AG: See, if you can connect the language with what everybody here who doesn’t know Shambhala can understand..?
Student; Well basically that there are.. so this is it, and so.. that…
AG: What is it?, this existence ?
Student: This existence, this present moment, ok?
AG: …is all we got..
Student: Yeah.
AG: – and what we’ve got.
Student: Yeah, and this is what you work with. It’s not five minutes from now, it’s not a year from now, its not goal-oriented. So it’s celebrating the world just as it is.
AG : Why celebrate?
Student (2): Why not celebrate?
AG: (I mean, what is this? why just celebration?
Student (3): Any manipulation or presentation of pure consciousness has to be a kind of self-righteousness.
AG: Why?
Student (3) : I’m not certain, but it seems very clear to me that it’s the kind of concept that really doesn’t have any kind of valid negative aspect to it (I know that’s very un-Buddhist, but..)
AG: Does anybody understand what he’s saying? – Anybody know what he’s talking about? (to Student(3)) State clearer.
Student (4): It seems that things are beautiful as they are.
Student (3): Well I don’t know if things are beautiful as they are.
AG: I don’t know if things are beautiful as they are. “Beautiful”?, I don’t know..
Student (3): Yeah.
AG: They might be what they are, but I don’t know about “beautiful”.
Student (4): They’re’d be more like observations than celebrations.
AG: So, direct observations of what is already?
Student (5): Without anything getting in between you and between.. or, of what you’re seeing (through your) eyeball.
AG: The direct contact with reality that we’re looking for
Student (4): Like not commenting on the beautiful sunset (sic)
AG: Yeah. So the basis, presumably, is that we want to get to where we are, we want be where we are, we want to see where we are, and hear where we are, and smell where we are, and = be in our bodies).I think about that and there’s that great poem of Wallace Stevens – “The greatest poverty is not to live/In a physical world, to feel that ones desire/Is too difficult to tell..” [Editorial note – from “Esthetique du Mal”]
‘The greatest poverty is not to live/In a physical world, to feel that one’s desire/
Is too difficult to tell from despair”. You know that poem? – ‘The greatest poverty is not to live/In a physical world, to feel that one’s desire/ Is too difficult to tell from despair”
Audio for the above can be heard – here , beginning at approximately ninety-three minutes in and concluding at approximately ninety-six minutes in
AG ( to continue, Allen begins adjusting the sound) Can you hear me on this mic?
Student: Yes
AG: Pardon me ? – Can you hear me on this mic. What we should do is have a mic for the room now if we have it – did we have it last time?
Student: No
AG: Is it possible?
Student: Yes, it’s possible
AG: If we’re going to have any conversations…(on the record). We have twelve minutes (left) (for this class)