Meditation and Poetics - 2 (Intro)

AG: So  everybody knows a little poetry but how many here don't meditate?  Or haven't had any formal meditation practice?  Okay. So the thing is that you signed up for a course in meditation and poetics.

Student:  And also, of course, meditation (is also part of…)

AG:  Yeah.  So you've got another course in meditation somewhere else? 

Student:  Yeah.

AG:  Yeah.  Well you can get started on that.

Now, as I said, I told somebody to go read (William Carlos) Williams and then go over and get some meditation instruction from... who is it that gives it? 

 Student:  Veena Davis 

 AG:  Veena Davis, over at the Naropa Office. 

And so one or two students went over there and said, grumpily, "Well, I don't really want to do this but this guy Ginsberg who's teaching this course said go over and learn how to meditate, I don't give a shit about meditation, but he said I've got to do it for the course,  so, what am I going to do?" 

Well, the point is, if you're going to take this course, (unless your brains are all up in your head and none of them are in your guts, or in your ass, or in your prick, or in your cunt, or nothing ... unless it's all purely mental), the logical thing to do is learn how to meditate (even if you're coming) from the point (that) you're very literary and so you feel that meditation is irrelevant.  If you're very, very intellectual and literary and this is purely a literary intellectual thing, in order to be able to write the proper footnote as to how the word “meditation” is used, you would actually have to go find out on your own body how to meditate. So, no matter (what) your angle - whether it be purely a survey course of English Lit, or gawking at me and writing and wanting to examine what sort of language I come up with, still, in order to understand the way I'm using the language, it'd probably be useful if you did finally sit. 

I did originally think of making it mandatory, but the professional meditators are telling me I'm being too ravenous, awkward and impetuous in ordering people to go and meditate if they're going to take this course, so we'll make it completely unmandatory.  You can meditate or not.  But, at any rate, whether or not you meditate, the point is are you going to learn how, or go get some meditation instruction?  The kind I'm going to be discussing is basic, non-theistic meditation related to breath, which is basic Buddhist style.  Ordinary mind style -- Zen or Tibetan, so you have the opportunity to learn that here. 

You have a question?

Student:  I think it might help people, especially those who are the non-meditators, to show, to give a point, or reason, why, and the benefits that they'd receive from a course in meditation.

AG:  Well, that's not the point. 

Student:  Okay.

AG:  What I'm trying to say is this is a literary course.

Student:  That's what I said, but..
AG:  This is a literary course so if you want to understand what we're talking about, what I'm suggesting is you go meditate.  I'm making too much of this. It's so obvious.  However... By this time it should be obvious what the joke is. If you don't get it yet, I don't know.

So is there anybody who has some objection to learning how to meditate in order to understand this course?  Who's come here and signed up but still does not want to know what we're talking about?  I don't know who the student was who was complaining, but I couldn't figure out what was the point of coming into the course, unless, maybe, he didn't understand what it was about to begin with -  thinking that meditation was thinking something.  Okay.

So anyway everybody please then get some meditation instruction.

[Audio for the above may be heard here, beginning at the beginning  at approximately six-and-a-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately ten minutes in]