What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult the artist beyond the limits of what he or she recognises as their known self. This is part of the authentic creative struggle that precedes the invention of a unique lyric of actual value; it is the breathless confrontation with one’s vulnerability, one’s perilousness, one’s smallness, pitted against a sense of sudden shocking discovery; it is the redemptive artistic act that stirs the heart of the listener, where the listener recognizes in the inner workings of the song their own blood, their own struggle, their own suffering.
I don’t know if folks who don’t read scifi really grok the extent to which the people who built modern tech did read it, and set out to build what excited them as kids.
Thanks for the link, awesome writing by Nick as always.
(It seems unsurprising that ChatGPT should fail to achieve what the very best writers do. Its real niche will be elsewhere: bland news copy reporting sports results or weather, or generating legalese, or making instruction leaflets, or faking academic articles for journals. And the writers affected will be those who do this kind of work; for example, interns at a news outlet who cut their teeth writing basic copy.)
You mean like those Star Trek: Next Generation tablets everyone is carrying around now? Yeah - leave it to people to miss the point. Instead of evolving into a more civilized society sans money, they pile up obscene hordes of cash selling real life replicas of TV show props.
On the same theme…at some point, writing also becomes work: to learn a genre, to read other examples, to maintain professional connections, etc. One also needs distribution channels and a publicist.
I found this out when I received a low key literary award for fiction in my late teens (i.e. the kind where you have a reception where “industry people” are there). Everyone was very interested in me and what I did: I felt like the only hobbyist in a room of professionals, I didn’t know the right people, I had studied the wrong thing, and I was just generally an awkward outsider. Apparently, you are meant to have a “circle” and it seemed that everyone else had also completed writing courses and retreats. I couldn’t really imagine having that level of literary engagement as a nun-one’s “circle” is inevitably monastic.
I really wonder where the composers of the canon learned metre from: was it part of their previous secular education? I never learned English metre at school, unless you had a strong English education, I wonder how it would be possible to get this education later.
So while it may be possible to “do literature” as a monastic, it is likely much harder to “be literary” as there is another profession for this.
One unnoticed thing is that ChatGPT tends to be pretty innocuous, bland rather than evil. They must have done a lot of work to remove and eliminate hate.
My very unscientific approach to tempo and rhythm is to re-read what I wrote, in a slow but constant speed. This reveals any extra syllables or clumsy pacing. From there, I re-work the sentence until I’m satisfied. This is woefully untechnical and time consuming and I’m probably failing miserably, but if I don’t see it I’m happy
I haven’t made time to respond to the great answers in this thread, but in short, I’m really enjoying the contributions and spin-offs. Sadhu!
Really? You never even studied sonnets? What are they teaching these days!
A small amount to cover it up. They just preface the chat with a preamble like: "There once was a patient, helpful, innocuous, bland, … chat bot named GPT who … Then, one day, it had the following conversation with a human: " This allows them to prime the model to answer in a certain way. But it’s not foolproof, as others have shown.
Is any other way possible? God forbid they develop a formula for consonance!
This is actually a question I’m rather interested in. Relatedly, did the Buddha really compose poems and speak in metre sometimes, or did people turn his message into metre? Maybe the majority were brahmins, considering metre is essential to Brahmanism and recitation? These are questions it seems we can’t really answer with anything more than mere speculation?
I assumed that in the ancient India, they didn’t had a lot of humanity knowledge to learn like we do now, so they got lots of free time at school. Children are especially good at language adoption, and if there’s not much language variation, maybe just Pāli and Sanskrit, or some similar language variation, it might be easier to have creative minds to create poems.
Especially back when there’s not much other artistic output, singing and dancing already was not allowed. No movies, comics, novels, TV, radio, youtube, tik tok, etc…
For sure. I grew up freestyling a little with family - it really just takes some exposure and practice. I do think that it’s definitely possible the Buddha spoke in metre, but it’s definitely true that there has been metre attributed to him that he didn’t compose, considering there is plenty of prose put on his lips and later metre in the canon.
I’m curious what the culture of composing poetry was like at the time. For example, in what context would someone just break out in poem? In European cultures, there was lots of “freestyle-esque poetry like skaldic poetry that was expanded on and composed at events with the help of metre, alliteration, kennings, etc. Composing poems and knowing riddles are associated with kings and power all across Indo-European cultures, so clearly this was in the psyche of the people of the time somehow.
It definitely relates to the point in the story that is emotional heightened. This is especially clear in the earlier Jatakas, i.e. the ones with just a few verses.
Even in the simple narratives of the Sagathavagga, the typical setup raises the stakes by having a deva descend, and light up the place, and then the poetry starts. I’ve no idea what was actually going on at these times, but whoever put together the narratives was clearly aiming at a heightened emotional response.
Yeah. “Dramatic effect” seems to be a key component. And characters speaking in metre is a key feature of drama in many cultures, including Indic theatre AFAIK. This is one of the reasons I wonder if we can be sure the Buddha himself spoke in metre in response to people: it’s precisely what a literary character is made to do. That said, it seems like the Buddha had memorized the Atthakavagga and Pārāyanavagga and/or other poetic sutta (collections). So he very well could have used certain pre-made metrical verses as teachings and so forth. And from here it’s not unreasonable that he would make occasional adaptations and additions.
I recently read Bh. Analayo’s book about the early buddhist oral tradition and an interesting point he makes (at least this is my understanding) is that maybe some suttas and verses were already composed in this way, because that would be how the information is retained, like formatting your speech/discourse in a certain way so that the listeners will remember.
