Today for some reason I got to thinking about the difference between spiritual teachers and bards. Some of the former seem to believe that the nature of eternity or the Absolute can somehow be conveyed to others *in* the words they speak or write. Bards have more humility; the assumption at the very basis of bardic storytelling is that one can *never* convey in words the full mystery and power of the tale they are telling. All they can do is point to it.
While bards are aware that their words are merely fingers pointing to the moon of the insight or revelation they are trying to convey to their audiences, they are also aware that there *are* tricks and conventions of storytelling they can use that can enable people in the audience to "get" what the finger is pointing to, and *feel* it intensely, powerfully, often as a palpable shift in their state of attention. Instead of just passively listening to the story, they can metaphorically jump into it and "try on" the mindsets of the characters in the story, subjectively experience a taste of what they experienced. It's magical when this bardic finger-pointing works, and in my experience ranks right up there with that Mu moment in which one actually gets a Zen koan. I'm rapping about this because pondering this train of thought got me to thinking about one of the best bards I've ever heard, Robin Williamson. I've rapped about him before on this forum, and won't do so again except to say that there is a particular story of his that, for me, is a masterpiece of the bardic storytelling art. Last time I mentioned it here there was no clickable version of the tale available so that people could listen to it. Searching again today -- happy happy joy joy -- now there is. This is one of the Finn McCool stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_McCool <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finn_McCool> ), told masterfully by Robin. In it he incorporates many of the classic elements of bardic storytelling -- digressions that really aren't, jokes that appear to be non-sequiturs but aren't, and above all "snap endings" that take the listener's state of attention and snap! it into a totally different state of attention. That snap! happens to me every time I hear this story. So if you've got 8 minutes to invest in listening to a story with your full attention, just to see what happens, give this one a try. Close your eyes. Imagine yourself sitting around a campfire in the highlands, listening to a bard play his harp and tell you a tale of power. If there is no snap! for you, my bad. Maybe its an Irish ancestry thang. Works for me. :-) Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqtEMLx2zk <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFqtEMLx2zk>
