My Reaction to a Poem

I attend a Zoom event every morning at 8am; it is called a morning sit. The sitting refers to a sitting meditation — in this case, silent meditation for a half-hour with about 20 people who belong to a Buddhist church that is in California. (Rather than being called a church, it is called a sangha.)

After we do our 30 minutes of sitting meditation, someone reads a poem or a quotation and invites discussion. I find that I often have a different perspective on these bits of wisdom than do the others.

Recently, one poem stated, “My pure mind is undamaged by the world,” or something like that. I reacted strongly to the statement because I feel I have been damaged and defeated by my experiences of the world.

I wrote this in response:

A Poem of Response

The poem said,
“My pure heart has not been crushed by the world.”

Would that it were so for me!
Some hearts are crushed — crushed by the world.
Perhaps all hearts are crushed, from time to time.
But some hearts are crushed, really crushed, completely crushed
by the world. And they do not recover.

Human beings are destroyed. Not all survive.
Crumpled creatures take their lives
or fail at taking their lives
and wander around with crushed hearts
looking, on the outside, as if they are people.

I was never a person.
Pure heart smashed and trampled from the moment of birth.
Having the shape of a human being, only.
Nothing else is there.

Don’t argue with me. This really happens.
I know. It has happened to me.

Jansen Vee, November 2020