Monika's weekly inner voice drawings:
Q: What is today's wisdom?
A: "I have never been a serious person... I am not serious at all because existence is not serious. It is so playful, so full of song and so full of music and so full of subtle laughter. It has no purpose; it is not business-like. It is pure joy, sheer dance, out of overflowing energy."
- Bhagvan Shree Rajneesh
"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind."
- Leo Buscaglia
Posts
Play. In the opening of my poem, `What I’ve Learned,’ I write, “I’ve learned that we take ourselves too seriously and not seriously enough to take our selves less seriously.” As you can see, this is a very serious sentence because it speaks to existence. And yet, it’s a very playful sentence because, though self exists, it only exists relative to and interconnected with everything else that exists. What this ultimately means is that the self we tend to take seriously enough to suffer with and for and because of, is not, like virtually everything else, an independent, permanent entity. We take ourselves too seriously and not seriously enough because we lack this basic understanding of reality, and so, suffer the slings and arrows of a life that also doesn’t exist independently and permanently. If you think about it, what makes us suffer is that and the way we hold onto things, including life and especially ourselves. We partially know this to be true when we dance, sing or engage in any other activity where we literally let go of our “selves” and let our energy overflow in the excesses of meaning, joy, or love.
ReplyDeleteIn the roundness of Monika’s latest drawing, the seamless circularity of this truth is depicted. Because truth is non-linear (and non-local!), the paradox of inclusiveness conveys how the well-lived life, when understood, is, not the negation, but the balancing and integration of what appears as opposites: Good/bad; right/wrong; us/them, etc. Monika’s drawing should be called `The Well-Lived Life.’ It’s balanced, fluid, embracing change, and attuned to its own unique expressiveness. This is what makes it profound in its playful simplicity and simply expressed in its profundity. I asked my analyst once, “If death is the problem, what’s the solution?” He smiled and said, “Live.” Duh!
Sanderlings Are Round
From their round rufous heads, kips
of conversation, as black bills poke
and dip into the round golden sand:
there are two now scampering
and scraping and carping for turf,
circling the round poked holes
of wet sand like children
face to face, hands clasped,
bodies straight
and angled like Pisa
bearing down on heals:
leaning back
and together, an arc
of top ready to spin;
white bands
of wings spread
tip to tip,
the round bodies
spinning in the shadow
of sand around poked holes;
and after the tango one leaves
for the round green of wake
rolling into the round white
bubbles of white breakers
breaking through the round
boundaries of foam and wave
roaring and rushing behind
the retreating black legs
rhythmic and round as dance.
In today’s daily message from The Dalai Lama on facebook, he says, “I feel that compassionate thought is the most precious thing there is.” I was meditating on the relationship between compassion and play and was reminded that “true” play—the play my first teacher, Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh, writes about—can only exist in a compassionate mind; in the same way that “true” compassion can only exist in a mind that understands ultimate reality—the interconnectedness of all phenomena. Play without compassion is competition and compassion without play is accommodation. Both are driven by fear, not wisdom.
ReplyDeleteI’ve noticed a general difference between Eastern and Western teachers of Buddhism. The Eastern teachers I have met, particularly Tibetans, are very playful. The Western teachers are way too serious; they seem to lack play. I find Monika an unusual exception to this observation, and its reflected in her drawings and approach to life. It’s not a coincidence that her compassion is true blue. And, I would say, round.
I love your playful handling of this "serious" subject: not only talking about "play" but playing by reciting your poem... conjuring up the image of a morning beach and the texture of wet sand under dancing sanderling feet. A lovely morning impression.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with your observation: "Play without compassion is competition and compassion without play is accommodation." I never thought about it this way, but it makes sense. It comes down to not taking oneself so seriously :)