AG: So I think the one ground that everybody seems to agree on is “this is it”, or “Be Here Now”, or agreement that we are here so therefore we want to know where we are. And the reason for that seems to be to avoid more confusion, to avoid creating more garbage pains and suffering. out of..out of, not ignorance, just ignorant scratching around, that’s why I want to shake (it) up, so that you don’t mess yourself up more and mess others up more (also) or mess others up who will come and mess you up, or vice-versa, mess yourself up and then mess others up. So that, probably, then, to avoid getting into… the mess becomes too painful. And so therefore there seems to be some need to shake it up. meaning see it to begin with, that is, to see where we are , to see the states where we’re at, to hear the sounds where we are, and to hear them clearly and distinctly.
Student: You said that it’s important not to make more pain.
AG: Well, it’s important not make it worse than it is already, that it’s bad enough as it is.
Student: I always thought that the Buddhist thing was that if you see things as they are, you’ve been so protected up to that point, that it’s painful itself to see things. It can be..it can be painful because of just the exquisiteness of what’s already there, (the pain).
Student (2). The tremendous relief.
Student: The relief.. Yeah, well, I mean, it could be actual.. I guess it’s not pain exactly but a taking in of too much without any protective shield.
AG : Yeah it becomes raw there..
Student; Raw
AG: ..but at least you see what..and you don’t.. you don’t imagine something worse.
Student: I see, I see.
AG: Because my father had some cancer and the family wouldn’t tell him..And I think I came came from Naropa and I insisted that the doctors tell my father. And so we all sat down, and my aunt was.. in particular, (she) said, “No, don’t tell him. We never, in our family, tell anyone.” (they all die, writhing on their death-bed, bleeding, wondering what’s the matter!). So my father sat down (and he’d been suffering, he knew he had something really ill). So the doctor said,”You have a malignancy in your spleen”. And my father said, ” Ah, I thought I had cancer of the brain!” (He’d been, you know, he’d been afraid to tell anybody. for half a year while he was declining. and while he was going to the doctors and he was getting x-rayed. in and out of the hospital).
So. it’s sort of to see things clearly, so as to avoid misapprehension, fantasy and paranoia and acting in an innocent way based on ideas that have no ground, I think. The thing was you want to see. It is painful to see, (but) if you understand the situation, and the understanding is that you’ve got cancer – or, as the opening of Tristan Corbiere‘s poem “Rhapsody of the Deaf Man”(“Rapsodie du sourd”) – “Alright said the doctor, the treatment is finished, you’re deaf ” – (That’s the first line of a poem by Corbiere) – “So I nodded happily, not having understood a word he said” – That’s a very interesting poem – “Alright said the doctor, your treatment is finished, you’re deaf ”
So the point of seeing clearly, even though it’s painful, is to avoid making it even worse by scratching around and pressing the wrong button, and, you know, killing the wrong people, or. you know, attacking the wrong.., yelling, not understanding the situation, getting mad. And then the point of codifying it, or making it an artifact, making an objectification of it, making an art work out of that, seems then logically to follow, which is to tip other people off as to what is exactly going on so that they don’t cut their own feet off, or cut yours by accident, not knowing where you are or where they are.
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately ninety-six minutes and concluding at approximately one-hundred-and-three-quarter minutes in