Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 10

5 March 2024

Brief Notes on Various Topics --10

1.  There is a book about the struggles East Asian, primarily Chinese, Buddhists had with poetry.  The book is called The Poetry Demon written, and translated where needed, by Jason Protas.  It’s an intriguing read.

Chinese Buddhist Monastics were good, and at times excellent, poets.  A lot of their poetry had a didactic purpose, but even so it was often very well written.  But there was often a feeling that the time spent on poetry would be better spent on meditation and study of Buddhist texts, and that it would be more auspicious to, for example, write a commentary on a Sutra or a Treatise such as The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana.  This was felt both institutionally and individually.  It doesn’t seem that this was ever definitively worked out one way or the other. 

The discomfort over poetry among Buddhist monastics was personified in a figure called ‘The Poetry Demon.’  This demon would enter the meditator’s mind with ideas for a poem, including specific lines and topics, thereby distracting the meditator from concentration or spacious awareness.  The Poetry Demon could be very enticing.

In Japan the famous poet Basho at times expressed discomfort with the time he spent on poetry, wondering if it might be better for him to devote that time to meditation.  But it does not seem that this discomfort ever moved Basho to cut back on his very busy poetry career.

In contrast, some Japanese clerics argued that poetry was an effective Buddhist path; see Murmured Conversations: A Treatise on Poetry and Buddhism by Shinkei, translated by Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen. 

I mention this here because the tension around poetry, and the literary arts in general, that is found in Platonism is replicated in this East Asian context.  This implies that there might be more going on than what is gleaned from confining the discussion to Greek culture. 

As a poet myself, I can attest that there is such a thing as The Poetry Demon who waltzes into sessions of contemplation determined to take them over for his own purposes.  On the other hand, at times composing a poem on a spiritual topic was the perfect way to sharpen my understanding and to bring that understanding to a higher level of purity; sometimes to an extent that surprised me. 

2.  I look forward to my next life.  I don’t think I have reached a level of realization that would remove the need for any more rebirths; I mean that I doubt that I will merge fully with the One at the time of my passing.  On the other hand, I think I have made genuine progress in the cultivation of the virtues and the practice of contemplation.  Perhaps I overestimate my own progress. 

3.  The presence of peace in the material world resembles the presence of beauty, or the presence of unity, in the material world.  There is beauty in the material world, but the beauty found in the material world is derived from Noetic Beauty.  Similarly, there are moments of peace in the material world, but those moments of peace are derived from, or emanate from, the Noetic realm.  There is no peace that is material in nature because the material realm is too differentiated.  And there is unity in the material world, but that unity is Noetic unity, and ultimately the unity of the One.  Peace, beauty, unity; they have no home in the dimension in which we live.  Their home is There, in the beyond that is beyond.