Literacy and the Rinpoche
As a bellow-beginner armchair Buddhist I was delighted to have my first experience sitting with and listening to Phakchock Rinpoche, the reincarnate Buddhist lama. The evening was lovely, poignant and deeply humorous—a song, a poem, a prayer and a lecture rolled into one. Spiritual traditions more familiar to me have possessed these same elements, but the evening with the Rinpoche differed in this way: The poetic aspects did not seem separate from each other nor from the message of his talk. All of it was all of it. In particular, the Rinpoche repeated concepts many times, the like a chorus or refrain. The rhythms and pitches he used added up to one long, beautiful song. Although his English was excellent, there were times when the translations became funny literary puzzles and the host had to explain the questions that were posed. This was perhaps my favorite part. The symbols and words in the prayer book seemed to reach into the far-away exotica in my soul, and spoke to me from a vastly different perspective.
A word reaches beyond it’s literal meaning. When sung, a word is completely different than when said. A song in a language unfamiliar to the listener can illicit the most passionate response of all. The timbre of the voice in utterance communicates much more than the dictionary definition. Thus it may be the phoneme itself that pierces our hearts.
The evening before the Rinpoche’s talk, I sat on a panel with the talented fireball Alexandra Fuller (aka Bo Ross) to help celebrate the Teton Literacy Program. It was a terrific honor and lots of fun. We spoke of how important words are to each of us. The Teton Literacy Program is dedicated not only to establishing fluency in English and other languages for critical life skills, but also to the nurturance of the highest use of words: Literature, poetry, and song.
The completion of any form involving words occurs within the Genius Listener. The gift is created in the open heart of the receiver of the word, note, or idea. Often when I’m ‘listening’ in conversation I am simultaneously thinking of the next thing that I am going to say. Occasionally I will be still enough to hear the echo, the space, the immense landscape of thought.
After singing us into an active sleep, the Rinpoche would stop for long, long periods of time. It seemed as though in that vast openness I could hear the mountains and deep waters and very centuries containing the collective legacy of every Buddhist monk since the beginning of time. A bare room, with silk curtains and a wood floor.
Literacy. I hope to become fluent in the art of the Genius Listener.