…Cubits warp / For fear to be a king.
~ Emily Dickinson, “We never know how high we are”
We don’t need feet
Or meters in Tibet.
My mother gave me space
Between elbow and fingertip.
2013
…Cubits warp / For fear to be a king.
~ Emily Dickinson, “We never know how high we are”
We don’t need feet
Or meters in Tibet.
My mother gave me space
Between elbow and fingertip.
2013
Surely Geshe-la isn’t implying we’re to measure everything against ourselves…
Perhaps the implication is we do so already.
In this conversation with Geshla, I think he was just making light of Western civilization’s complicated way of measuring the world, and expressing his fondness for the simplicity of his culture. But when I ran into the word “cubit” in a Dickinson poem yesterday (you must check it out if you don’t know it; it is called “We never know how high we are”), Geshe’s statement took on a new meaning, so I wanted to pair Emily’s words with his to complicate his message…