Leaving Guilt to Fend for Itself
The Rockrose Moon (A Serial Fiction) Part 42
Christian wandered out of here the other day with my copies of the collected Yeats and Paradise Lost. Today I noticed he had a book of translations by Arthur Sze. He is reading poetry again voraciously, which always makes me happy. We have a video we got one year, (not a DVD, video) of Arthur Sze reading and while cleaning up the ballroom this afternoon I found my copy of his The Redshifting Web.
We went to see Sam Hamill, who was reading here a few years ago specifically to beg him to see if we could get Arthur Sze here to read to us in person. It was an awful reading, Mr. Hamill had just been ousted from the award winning press he had helped found and was viciously angry while at the same time spouting off Buddhist rhetoric.
Mr. Hamill told us to email and ask Mr. Sze but we couldn’t afford the fee he asks to be paid. We asked if he thought Mr. Sze would be willing to give us a poem to publish in our journal and he said that he writes very slowly and might not have one to spare but we were happy to at least talk to someone who knew and had published this poet we both admire so much.
I had a chance to talk to a Buddhist teacher recently and I was going on about how I was beginning to understand through my yoga how Buddhists could just not care about how they acted because in the end it all doesn’t matter and I mean that, and said that I meant that in the best possible way… all the time thinking about how truly awful this talented editor and poor excuse for a human being was acting that day.
The teacher said something to me then that I felt was very compassionate, he said that sometimes it all has to do with our conditioning and that at times people who call themselves Buddhists and practice the precepts are still wrapped in a bundle of conditioning.
I don’t think that since I was maybe 12 or 13 I have ever not felt guilty about everything I put in my mouth and the holidays, but particularly Thanksgiving, are torture for me.
Practicing yoga this morning I was thinking about all this, about conditioning as well as the sound of my breath and as I was rolled over into fetal position after Corpse Pose for my symbolic daily rebirth I was thinking how amazing it would be for just one day to feel no remorse about what I eat.
I wonder if I’ll ever get there.
As Christian says they say in AA, it is all about practice, not perfection.
Christian wandered out of here the other day with my copies of the collected Yeats and Paradise Lost. Today I noticed he had a book of translations by Arthur Sze. He is reading poetry again voraciously, which always makes me happy. We have a video we got one year, (not a DVD, video) of Arthur Sze reading and while cleaning up the ballroom this afternoon I found my copy of his The Redshifting Web.
We went to see Sam Hamill, who was reading here a few years ago specifically to beg him to see if we could get Arthur Sze here to read to us in person. It was an awful reading, Mr. Hamill had just been ousted from the award winning press he had helped found and was viciously angry while at the same time spouting off Buddhist rhetoric.
Mr. Hamill told us to email and ask Mr. Sze but we couldn’t afford the fee he asks to be paid. We asked if he thought Mr. Sze would be willing to give us a poem to publish in our journal and he said that he writes very slowly and might not have one to spare but we were happy to at least talk to someone who knew and had published this poet we both admire so much.
I had a chance to talk to a Buddhist teacher recently and I was going on about how I was beginning to understand through my yoga how Buddhists could just not care about how they acted because in the end it all doesn’t matter and I mean that, and said that I meant that in the best possible way… all the time thinking about how truly awful this talented editor and poor excuse for a human being was acting that day.
The teacher said something to me then that I felt was very compassionate, he said that sometimes it all has to do with our conditioning and that at times people who call themselves Buddhists and practice the precepts are still wrapped in a bundle of conditioning.
I don’t think that since I was maybe 12 or 13 I have ever not felt guilty about everything I put in my mouth and the holidays, but particularly Thanksgiving, are torture for me.
Practicing yoga this morning I was thinking about all this, about conditioning as well as the sound of my breath and as I was rolled over into fetal position after Corpse Pose for my symbolic daily rebirth I was thinking how amazing it would be for just one day to feel no remorse about what I eat.
I wonder if I’ll ever get there.
As Christian says they say in AA, it is all about practice, not perfection.
posted by NokoRose at 4:23 PM
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