Satisfied Buddhist - Domo Geshe Rinpoche

Poetry has quite come out of favor, except for its loyal followers, because people find verse is not as easy to understand. However, most scripture that remains for us to cogitate upon to grow and meditate with, is in poetic verse form. I suppose that anything that  was worth saying in spiritual advice was generally done in verse form. It was considered good manners and respectful to create verse rather than prose. Buddhist scriptures have been translated into verse structure from the Buddha’s words in Pali into Sanskrit, and from that, into Tibetan, English, and most of the world languages. Right now, we are able to access the poetic exposition of the Buddha’s words in English, hoping that the nuances of His meanings remain and were not carried off by poetic license and pentameter! Because poetry style is not as common as prose, when we try to understand Buddha’s or earlier masters words in scriptural verse, we feel alerted that this requires a special kind of sacred respect. I...

In gentler earlier times, I think calling and yearning for the awakening of the mind of bodhichitta was often inspired by less suffering ridden methods than used today. I have a book of love letters written in the 1600 and 1700’s. It’s very sweet and sincere. “I saw you buying a hat my lady, and my heart could hardly remain intact”. Beautiful poetry, “I can not forsake your image from my mind”. This imagery has a deep perfume of gentle longing and yearning. We not often see yearning with purity to it in our contemporary world, like these love letters. They continuously flow expression such as, “my heart, my love for you is true. I cannot tolerate being without your presence”. It seems that modern society quickly degenerated into exhibited sensuality and cynical roughness that rips the glow and the dusting of starlight from the esoteric longing of these beautiful love letters. These love letters remind me spiritual beautiful poetry written toward the enlightened state. I used to writ...