"I write out my own explorations; my own confusions. I write through my experiences of suffering. One core aspect of Buddhism that I hold very near and dear to my heart is the idea that suffering is Universal. It may be so that our storylines are very different, but this is nothing more than a trick, a thin veil that obstructs the truth: as One People, all across this world, we are simply hoping to achieve happiness and to avoid suffering." ~Brandon Thompson
Welcome to July! It's hard to believe that we are already at the midpoint of the year. My family and I are enjoying a month long hiatus in a little town in Upstate New York in a cottage on Lake Ontario. It is a welcome reprieve from the Florida heat and I am grateful for the retreat from our regular routine to restore and recharge. This time is truly about letting go of the work which I have been so intensely involved over the last year in order to allow the space for only relaxation and play!
This month on the blog I am overjoyed to illuminate a beloved friend and artist, Brandon Thompson. I consider Brandon to be a true warrior of the heart. By that, I am referring to the definition of warriorship that Chogyam Trungpa elucidates in the tradition of Shambhala Buddhism: "Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan 'pawo', which literally means “one who is brave.” In addition to his courage, I admire the ease with which Brandon is able to adapt and find home in any environment, whether drinking beer and playing cards or delivering a dharma talk before meditation. His support and guidance during my graduate program was like a true beacon of light from beginning to end. I'm honored to have him featured as this month's guest artist.
How do you define and describe your art?
I suppose most everyone would say that I’m a poet. And there’s surely no doubt about that. Words are my medium. Words are my love. But if I am being honest with myself, I find that I prefer to identify myself as an artist. Just an artist, no more and no less. This perspective seems to really broaden the scope, doesn’t it? This way, I include myself in the vast and beautiful circle of artists all over the globe, no matter how they’re called to express themselves. I’m a part of their mandala and they’re a part of mine. We’re all the same, anyway, just travelers on the path of self-expression, no matter what that looks like for us individually.
More specifically, for the past few years and into the foreseeable future, I’ve really found myself on the path of the ecstatic poet. What is ecstatic poetry? I have my ideas about that, and we can talk about them later on if it feels right. The pith of it feels to me like poetry-as-practice, poetry as a means of really connecting us to our essence. Have you ever read a poem and it feels, in your body and in your heart, like you’ve heard exactly what you needed to hear in that moment? That feeling of “mmmmmmm” that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up? A message that informs you in some way about your Path, about your heart? That’s an ecstatic experience, and you’ve just read an ecstatic poem. In my writing, I hope to capture this transformative spirit of embracing the path and dancing with mystery.
Have you always been creative or is it something you have grown into?
Music was my first path in to the creative. I was singing from about the time I could talk, I suppose. My parents put me in voice lessons with a teacher from the local University before I was tall enough to read the music on her piano stand. I studied music academically in college and trained as a classical singer, mostly opera, with some jazz thrown in, just for fun. I always connected with writing in a pretty major way, but didn’t discover that I wanted to write – poetry especially – until well into adulthood.
Do you have any daily practices or self care rituals that you rely on to support your craft?
I don’t think there’s any doubt that my writing is influenced by Buddhism. I’ve been a Buddhist practitioner for fifteen years now and a Buddhist teacher – in the Mahayana tradition – since 2007. If you trace ecstatic poetry back to its roots, most scholars agree that it comes from Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, from the Great Masters like Rumi and Hafez. Buddhism is definitely a different tradition than Sufism, but the Paths are similar in many, many ways. There’s a certain type of spaciousness of mind that the meditator can find on the cushion, a softer way of relating to ego and to the daily trials and pitfalls of human living. The idea of most spiritual practices, not just Buddhism, is to apply that gentler relationship to one’s life off-the-cushion: to relate to others with deeper compassion, to come to understand and make friends with our past conditioning, our egoic selves, and to learn to move past this place over time. To go back to my ideas about ecstatic poetry, Buddhism and other spiritual practices are geared towards connecting us more deeply with our essences, with Awakened Mind, Big Heart, what meditation master Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche calls our “basic goodness” or “basic sanity.” I’d like to hope that my writing comes from a place of stillness, even when I’m writing about the “trickier” things in life like love, relationship, mystery, and spiritual exploration. It all feels like it comes from my essence, and I offer it so happily to others who are fostering a deeper relationship with theirs.
How, if at all, has your art making cultivated the conditions for healing in your life? Can you give an example?
