Of his 16 daily waking hours, Deepak Chopra spends four or five meditating. He never gets bored, he said, and he never experiences stress. His only vice is an addiction to yoga. “I’m happy all the time,” said Chopra, 78…
“The people who say they don’t have time, they’re not busy, they’re just scattered. If you’re present, there’s no fatigue. As soon as you think of what’s next, there’s fatigue. As soon as you think “I shouldn’t have done that,” there’s fatigue…”
“I don’t get stressed…”
“Pleasure is overrated…”
“I’m enjoying myself all the time. I don’t have to do anything special…”
It starts slowly as I walk from the meditation hall to lunch. When I sit down to eat, the food appears as a mixture of everything that was required to bring it to the table. I imagine all the land, dirt, sun, and water needed to grow a leaf or a single grain of rice. I imagine all the cells inside a potato that have been cared for as they’ve grown and were pulled from the soil. I see dirt in the wrinkles of hands that dig and plant and harvest. I see the death and decay of the plants that came before them, relinquishing one existence for another before being plucked up as something new. People drive machines and fix water systems. They crate, bag, and box the food and place it on trucks and ships and planes, which are created by other people with big, brilliant brains. I see minerals dredged from the earth to make steel and aluminum and iron and watch people melt it down and pour it into forms that make the machines that move it all across the world. I marvel that the chair I sit in is made of materials that required thousands of minds to perfect before becoming an instrument of my comfort. The rivets on the table, fastening the legs to the plank. The material of the tiles and the hands that laid them on the floor. The trees that become the skeleton of the building. The corrugated roof that keeps the rain and sun off the tables. The bowl that holds the food and the spoon and the water in the glass.
Eventually it all leads back to a parade of every picture I’ve ever made flashing behind my eyes as everything I can see becomes worthy of gratitude. It’s a feeling I’ve forgotten. And as nuts as it sounds, I can see one big, infinite cycle coming together as a single bite of food. For the second time in my life, the word complete is incomplete.
As it begins to overwhelm me I feel a bit batshit-crazy. But what’s crazy isn’t the recognition that so much is worthy of gratitude. What’s crazy is that I haven’t noticed it before as I replay my life in fast-forward, thinking of everything that moved me, fed me, and shaped me and I see how fortunate I have been. Being here at all is a display of my good fortune. I’ve been lucky not only to see the world but to continue to expand myself by changing my lens. A guy goes into a short, spiritual exile halfway around the world and wakes up: It’s a humorous trope and I’m not blind to it. But it’s not just the privilege of who I am and what I’ve been able to do. Likewise, the revelation is accessible to anyone at any time, and how they come to it isn’t really the point. It’s the privilege of living at all, and this is a privilege we all share despite how hard life can be at times. The duality of our sorrows and joys is the buy-in. That I have a body that lives and breathes and moves is a gift. I have a body and mind that gets to be depressed, that gets to navigate ceaseless thought.
I’m going to ask you all to participate with me in this piece. This is going to be a communal meditation.
The poem ritual is about meditation. It’s about breathing. And it’s about seizing the day rather than worrying about tomorrow.
Today, you will. Today you choose. Today is yours. Today is only today, tomorrow ain’t here yet, so slow down.
I was interested in creating ritual because I live in Brooklyn, New York. And I rarely found a space quiet enough to meditate. And so this poem became a part of my meditation practice. And now it’s something that I do every day.
Breathe, for the homies that ain’t you, breathe, for the kin, that is. Breathe, for your own good skin, your skin, your smile, your you, you, you.
As someone who’s aware of her anxiety, the ritual became very crucial for me to just find a place to have deep breaths. And I think that it will offer that to the listeners as well.
Now come back. Come back. Come back to yourself.
I do say poetry is a transformative tool because I believe it allows us to use poetry as a mirror. And we can look very deeply and intently. We can study it without judgment and we can allow ourselves to grow from the things that we see versus the things that we thought we were seeing. Poetry allows us a step back, some distancing, and a lot of compassion.
Miraculous dark days, most fortunate sky be, beyond brilliant and be your resilience. But you do that already. Who told you any different, you tell them today you live and today you choose. Because tomorrow ain’t here yet, so slow down, slow down. Breathe .
— Mahogany L. Browne, “A Brief But Spectacular take on poetry as ritual” (PBS · Moe Sattar · September 30, 2023) Mahogany Browne is a poet, writer, organizer and educator. Recently, she became the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center in New York City. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on poetry as ritual.
“notice the dog’s tail wagging, the sound of the dog’s feet clicking on the pavement, the clouds of breath coming out of your dog’s mouth on a cold day”
And I think that as I’ve aged, I realized everything is an ongoing process. And that it isn’t something that suddenly you’ve done this work and therefore you become enlightened, right? That you’re like, oh, you wake up one day and be like, oh, guess what, I don’t have an ego. I’m not bothered by anything. And instead, of course, it’s just the ongoing slog of being a human and returning to the practice. And OK, here we are again. That’s bothering me. Here I am again. I’m full of faults. […]
I usually sit for at least 15 minutes a day. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night. At night, it’s usually because I’ve forgotten to do it in the morning. Or I had something early, an early flight or something like that. But I try to start my day with it. I also try to do — set an intention every day that I just hold with me throughout the day. And sometimes it’s just like, oh, I’m feeling a little stressed out, and I’ll just say let’s just think about ease. And I’ll say, just keep saying the word ease and it comes up. And then my meditation practice — it differs. Sometimes it’s — I think the core is always love and kindness. That’s what I learned many, many years ago. And that’s my fallback.
