Reflections on today’s Class: Intro to research writing

I began class today with a quote from the Dhammapada (as poeticized by Ram Dass) that I happened to read on the train moments before I arrived at work:

Follow the awakened
And from among the blind
The light of your wisdom
Will shine out, purely.

(Last verse of Chapter 4 “Flowers” [I was also careful not to mention that this was a Buddhist scripture because I do not want students to think I am trying to make them ‘believe’ something religious, that is antithetical to who I am anyway. I want them to find their own way.)

I started with this for three reasons:
1. I chose to read this particular passage because flowers have been a common metaphorical theme in my classes lately.
2. I recently read a student’s post about how everyone around her “looked like a zombie” (‘the blind’ according to the passage above).
3. Because my style of teaching is integral in the sense that I try not to separate any of my classes from one another too distinctly. I try to keep them all roughly connected and this passage connects both to themes in the Lifespan Development and Literature courses that I am currently teaching.

I then asked the students to do their usual 10 minute daily free writings in their journals. As they did so, I played ‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond’ by Pink Floyd because I always listen to it when I write and study. And it is about the same length as their writing session. As lyrics manifest themselves in the song I instantly noticed a correlation:

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

So I hurriedly scribbled the lyrics on the board next to the Buddhist verse. Following their writing session we analyzed the lyrics and the verse side by side noticing the remarkable similarities. I did not talk about it, but this in my mind, is an archetypal constellation in art around a particular imago of wakefulness.

As I read the last line of Floyd I screamed “SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND!”, begging them to manifest as themselves, to be present in the world we were sharing together, and I am quite sure that more than one consciously chose to Shine today.