[Buddha-l] On Dylan and Poetry (was "Greetings from Oviedo")

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

Thanks, Richard, for turning our attention to the Buddhist content (or 
lack of it) in this thread, Dylan's work, and poetry in general. 
Richard asks,


> You are now begging the question. My point is, why waste time with
> anything that is not an argument? Why waste time with anything that 
> does
> not help to improve one's character? Why let one's mind be filled with
> noise and nonsense, as if they do no damage to the quality of one's
> soul? You have given me no answer as of yet.

And Richard is correct that I did not give him an answer. I thought the 
answer was so obvious it didn't need stating. This was foolish of me 
for at least two reasons. First, because the answer seems not, in fact, 
obvious to Richard. Second, because the answer seems frankly adharmic.

Richard himself suggests this answer when he demands an explanation of 
"why any Buddhist would listen to music for the purpose of being moved 
by it." The answer lies precisely in this experience of being moved: in 
being so moved, one is partially broken out of one's illusory sense of 
separateness and experiences greater intimacy with one's world. Far 
from doing "damage to the quality of one's soul," as Richard (I 
suspect, playfully) puts it, I assert such experience of reading or 
hearing poetry can bring one just a bit closer to kilesa-nirodha. 
Richard and others (such as, quite frankly, the Buddha) may disagree 
with this premise, or may disagree with classing Dylan's poetry as 
having this ability, but at least we all more or less agree that 
kilesa-nirodha is something worth shooting for, no?

Franz Metcalf

N.B.: Maybe the Buddha just knew Dylan's Christian stuff. If he had 
listened to better songs he might not have said something so idiotic as 
that one ought to always close the sound-gates when it comes to music 
and poetry. Same with other forms of art. What a doofus! But let's 
blame it on his social conditioning, eh?