Re: Hamelin's Chopin

OT, but since this has been an interesting and unexpected exchange,
I'll pitch something in...


On Jan 13, 9:51 pm, SG <SGG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

One poem in particular makes me think of our discussion: "Buddha in
glory".

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

------------

I have always wondered whether the last "you" - the particular "you"
in the second-to-last verse - is really Buddha still, or a secret,
concrete, lovable, loved, earthly "you". I don't know.


The contrast, though, with poetry actually written out of the Zen
Buddhist tradition is striking. E.g.:

kare-eda ni
karasu no tomarikeri
aki no kure

--Matsuo Basho (1679)

which could be translated

on a bare branch
a crow has landed
autumn nightfall

No assertion of ego, no obfuscation, no straining after meaning, no
metaphysics, no "symbol" that's not a natural fact, subtleties to
appreciate but no great interpretive hurdles to overcome.

Not to take anything away from Rilke--but the contrast might prove
instructive in light of the theme of different traditions of
"seeking".


The precise application to Hamelin's performance style and so forth,
though, might not be immediately obvious. :-)

ADB
.

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