The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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That poem was called Nirvana by Charles Bukowski.

Nirvana by Charles Bukowski.

So, um, welcome, for those of you who are joining us late or just joining us here for the

garment or this little talk. Jane Hirschfeld who's a well-established poet,

she's a beautiful push,

some amazing poems, and she's also a Buddhist practitioner.

And I love this quote that she has.

She says, science and mathematics and engineering

exist for answerable questions.

Poems exist for questions that have no answers but still require a response.

I like this, this idea that, you know, poetry is a way of of responding but not in a way like an answer which tends to be you know I don't know I have edges and be

really like okay this is the answer this the truth, this is how it is, next, what's the next thing?

Whereas poems are a response. And I might say, I'm gonna say a response of the heart. It's a different part of us that's responding.

And so one question that we might have, it's a natural question with this practice, with this

tradition, is this idea of nirvana or nirvana, this idea of, you know, what is it to be awakened? What is this about

awakening and there's a number of different ways we can understand.

In Polly, the word is Nibbana.

In Sanskrit, the word is Nirvana, the exact same word,

two different languages.

So Charles Bukowski is using nirvana and in Polly, running the

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