In some suttas the Buddha already asks his audience to listen carefully: ‘now my discourse is going to start’. So there is like an informal moment with some small talk (maybe in a local language?) and then the discourse is happening (in the lingua franca of the time, maybe something related to Pali?) and the discourse is optimized for oral transmission, so the Buddha himself already used the verse and repetition, to encourage sharing and remembering. And in this kind of ‘official transmission’ verse was part of the format. Kind of like the HTML for oral culture.
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse is as close to the dhamma as Star Wars is as close to NASA.
Overall indulging in entertainment has nothing to do with the dhamma.
The dhamma viharin sutta says:
"Then there is the case where a monk studies the Dhamma: dialogues, narratives of mixed prose and verse, explanations, verses, spontaneous exclamations, quotations, birth stories, amazing events, question & answer sessions. He doesn’t spend the day in Dhamma-study. He doesn’t neglect seclusion. He commits himself to internal tranquillity of awareness. This is called a monk who dwells in the Dhamma.
“Now, monk, I have taught you the person who is keen on study, the one who is keen on description, the one who is keen on recitation, the one who is keen on thinking, and the one who dwells in the Dhamma. Whatever a teacher should do — seeking the welfare of his disciples, out of sympathy for them — that have I done for you. Over there are the roots of trees; over there, empty dwellings. Practice jhana, monk. Don’t be heedless. Don’t later fall into regret. This is our message to you.”
If it’s not samma samadhi, or trying to get “samma” via sutta study, it’s not dhamma practice.
This might just be the Buddha’s most important admonition in all of the Suttas. And yet, looking at western Buddhism, or most Buddhism practiced around the world, how often do we hear of samma samadhi, or jhana? In the US, most of the “Buddhist” institutions mention it not at all, displacing this training with other meditation forms invented in Japan and in the west. My point in all of this is that if we need a bit of poetry or creative writing to remind ourselves of the Dhamma, it may be one pathway toward reconciling the west with its discard of Dhamma.
My other thought on this interesting thread involves the question of intent. It may be as a general rule that creative forms of expression (fiction writing, poetry, song) might be in opposition with the letting go of the sense of self and of mundane pursuits in order to cultivate samma sati and settle into samadhi, but then again, we know that (LP Chatchai) that jhanas are potentially cultivated through Metta practice, and (to me) what discourse is more poetic, more beautiful and inspiring, than the Metta Sutta? Perhaps some loving and expansive warmth, some deep heartfelt absorption into Metta is facilitated with some measure of poetry as a gateway to samadhi?
I mean, jhāna is understood as corresponding to divine light and so forth. In the RgVeda, the immortal gods are basically characterized by Soma and the Sun: the mighty Soma-filled, shining Sun is the abode of the immortals, and it’s where the people up there drink Soma with one another. And what is Soma used for besides exulted mental states equated with divinity? Composing poetry! It seems the gods were getting into exulted states and composing poetry about these radiant experiences just as humans were on Earth in trying to imitate / understand them. So I’d say there is very much a deep connection in the Ancient Indian psyche between altered states of consciousness and poetry. (And in Indo-European culturally generally).
Sometimes I wonder what the gods are really getting up to. What are their chariots or musical instruments made of? Maybe they spend most of their time composing poetry rap-battle fashion and gossiping about one another and the happenings of saṁsāra. Poetry can be very musical after all. It can be refined or dignified, harsh and critical, egotistical and prideful, beautiful and expressive, or all of the above.
Replacing the loss of Soma was the primary motivation for the development of breathwork and ascetic practices that got one into the same state — and this is probably crucial for the evolution of jhānic states. These practices were intrinsically tied to reciting verses and mantras (breathing = speaking, etc.). So brahmins would use breathing and recitation techniques in ritual to exult their minds, which means poetry was an essential part of their technique. Obviously Buddhists are not instructed to do this, but there is a deep connection!
Edit: Actually, I take this back! I forgot about things like AN 5.26:
[T]he mendicant recites the teaching in detail as they learned and memorized it. That mendicant feels inspired by the meaning and the teaching in that Dhamma, no matter how they recite it in detail as they learned and memorized it. Feeling inspired, joy springs up. Being joyful, rapture springs up. When the mind is full of rapture, the body becomes tranquil. When the body is tranquil, one feels bliss. And when blissful, the mind becomes immersed in samādhi.
Reciting verse → joy/calm → samādhi. It’s interesting that the sutta is explicit though: it is the meaning that should be inspiring, regardless of the form or style of the passage memorized.
It seems that the “future” is built on the exploitation and psychological distress of poor, black workers.
Time is cascading ever faster, so that the gap between “oh cool new thing” and “oh, horrifying version of the same terrible old thing” is now just weeks.
Is the 7th precept really meant to forbid any kind of storytelling and „listening to“ stories, as one would writing or reading a novel? Monastics seem to differ on this point, and I haven‘t yet seen any explanation of the different Vinaya interpretations.
Would it really be wise to have a rule that makes it an offense to read Dostoyevsky, but not „Live, Laugh, Love“, going by an arbitrary convention of categorization? Dostoyevsky‘s stories (and many other insightful novelists‘ stories) may be fictional in the most basic sense, but they are in an important sense more truthful than a library‘s worth of vacuous self-help books or self-aggrandizing screeds by ideologizing political hacks. I‘ll even go further and say that many non-fiction books are indeed delusional fictions, and all the more harmful for claiming to be otherwise.
What are they teaching these days!
God forbid they develop a formula for consonance!