NECESSARY ANGEL

THE PLANET ON THE TABLE

Ariel was glad he had written his poems.
They were of a remembered time
Or of something seen that he liked.

Other makings of the sun
Were waste and welter
And the ripe shrub writhed.

His self and the sun were one
And his poems, although makings of his self,
Were no less makings of the sun.

It was not important that they survive.
What mattered was that they should bear
Some lineament or character,

Some affluence, if only half-perceived,
In the poverty of their words,
Of the planet of which they were part.

        - Wallace Stevens

.  .  .  .  .

 

A Video Interview with Henry Schaeffer

Henry Schaeffer - January 2012, San Francisco.

Henry Schaeffer studied with Suzuki-roshi before meeting Chögyam Trungpa and becoming the latter teacher's student in 1970. In this video, Henry describes the first and second time he encountered Chögyam Trungpa. 

Trungpa Rinpoche did not limit his teachings to Tibetan Buddhism or any spiritual idiom - even to "spirituality" itself. In a given talk, Trungpa Rinpoche might speak of farming, T.S. Eliot or the understanding of Christian monastics he conversed with in Great Britain. In this video, Henry describes how one of his own passions, the poetry of Wallace Stevens, coincidentally became a link to Chögyam Trungpa.