Walt Knew

In that unitive condition, Walt Whitman experienced the deep peace that passes all understanding . . . Abiding in that peace, he knew that in reality nothing existed outside of it . . . He is kin with everything and everyone in creation, and always shall be, for that is how the world was made. The tiniest part of creation - a "kelson" of it - is love. Love is the nature of all things, Walt Whitman cries. And that is what you are: it's true! You are never for one moment set apart from the connective current of life. This is the great shout of joy that this poem sends out into the world. - Roger Housden in "Ten Poems to Change Your Life" (referencing Song of Myself by Walt Whitman).

Day 240. Just returned from a whine and wine with a close friend. The friend that tutored my son in Spanish following his coma, when, let's just say, memory was not his strong suit. Love manifests in such beautiful varieties.

Short blog tonight, because I am aching to read more Walt Whitman. I planned on blogging specifically about meditation last night, but the idea was supplanted when I serendipitously picked up Housden's book and randomly read Song of Myself and the commentary following it. Imagine my delight as I read this poem for the first time, a poem Housden describes as "the longest, most daring, most magnificent of all" the poems in Whitman's collective works Leaves of Grass.

The poem was published around 1855, long before Suzuki Roshi brought Zen to the United States. I don't know if Walt Whitman would have had occasion to study Buddhism. However he arrived at the truth he expresses in Song of Myself, it is the same truth I have encountered in my sitting practice. I was astonished last night as I read the poem and Housden's comments on it. My ego gurgled briefly as I realized that, without ever having read the poem, I had experienced and written about the same Truth, i.e. the Reality that we are "kin with everything and everyone in creation, and always shall be, for that is how the world was made." I silenced my ego with an instant awareness that most sincere seekers eventually fathom this Truth; it is not shrouded in secrecy; all great spiritual traditions say that this is so.

"Love is the nature of all things, Walt Whitman cries. And that is what you are: it's true!" Continue to be a seeker, for this truth cannot be acquired through a two-dimensional sphere. It must be lived, experienced, embraced from within. Felt with the soul. Poetry, dance, meditation, song - these are the vehicles through which this "unitive condition" is imparted. Meditation gave it to me. And I will never be the same.

Gassho,
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