A Quest for Truth

I like Emily Dickinson's typically intense definition of poetry.

"If I read a book," she says, "and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." I think her definition describes best the sort of thing I'm thinking of when I say poetry.

Not something merely ornamental or pretty or nice, but something that is beautiful, moving, sometimes exciting, takes you deeper into the heart of things, may be challenging, may even be terrifying sometimes in its beauty.

And implied in that, perhaps, is my, my belief that all good poetry is true.

Any really good poem, when you read it or hear it, will, will ring true.

And for me, incidentally, some of the best prose can reach the status of poetry as well.

When you're reading, um, prose masters like Dickens, Melville, Virginia Woolf, or James Joyce, for me you are reading poetry.

And what about the spiritual life? What do I mean by that? For me, that's an honest quest to find out what's true and live by that, put it into practice, or at least try to.

It's, it's the quest for truth, beauty, and connection with the world.

It's a stepping beyond the self so that we can realize our solidarity, even our identity, with each other and with all things.

It's finding that authenticity, that contentment within, that comes with adopting a more expansive and more real outlook.

And it's all the tools I need to carry me on that quest.

For me, having looked in a number of places for that sort of meaning in life, I found that Buddhism is the best context for it.

Makes the most sense.

Buddhism, for me, is the best vehicle, the best raft to the other side, to use the Buddha's own expression.

But I hope, then, that I'm a Buddhist because Buddhism makes sense in my experience, approaches truth, beauty, and love better than other paths, not because I'm just attached to a set of beliefs and practices called Buddhism, if you see what I mean.

The term Buddhism itself is actually only a Western term for what in the East is simply called the Dharma or the Way.

And what's the Dharma or the Way? What do I mean by that? The Buddha's own answer to this was, "Whatever leads to calm, not distress.

Contentment, not greed and grasping.

To individuality, not group-mindedness.

To energy, not idleness." He said anything of that nature is the Dharma, is his teaching.

Anything that has that flavor, the flavor of freedom, if you like, is the Dharma.

In Sangharakshita's words, "The Dharma is whatever helps us to rise from wherever we are now and from whatever we are now." It's whatever the individual finds in his or her own experience does actually contribute to his or her spiritual development.

And always remember that one definition of the Dharma is simply the truth, nothing more or less than that.