author, poet, teacher, and performer
I was delighted to write about verse 108 from the Kural in the wonderful online magazine The Porch: A Slow Conversation about Beautiful and Difficult Things.
You can read the essay here:
You can also listen to verse 108 here:
From chapter 11, “Gratitude.”
Translated from the Tamil by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma
THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural
Beacon Press, Boston
For Teacher Appreciation Week, I was honored to write about my Tamil teacher, the late Dr. K. V. Ramakoti, in the award-winning blog of Beacon Press, Beacon Broadside.
Without Dr. Ramakoti, I would never have dared to translate the Kural, let alone to teach about it and introduce it to English-speaking readers and leaders.
You can read the essay on the Beacon Broadside website: https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2023/05/life-and-learning-in-harmony-a-tribute-to-dr-k-v-ramakoti.html
I’m very excited to announce my upcoming online course on the Kural, Taller Than A Mountain.
It starts May 18, with a bonus class on May 4 for people who register early.
Among my guest teachers I’m honored to include Andrew Harvey, Bob Thurman, and Perumal Murugan.
The course is being offered at a price that you set yourself as a way to practice one of the Kural’s key teachings: honoring what fits each person, place, and situation.
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll answer this question from a few different angles.
One of the groups it’s most definitely for are people who want to enjoy and learn from the poetry of a great teacher such as Tiruvalluvar but who sometimes find poetry intimidating, complicated, or just plain confusing.
For instance, I was having coffee the other day with a friend, and he said to me:
“I’ve been reading the Kural, and enjoying it, too. But while there are some verses that make so much sense to me immediately, there are others that I’m not sure what to make of. I never felt comfortable with poetry in school, but I know it’s something that people sometimes find deeply meaningful. I’d love to be able to see that for myself.”
As I said to my friend, not only is the course for people who are uncertain about poetry, I myself was like that for a very long time.
That’s why I’m all the more excited to share some of things that have helped me personally to experience poetry with greater ease, understanding, and delight.
If this sounds at all intriguing, please do take a peek!
I was delighted to discuss compassion, poetry, the Tirukkural, leadership, voice, silence, and much more with the wonderful Chloë Goodchild on her VOCE Dialogues Podcast.
You can listen to the podcast by way of this link:
Chloë is the founder of The Naked Voice, a pioneering experiential vocal training programme, providing a sound awareness toolkit of conscious core practices, music, audio-books and spoken meditations that empower you to find and to embody your authentic voice.
I was delighted to speak with Shruti Dixit on her podcast for the New Books Network about my new translation of THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural.
You can listen to the podcast by way of this link:
Shruti Dixit is a PhD Divinity Candidate at CSRP, University of St Andrews, researching the Hindu-Christian Dialogue in Apocalyptic Prophecies.
