense of lack. Maybe we've been bracing ourselves, using this cane, this staff, as a way to support ourselves and bolster ourselves to make sure we never feel it. But then, whatever strength she had left, left her. No longer being supported by what once was supporting.

It's true that some of us come to this spiritual practice because what was supporting us is no longer available. We get a terrible diagnosis, or a loved one dies, or there's an unexpected change in our life circumstances like the ending of relationships, children leaving for college, or whatever it might be. What we were using to support us and maybe define us is no longer there.

And then the next line in this poem: "As I was falling to the ground I saw..."

This radical letting go. Not the usual way, not walking upright, not sitting. Falling to the ground. This literal different perspective is what the poet is talking about here. Literally as we're falling, we see things differently. It's certainly disorienting and frightening. This is exactly what we don't want, and it's a surprise; we don't see it coming. But this seeing that happens with this big different perspective, with this big shift... And people often report a big shift in their practice. These big shifts that happen with practice—some people will say this is life-changing—occur when there's a shift in perspective.

For some people, it's literally like going from sitting meditation to walking meditation. I know I've had some big shifts when just something as simple as that happens, or maybe a shift in perspective just from drinking a cup of tea. So it doesn't have to be as radical as falling to the ground, but sometimes it feels like that. It feels like what we're used to, the rug just gets pulled out from underneath us. And it's only under those circumstances where we can see this different perspective.

So this person says, "I was the spoonful of rice."

She was what she was looking for. She had been outside of herself looking for something—looking, in this case, maybe on an alms round literally, but figuratively, how often are we looking outside for the world to give us something to satisfy this sense of lack? She discovers, "Oh, I was the spoonful of rice." She was what she was looking for, and it's the very act of seeking that prevents us from seeing, because this seeking has this momentum to it that doesn't allow us to see.

And she also sees, "and this whole world the bowl." The whole world is supporting her. There's a way in which being held by this bowl... Sometimes we feel like the world is doing anything but supporting us, but what would it be like if we considered that actually, everything that's happening in our life is to help us become free? It is to help us find it so that we no longer have to seek. And maybe we have to stop seeking in order to feel this support, because inherent in seeking is that we have this insufficiency, that we can't see, or that we don't have what we want.

And then the poem ends: "you can't miss."

This encouragement. What would it be like to not be seeking? What would you do if you knew you would succeed? What would you try if you knew you couldn't miss?

So one more time I'll read this poem:

Another day walking in circles with an empty bowl, leaning on my staff in the middle of the road, my whole body is shaking with hunger. What little strength I had left, left me. As I was falling to the ground I saw I was the spoonful of rice and this whole world a bowl you can't miss, even if you try.

This poem is by Matty Weingast, the same poet from the first two days of this week. Again, it's Matty Weingast, and he's writing in this book, The First Free Women^[3].

So I wish you all a wonderful day. Thank you.