Here is a poem that I organized — yes, organized, as not one word of the poem is mine! During the session on Monday, I wrote down all of the group members’ reflections, including yours, and organized them into a poem (I am a sometime poet, sometime published). I think the poem expresses the journey we were and are on, our experiences along the way, and our deepest learnings. As the poem is everyone’s words, and therefore everyone’s poem, I hope you will send it out to all faculty and students. — Jerry Garfield, May 19, 2022

DO I NEED AN “I” TO GROW POTATOES?

Comments by faculty and students reflecting their nine months journey
in the vastness of Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche’s
“Knowledge of Freedom”

Unnoticed, your hair is growing!

Not-knowing is something to really pay attention to
As a becoming quality of blossoming.
Give yourself this moment to take the time, slowing down.
Wake up and feel your whole life!

We are always in direct experience.
The immensity of freedom in not-knowing!

My mind is everywhere I am.
My “I” has changed in ways I cannot describe.
In the presence of layers of conditioning and patterning
Everything is changing, impermanent.

How does my self-thing really work?
Is it OK to look at things differently?
What is knowing? What is knowledge?
Who is doing the asking?

Inquiry felt more like looking from one side of my busy life
To my other, more calm side.
I felt my heart…
I felt my heart!

Amidst the transitory moments of experiencing openness
I practice what I know:
To question what I see, what I hear, and what I do.
I am flowing.

The next step is the next step.
Not-knowing, while trusting and receiving this moment—
This is intimate knowledge! 

My fundamental ignorance is not a personal thing.
Fear is a gateway—a beacon!
To right myself amidst all the tumult,
I pull myself back from being a runaway train.
What comes to me, I have to work with it.
How can I look at this differently?

Maybe looking at it differently, it will be different?
Let life unfold naturally. This body has no expectation.

To realize this is, of itself, very liberating—
A gradual transformation that is almost not noticeable.

This feeling dimension is new—
More room and more space!
Spaciousness allows me to feel more connected with myself and with life.

I go more deeply, with slowness.
Walking together, loyalty of everyone,
Traveling as a group; meditation as a gift—
Not something I have to do.

Trusting the teaching, and myself, by learning through the teaching:
This is a new kind of trust within me.
What a lovely taste!

How many words there are!
How many I don’t need!

I have opened more the door that is myself.