Look at us perched again,
anxious dreams set in long gone buildings
where the kids won’t do a thing we ask
and for some reason we’re naked
(except for a mask)

And as my old man says,
the conveyor belt hasn’t so much as slowed
so our wish for a cautious toe to get set
will be whipped from starter to panicked plenary
before we hear the gun crack

Know this, comrades:
the holes in our practice we think show clear
are lost to the fizz and bubble of our charges.
When Monday comes they’ll listen (mostly)
as we carry on regardless.

Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
We’ve all earned our time in the sun
to let tense necks and foreheads unfurl
and remember that even though it’s a bit busted
there is a world

For the love of heck, turn off the laptop
stretch legs and do you
even if it’s tricky to remember
there are plans outside of planning

Your role is essential, even while
fat white men who went to abusive schools
will tell you otherwise

You need your energy to lift the eyes
of those who feel low, forgotten and rotten
so please
recharge

I wonder what you would have thought of my stupid words
Maybe you would have appreciated the sheer amount of times i’ve come here
Sitting down on a bank beside a blank dead body of water
What would you have told me ?
To pursue this tiny flame of potential, or to blow it out and lock it up.
You would have known I can’t do that, the gas seeps out of every crevice
There's no way to prevent the spark that lights everything on fire.
I wonder what you would have thought about my stupid words.

Thank you To my teachers that never gave up on me
when I was thinking of giving up on myself
thank you for helping me realize that there are nice people out in the world.
Thank you for giving me hope in humanity.
Thank you for being there in my bad times and making me smile
Thank you for the hugs that you gave when words could not help.
Thank you for the wisdom you shared with me...
Thank you for noticing the fake smile on my face; even my friends did not.
Thank you for being yourself and teaching what you thought was important.
Thank you for teaching from your heart, not the textbooks.
Thank you for being my role model
but most importantly
thank you now; I have a dream I could go after
and that is to be like you.

If I were the principle of my school
I would bring some changes to the rules
A school where every child can dare
To think freely and be their true selves

I would give the a problem to solve
By themselves.A chance to evolve
To grow., with all the senses involved

I don't want parrots belching memorized words
Students aren't sheep, teachers aren't shepherds
I would want them to live in an open world
Where they can question everything under the Sun

Bookish knowledge is not all
There's more to life than Newton's laws
We are artists, us human not robots
Scientist, philosophers, why should we be restricted to some selected thoughts

I would want basic life skills
To be taught to every pupil
So that when they leave these gates
They aren't left confused and dazed

We must teach them empathy
Theory gives way to practicality
So that when they got no help
They can think for themselves

Don't sacrifice the individual
At the altar of peer-pressure
These would be my principles
If I were my school's principal.

I daily commit to being negatively capable
one might even say it’s the defining spark
of a life spent loving and hating
the art and accountancy
of the modern teacher’s grins and grind

So here’s a mellowly fruitful glass raised
to comrades and fellow sufferers
who dwell in uncertainty and decreasing circles
while those, as sure as idiots
forge ahead

"Why do I have to settle down?"
The point is not to introduce into sitting a feeling or thought pattern from previous sitting.
Instead, to observe, with as little change in the body's condition, the thoughts, feelings, visions, and motions of energy.
"Why can't I just sit back in a chair?"
If so, the point in meditation will revolve around getting more and more comfortable.
You will adjust your body again and again to reach for comfort.
When you want to put a statue of a meditating figure in a home, do you want a statue of someone laying back in a chair meditating?
There is no cultivation of effort in sitting back
Sure sometimes my back needs rest.
That's fine.
"But meditation isn't supposed to use effort."
Whoever told you that doesn't understand what effort really is.
There are only degrees of effort.
All creation is pulled and pushed by gravity forces, every thought produces a vibration that must overcome this gravitation.
These people say "introduce the mantra as easily as these thoughts freely come to us."
That is fine, but that is effort in my opinion.
Silence within requires the least effort, yet still energy must have effort so as not to go to sleep.
For meditation, I think, is being awake, and awakening...
From our environment and our normal self, to reach a greater Self.
If anyone could reach a greater Self without effort, everyone would be as a god or goddess.
If you want to practice your mantra and sit back and relax, that's fine.
It will get you there.
I used to do that and be that
But my personal meditation is different.

"I can't focus on what you told me to."
You don't need to focus to meditate.
Simply hold your head up and observe the barrage and motions of feelings and thoughts.
Now you are sitting
This is good.
"I forget to observe and go off on a thought."
That is fine.
Once you notice you've gone off on a thought or feeling,
Go back to observing them.
"Sometimes I want to act on my thought."
Then you can either act on it later and sit and observe it further, write it down, or you can act on it.
Then come back to sitting.