In recent years, Joseph Goldstein has made poetry a part of his practice. In this, he joins many other Buddhist teachers and practitioners who turned to the language of poetry to express their experience and wisdom and to help others along the path. We see this already in the Therīgāthā and Theragāthā, songs of insight, aspiration, and loss composed by the early generations of Buddhist monastics that were included in the Pāli Canon. Buddhist philosophers such as Nāgārjuna, who wrote sophisticated rational treatises, also often wrote poetry expressing their sense of devotion and wonder that moves their readers beyond the limits of reason. Poetry was at the heart of much East Asian Buddhism, where the beautiful play of language was cultivated as a practice. Today, Buddhist poets in Asia and the West have become some of our most skillful teachers, inspiring us on the path, presenting objects of meditation, revelation, and beauty. This conversation with Joseph Goldstein and William Edelglass, BCBS Director of Studies, will explore the practice of poetry. We will inquire into poetry as a practice of attention, of giving voice to our own experience and insights, of resting in what Joseph in one of his poems calls the “love of my lonely hours.”
As preparation for this conversation, we invite you to read this interview with Joseph on how poetry has become an element of his own practice. The interview, originally published in the fall 2023 issue of Tricycle and republished by permission in the BCBS Insight Journal, includes a selection of his poems. We also invite you to read this Insight Journal article, from the Spring 2020 issue, by William, “‘When I could do nothing’: Buddhism and the Practice of Poetry in a Time of Pandemic.”