I think it would be totally true to say that my art is one of the most profoundly-healing forces in my life. Oftentimes I write when I’m inspired, when I’m moved by the simplicity or the beauty of the world, when I’m touched by spiritual practice, or to offer a small teaching about something that I’ve learned about my path. However, even more than this, I write out my own explorations, my own confusions. I write through my experiences of suffering. One core aspect of Buddhism that I hold very near and dear to my heart is the idea that suffering is Universal. It may be so that our storylines are very different, but this is nothing more than a trick, a thin veil that obstructs the truth: as One People, all across this world, we are simply hoping to achieve happiness and to avoid suffering. The interesting part about this is that the more we move away from suffering, the more we struggle against it, the more susceptible to suffering we actually become. I wrote a poem once called “hymn to misery” that has become one of the most practice-oriented ecstatic poems in my collection. The basic notion behind it is that our experiences of suffering can be our teachers. If we can just find a way to cease our white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel of life and open to the rawness, the vulnerability of suffering, almost like magic, we find that there is great big wisdom on the other side. We find that we’re transformed, happier, gentler. Buddhism provides us a set of tools to accomplish this. The practice of ecstatic poetry, when joined with our own spiritual practice or sincere intention, can do the very same. Here’s a link to a brief teaching and a reading of "hymn to misery" that I share on my website.
What effect do you most want your art to have on your audience?
I wrote a dedication for the introduction of my first book, “The Long Road Home.” My second book will be coming out in late summer, here in just a couple of months, and I have the task of coming up with a new dedication, a new way to say what effect I hope that my poetry will have on others. But for the life of me, I still haven’t come up with a better way to express my hopes and dreams for this writing as it journeys throughout the world. Maybe it will just stay the same. The dedication reads:
for those on the path of illumination
for those on the path of love
and for those hoping to one day walk both
with ease and gentleness
this is for you
Who or what currently inspires you?
At the core of my inspiration is the work of the ecstatic masters like Rumi and Hafez. Their work is so completely profound and transformative that I can scarce believe that they were actual, living human beings who once walked the same Earth that I walk. I also owe such tremendous gratitude to Buddhist teachers such as Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, the founder of Shambhala Buddhism, and two of his students, John Welwood and Pema Chödrön, whose work has been absolutely instrumental in the shaping of my mind and the softening of my heart. Other poets are too numerous to mention, but among them are Thich Nhat Hanh, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, and M. Truman Cooper.
My current favorite living poet happens to be a dear and treasured friend of mine, Joseph Montgomery. I’m so fortunate to say that we are contemporaries, brothers on the journey of ecstatic poetry as it is being born more fully into the consciousness of our culture. His idea of the “Rhapsody of Art” has inspired me to embrace my own life as an artist, and his writing is like modern-day Rumi that absolutely nourishes the soul. You can read more about Joseph and his work at www.rhapsodyofart.com
What questions are alive for you now? Toward what experience or idea do you feel called to explore next in your creative journey?
I absolutely love this question. I suppose that’s because I love questions in general. I feel like I have a maddening, almost obsessive relationship with the Big Questions of human living. What is consciousness and where does it come from? Why do we love the ones we love? What does it take to Awaken? More pointedly and involving my art: what is an ecstatic poem and how does it connect us with the Divine, with our essence? These are the questions that keep me up at night on my back porch, my pacing shadow cast by the porch light onto the grass below. In my second book, I’ve explored these ideas in a pretty major way. In fact, there’s a whole section in the book that I’ve called “The Riddle.” I think it will really show the reader how I’ve been grappling with these questions. There are no answers; I certainly don’t profess to have any of them. But I have some ideas that are moving through me, and I really can’t wait to see what others have to say about them.
Finally, what wisdom or particular suggestion would you offer to someone who is seeking to be more creative in their own lives?
Create. Every single day. Make time, with intention, to create. It doesn’t matter what your medium is. Whatever makes you feel most fulfilled, most filled-up, most inspired, most excited, that’s it. PLAY! Have fun! Share your work with others, even if it’s just close friends and loved ones. Oh, and most importantly of all: don’t take your creating (or yourself!) too seriously. Gentleness, gentleness, gentleness and levity are the keys to softening our hearts and relating to our worlds with spontaneity, joy, and gratitude.
Thank you Brandon!
Brandon Thompson is a poet, a scholar, a musician and a lover of music, and a Buddhist practitioner and teacher. He is an Associate Core Faculty Member in Sofia University’s Hybrid: Face-to-Face/Online Master's program, and spends his days joyfully guiding and humbly mentoring students from all over the world. Brandon has been a student of Mahayana Buddhism since 1999, and has taught in this tradition since taking his bodhisattva vow in the summer of 2007. He finds his home practices in lojong (mind training) and tonglen (sending and taking) meditation, first prescribed by the Buddhist sage Shantideva in the 8th century. In addition to this, Brandon has published a book of ecstatic poetry entitled “The Long Road Home: A Collection of Poems from an Open Heart,” currently in its Second Edition. His second collection of poetry, "From the Back of a Thirsty Camel," will be released summer 2015. He regularly facilitates ecstatic poetry workshops across the United States.
Brandon's current work involves bringing ecstatic poetry more fully into his life and into the world. Through his publications, scholarly writing, teaching, and workshops, Brandon is seeking to share the transformative power of ecstatic poetry with others and to further define and engage the power of this ancient contemplative art form. His first book of poetry The Long Road Home can be found on Amazon.
