Rev. Danny Fisher

Photo posted on Naropa University's Facebook page today.

Seeing as it’s the anniversary of his death, today’s quote is from Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), whom I previously quoted and wrote a little biography for here.  This is it:

There is a bodhisattva aspect of poetry, particularly when you combine it with the notion of poetry as proclamation. So:

proclamation of original mind
proclamation of primordial mind
proclamation of your candid mind
proclamation of your own chaos
proclamation of your own uncertainty
proclamation of your own fragility
proclamation of your own sensitivity
proclamation of your own cheerful neurosis, so to speak, a cheerful attitude toward your nature, which fits in well with the meditation-practice suggestion to take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts rather than try to push them away—“invite them to tea,” merely observe them with a friendly attitude, and that can be applied to poetics, taking a friendly attitude toward your thoughts, and when you catch yourself thinking, if you have an interesting and vivid thought, notating it, particularly the sequence of thoughts that might lead other people to notice their own mind.

In other words, if you can show your mind it reminds people that they have got a mind. If you can catch yourself thinking, it reminds people they can catch themselves thinking. If you have a vivid moment that’s more open and compassionate, it reminds people that they have those vivid moments.

By showing your mind as a mirror, you can make a mirror for other people to recognize their own minds and see familiarity and not feel that their minds are unworthy of affection or appreciation. Basically, poetics is appreciation of consciousness, appreciation of our own consciousness.