My poems often aim to capture a moment in words.
So they could be called poems about life, life poetry.
Reading about Buddhist teachings of the self brought me to the question:
are these life poems closer to Buddhist teachings, Buddhist beliefs
about the self, rather than Western views of the true self?

POEMS ABOUT LIFE
bring up questions about life and self:
Western self knowledge versus Buddhist teachings, Buddhist beliefs

When I write, I just write. I don't try to express some world view or another. I just follow the trail of the words coming from within me.

But now I'm thinking about these word pieces, these poems about life, each about a moment of being.

There's something I read the other day that caught my attention: about a huge difference between the Western understanding of self knowledge versus Buddhism teachings, Buddhist beliefs.

Western self knowledge, self expression: there is a self enduring over time, undergoing developments but with an underlying continuity of being. Some call this the true self. Self understanding means gaining ever more self awareness. So if one writes about moments of being, life moments, these moments are understood to be part of a larger continuity of being.

On the other hand, according to Buddhist teachings, Buddhist beliefs (as I read about them rather briefly), one is to gain, through meditation, glimpses of oneself, fragments of disconnected being. One is just to experience these glimpses into oneself, and not connect them into a whole.

Why bring this up? My life poems each express a glimpse, a moment of being. Is it a Western moment? Or is it a disconnected fragment?

For each individual life poem, it's a moot point. It doesn't matter.

But deep down, I've gone for the Western self concept. Over and over, I've taken word pieces and linked them together - stopped them from being just disconnected fragments, individual moments of being, made them part of a larger whole - part of a story.

I haven't wanted to tell a story in the traditional way. She said... He said ... They said ... They did ... He went ... Next what happened was ...

Still by linking the pieces, these moments of being, a story has naturally come into being.

I'm part of a long tradition in this - story telling is part of being human. We naturally link moments, ask ourselves, What happens next?

One could say that by linking the pieces, I've found my own way of telling a story.

As always, welcome into my world.

signed,

Elsa

JUNE 6, 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006, 2011
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006, 2011

Previous - June 6, 2006

Next - June11, 2006

JUNE 10, 2009

It's now just over 3 years later. And I still stand between the 2 waters -between the Buddhist teachings (according to my reading) of fragmented moments of being - and the Western self concept of a continuity of being.

None of the individual pieces go against the Buddhist wisdom (such as I know it).

What about the Western concept of self knowledge, self expression of a true self, true nature? The catch words go through my mind: expressing yourself is the key; be true to yourself, be true to the self, find the self, find your self, express yourself.It's a tradition I know very well.

I do experience a continuity of being - with so many changes that often I can't recognize a previous self. On the other hand, moments of life, moments of being, life moments - for me this is where life resides, not in a blurry continuity.

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Not Upside Only,
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