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?
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.
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]
[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]
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