“The simplest definition of poetry is that it is what poets write,” pointed out Mortimer Adler in his book about the most important life skill that our schools absolutely fail to teach us. “That seems obvious enough, and yet there are those who would dispute the definition.”

Among those who oppose such simplicity, Adler notes, are people who are convinced that poetry is something more inexplicable and hard to define. It is, they say, a “spontaneous overflowing of the personality” which is not strictly limited to the written word but can also be expressed as a physical action, musical sound, or just a feeling. And I, personally, agree that there is something beautiful to such a description. Indeed, one can’t deny that the poet goes deep down inside to reach the mythical “well of creation” from which poems spring into this world.

On the flip side, however, such an approach makes most people believe that they can’t read or comprehend modern poetry. They think it is often obscure and demands too much “work” on their part. While it is true that a good poem can be re-read and thought about for the rest of one’s life, it also doesn’t have to be complicated. We can analyze the poem word by word, study the life of the poet, the historical context, philosophical influences, or we can just read the poem while enjoying the flow of words and the sentiment that it arouses inside of us. This is exactly what Bill Murray does in the video below when — as a thank-you to the people who built Poets House — he reads “I Dwell in Possibility” included in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Please enjoy:

I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY
by Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior — for Doors —

Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of Eye —
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky —

Of Visitors — the fairest —
For Occupation — This —
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise —

Complement “I Dwell in Possibility,” an indispensable part of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, with the growing collection of deeply stirring poetry readings that include Pablo Neruda’s “I Like for You to Be Still,” Billy Collins’ “The Lanyard,” Gregory Orr’s “This is What Was Bequeathed Us,” and Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man,” and then watch another video about why Bill Murray gets up to recite poetry every year:

“The Buddha taught that even your happiness is dukkha — a Pali word meaning “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness.” It is inseparable from its opposite,” wrote Eckhart Tolle in his classic guide to spiritual awakening. “This means that your happiness and unhappiness are in fact one. Only the illusion of time separates them.”

To the extent we seek happiness, we also find unhappiness. It seems these two go hand in hand, and we delude ourselves by thinking we can have one without the other. Still, we get so lost in the pursuit that one day we look around and see that our life has turned out the complete opposite of what we wanted. Lost in despair, what can we assume about our life tomorrow, except that it will be what we don’t assume, what we don’t want, what happens to us from the outside, reaching us regardless of all our efforts? So close, yet always out of reach, the very notion of happiness mocks us in the face and traps us in endless cycles of discontent. “Why do people have to suffer?” asks the young man — perhaps too young to think about this question — in the video below as if reading our minds, and letting the wise teacher give him, and all of us, the pointer in the right direction:

Thich Nhat Hanh continues his thought in his book No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by remembering his peace activism work during the Vietnam War. Many people turned to him for consolation, and one can only imagine how much strength it took to give them a truthful answer that would inspire hope and heal at the same time. Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness. … When I lived in Vietnam during the war, it was difficult to see our way through that dark and heavy mud. It seemed like the destruction would just go on and on forever. Every day people would ask me if I thought the war would end soon. It was very difficult to answer, because there was no end in sight. But I knew if I said, “I don’t know,” that would only water their seeds of despair. So when people asked me that question, I replied, “Everything is impermanent, even war. It will end some day.” Knowing that, we could continue to work for peace. And indeed the war did end. Now the former mortal enemies are busily trading and touring back and forth, and people throughout the world enjoy practicing our tradition’s teachings on mindfulness and peace.

Complement this timeless kernel of wisdom from No Mud, No Lotus with American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron on what to do when things fall apart, and then revisit spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle on three powerful ways of overcoming challenges in life.