Group work

During my first year of meditation practice I was invited to meet with others bringing a poem which in some way related to meditation. This one-off session was my introduction to ‘group work’; work in which ground rules designed to establish the conditions of mindfulness and attention were accepted.

During the meeting each person read the poem they had chosen and said something about the correspondence between the poem and qualities of the practice. I enjoyed reading the poems in preparation and noticed how many I loved had qualities that reflected my experience in meditation and since then have read many poems in that way

The subject matter and conduct of the meeting had the effect of awakening unexpected aspects of my self into the world of dhamma and practice. I have noticed since that this is one of the effects of group work, during which one relates the material under investigation to lived experience – even if the material may seem at first glance to have little direct connection with the Buddhist teaching. The poem I chose? Wallace Steven’s ‘Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour’.