Tag Archives: Rainer Maria Rilke

I don’t know how it works for you, but my mind starts kibitzing almost as soon as I open my eyes.

And when I get up and sit on a meditation cushion for twenty minutes, it either goes into kibitz-overdrive, or tries to flop back into sleep. For years these morning meditations have proceeded thus.

Looking back, I think I have learnt from them precisely two things:

1) In the morning I am even more aware of my “myriad selves” (anxious, hopeful, trembling, wishful, fearful, impatient) than at any time of the day

2) Unless I drift back into sleep on my cushion again, these sesshins do not bring with them much comfort or succour.

Of course they’re not meant to necessarily. But if sitting on a meditation cushion in the morning (afternoons, evening, much more variable) only reiterates these two points for me again and again and again, maybe I could, even should experiment with doing this thing differently?

I think of my forefathers wrapping themselves up in prayer shawls and phylacteries, rocking their way through the liturgy in a language they didn’t understand or speak.

I think of the many times I have felt intensely moved when participating in a similar buddhist rituals, but never wanting to take those Pali psalms home with me. I don’t particularly want to start my day saluting Buddha or one of Judeo-Christian-Moslem gods. I’d rather say a little secular prayer^[1] for you (and me).

We’re the ones who need ‘em.

The music on my Say A Little Poem recording comes from the rapturous dexterity of CoversArt on YouTube:

[Poems read today: I am, O Anxious One, Don't you hear my voice; I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all; Lament; Autumn Day; Evening; The Blindman's Song; The Drunkard's Song; The Idiot Song; The Dwarf's Song; The Panther; The Gazelle; The Swan; The Grownup; Going Blind; Before Summer Rain; The Last Evening; Portrait of My Father as a Young Man; Self-Portrait]