Poetrymind: Former Top Chinese official urges Chinese Government to Talk with the Dalai Lama

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Former Top Chinese official urges Chinese Government to Talk with the Dalai Lama

Bao Tong: Talk To The Dalai Lama
2008.03.26
Radio Free Asia

Bao Tong gives a rare television interview. The text is excerpted from Radio Free Asia.

A former top official in China’s ruling Communist Party has called on the Chinese government to open talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, as a matter of urgency. Bao Tong, former aide to ousted late premier Zhao Ziyang, says both Tibetans and Han Chinese have suffered at the hands of a Maoist political philosophy. He wrote this essay, broadcast by RFA’s Mandarin service, from his Beijing home, where he has lived under house arrest since his release from jail in the wake of the 1989 student movement:

"Take harmony seriously; talk to the Dalai Lama".Bao Tong says. For complete text, click on the title above. Mr. Tong touches on some interesting analysis about the deeply entrenched philosophy of hidden communication on matters of human rights in China.

WHAT IS POETRYMIND?

Officially Poetrymind’s a Decade Old

In the Spring of 2005 while co-directing the New England College MFA Program in Poetry, I considered starting my own blog. I had been introduced to blogging through an MAT program in Information Technology I was enrolled in at Marlboro College.

I still remember sitting bolt upright one night when the word poetrymind manifested as the title. I believe I first heard this word from Russell Edson--at NEC when he read. At one point he responded to a challenge from a faculty saying something like there is only one thing that matters and that is poetrymind. Edson was a magical and deeply ironic prose poet whose work I admire. His work epitomizes for me the simple notion that things are not what they seem. Thus, the phenomenal world is infused with magic and the mystery of discovery with ever fresh eyes.

For me poetrymind is synonymous with “First Thought, Best Thought,” which is to say, thought that represents a state of mind free from conceptual overlays of judgment and second guessing. Rather it is elegant thought borne from pure perception, the original thought before attaching judgement. The slogan, "First Thought, Best Thought", coined by the late Chogyam Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is not about writing without revision, as some believe. It is about experience first hand--direct and pure without a lot of egotistic filters or projections.

I am reminded of what the great Zen master, Susuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind” --- every moment offers a “fresh” experience. The ground is open vast mind or as Pema Chodron aptly puts it—The sky is open mind and everything else is the weather. Words are the display of poetrymind –alive with potentiality. Words in this context can become a vehicle for discovery of who we are.

See No Blood for Hubris on Russell Edson